Passwords · File diagnosis
The wallet says «wrong password» but the file is fine
The message frightens because it looks like a verdict. In reality it is a very simple check, and understanding what it checks tells you exactly where to look.
What the wallet does when you type the password
It doesn’t compare your password with a stored one: none is stored. What it does is use it to try to open the encrypted part of the file and check whether the result makes sense. If it doesn’t, it tells you the password is wrong. In other words: «wrong password» means «I couldn’t open it with this», and that is all the information the program has.
From which follows something important: the wallet cannot distinguish between «the password is wrong» and «this isn’t this file’s password». Both give the same message.
The causes, by likelihood
| Cause | How to rule it out |
|---|---|
| One character different from what you think | Type it in an editor and read it letter by letter |
| Keyboard layout or accents | See the two specific articles |
| It is a copy from another period | Try the password on all your copies |
| It is a different wallet of yours | Check the file’s date |
| The file is genuinely damaged | That gives other errors, not this one |
The most overlooked cause
That you are opening a different file from the one you think. Many people have several copies from several periods, stored on different drives, and always try the same one. Check the dates of the files you have and try the password on all of them: a 2014 copy may carry a password you had stopped using by 2016.
If you genuinely suspect the file is damaged, that is another article: my wallet file is corrupted.