it's not obvious that wallet passphrase needs to be entered before importing a privkey #957

I was trying to import a private key into my wallet, and kept getting a generic error message:

$ bitcoind importprivkey $x mywallet error: {"code":-4,"message":"Error adding key to wallet"} $

I thought maybe the key I was using was in the wrong format, or that my wallet already had the key imported. But it turned out I just needed to supply the wallet passphrase first:

$ bitcoind walletpassphrase "$y" 60 $ bitcoind importprivkey $x mywallet $

It would be better if the error message could be more specific: "Error adding key to locked encrypted wallet", for example.

If I try to add the key again, I get the same error message. This time I'd prefer to see "Key already exists in wallet".

I also agree with this. The messages could be much more helpful.

@jerobarraco Commenting on years-old issues is pointless.

@jerobarraco I still have no idea what you're trying to accomplish.

Nobody needs to read it. The issue was fixed years ago.

@jerobarraco Bitcoin Core hasn't produced the error mentioned here since version v0.9.0, released in march 2014.

IF an age-old issue came back, you should open a new issue.

I know this is closed, but you can imagine that getting here was not free, it took me time. so, i think it's just fair that someone has to read this and think about it.

You realize that this software is mostly a volunteer effort, and without that it wouldn't exist? Any second you waste of our time could have been spent on improving the software. We owe you nothing, not even reading your posts. And pissing off people with the first message is not the way to get your support in open source software - probably not in anything. @rest Please just ignore posts like this in the future.