All my addresses have changed!
This is almost certainly due to an incorrect passphrase. Following the BIP39 specification, Sparrow stores nothing in your wallet file that is derived from your passphrase. This makes a passphrase enabled wallet more difficult to brute force. It also means that if you enter an incorrect passphrase, Sparrow will be using a different seed and will therefore derive different addresses. Your existing address labels will even be applied to the new addresses, since Sparrow has no way of telling the passphrase has changed. Further, your wallet will show no funds are present. They are not lost however.
To fix this, close the wallet and reopen it, entering the passphrase carefully. If you can’t remember your passphrase, take your time and try different options systematically.
I’ve restored my wallet but some of my funds are missing
If you have restored your wallet from seed, but are missing newer transactions, it is likely you need to increase the wallet gap limit. This is a setting which controls how far ahead a wallet looks in your sequential address list for new transactions. You can increase it in the Settings tab by clicking Advanced. Increase the gap limit value, Close and then Apply. The default is 20 for normal wallets, and 40 for Postmix wallets. If have had a lot of connection errors during mixing, the gap limit may be need to be increased substantially. Increasing it makes Sparrow look farther ahead in the address list, but don’t increase it too much as your wallet loading will take longer.
UTXOs are missing from my Postmix wallet
See the answer above.
What does a red Tor icon in the status bar mean?
This error (with the tooltip “External Tor proxy error: Connection refused”) occurs when you have configured an external proxy (or one was running previously), and Sparrow can no longer connect to it. Most likely, the proxy is simply not running. For a Tor proxy running on the standard port, check if it is working with
What does a red wallet icon mean?
If your wallet tab has a red icon, it means there was an error loading the wallet history from your configured server. This is due to either a problem with the connection to it, or (more likely) a problem with the server itself. If you are using a prebuilt node (like Umbrel) it is often a good idea to restart it. Also, consider uninstalling unnecessary apps on it, which can affect performance of the system as a whole. If the issue persists, consider upgrading to a more performant server such as Fulcrum.
Your system is missing a dependency for the webcam
If you see this error on a Windows machine, you are probably missing two Microsoft libraries the webcam driver depends on. These standard libraries can be added by installing the Microsoft Visual C++ 2010 Service Pack 1 Redistributable Package MFC Security Update. Here’s a guide that describes the installation process.
Some users have also reported success by downloading msvcr100.dll and msvcp100.dll from dll-files.com, and copying them into C:\Windows\System32.
I can’t connect to my Ledger
Make sure that:
- Ledger Live is not running
- The Bitcoin app is running on the device
- If you are on Linux, ensuring that udev rules are installed. Install using the command in the Tools menu, or manually.
If that doesn’t help, try rebooting your computer to resolve any USB related issues.
I’m getting a “man-in-the-middle” certificate warning when connecting
This is an SSL error, mostly likely due to an expired certificate. If you are using a public server, it may simply be that the certificate has been replaced, in which case it is safe to proceed. Otherwise, it may make sense to be cautious, especially if you are connecting over a public wifi. To find the existing certificate, look in the certs folder of Sparrow home for a file with the same name as the URL of the server. You can delete that file to clear Sparrow’s record of the SSL cert. It will download the cert again on reconnection.