sqlite legacy descriptor wallet migration fails

jb55 commented at 6:43 pm on September 23, 2025: contributor

Is there an existing issue for this?

I have searched the existing issues

Current behaviour

the latest version of bitcoin does not load my legacy descriptor wallet, and migration doesn’t work

when I try to migrate:

0./build/bin/bitcoin-cli migratewallet personal

I get:

0error code: -4
1error message:
2Error: This wallet is already a descriptor wallet

so effectively I can’t use my wallet in the latest version of bitcoin.

cc @achow101

Expected behaviour

I expect migratewallet to migrate my legacy descriptor wallet to sqlite so I can use it

Steps to reproduce

Create a legacy descriptor wallet, and try to migrate it to sqlite

Relevant log output

0error code: -4
1error message:
2Error: This wallet is already a descriptor wallet

When I try to load wallet:

0./build/bin/bitcoin-cli -datadir=/Volumes/chunkstr/bitcoin loadwallet personal
1error code: -18
2error message:
3Wallet file verification failed. Failed to open database path '/Volumes/chunkstr/bitcoin/personal'. The wallet appears to be a Legacy wallet, please use the wallet migration tool (migratewallet RPC or the GUI option).

How did you obtain Bitcoin Core

Compiled from source

What version of Bitcoin Core are you using?

master@89144eb473c6bdb64f21de66912e915225ea6510

Operating system and version

MacOS 26.0

Machine specifications

M2 Max, external exFAT m.2 2TB drive in usb-c enclosure

fanquake added the label Wallet on Sep 23, 2025

jb55 commented at 7:19 pm on September 23, 2025: contributor

commenting out that check didn’t seem to harm anything and it migrated successfully.

 0diff --git a/src/wallet/wallet.cpp b/src/wallet/wallet.cpp
 1index 6b5d08b0a3ad..150d79749324 100644
 2--- a/src/wallet/wallet.cpp
 3+++ b/src/wallet/wallet.cpp
 4@@ -4230,9 +4230,9 @@ util::Result<MigrationResult> MigrateLegacyToDescriptor(std::shared_ptr<CWallet>
 5     const std::string wallet_name = local_wallet->GetName();
 6 
 7     // Before anything else, check if there is something to migrate.
 8-    if (local_wallet->IsWalletFlagSet(WALLET_FLAG_DESCRIPTORS)) {
 9-        return util::Error{_("Error: This wallet is already a descriptor wallet")};
10-    }
11+    //if (local_wallet->IsWalletFlagSet(WALLET_FLAG_DESCRIPTORS)) {
12+    //    return util::Error{_("Error: This wallet is already a descriptor wallet")};
13+    //}
14 
15     // Make a backup of the DB in the wallet's directory with a unique filename
16     // using the wallet name and current timestamp. The backup filename is based

perhaps we just need a new check? since there could be legacy descriptor wallets?

achow101 commented at 7:53 pm on September 23, 2025: member

Can you be more specific as to which configuration you had? Was it bdb-descriptor or sqlite-legacy?

Either way, both of those are not supported wallet configurations and are not possible to create without modifying the software.

jb55 commented at 8:03 pm on September 23, 2025: contributor

bdb-descriptor. I don’t think I ran modified software, I do remember importing descriptors exported via hwi a long time ago.

if I remember correctly I used createwallet with descriptors=true and perhaps with sqlite not compiled ? so maybe thats what happened… hmm

jb55 commented at 8:06 pm on September 23, 2025: contributor

anyway I fixed it, all good

jb55 closed this on Sep 23, 2025

achow101 commented at 8:13 pm on September 23, 2025: member

It was only possible to create bdb-descriptor with a build of master for the 5 months between #16528 and #19077. I’m surprised that migratewallet works on those wallets when removing that check.

My typical recommendation for such wallets is to use bitcoin-wallet dump and bitcoin-wallet createfromdump to export the records and the load them into a new sqlite database.

jb55 commented at 8:19 pm on September 23, 2025: contributor

ok I will try that instead just in case

sqlite legacy descriptor wallet migration fails #33468