Upgrades, Backup & Restore
Updating your software wallet shouldn't affect your wallet. Also, it is no problem to import your wallet e.g. from one Core version to the other, e.g. from your desktop PC to your laptop. Just copy the
wallet.dat file from the data path.
Windows
On Windows the data path is located at
C:\Users\USERNAME\AppData\Roaming\Namecoin. It is necessary to unhide system paths and files in the options of the file explorer.
macOS
Same goes for macOS, to view system files, enter
chflags nohidden ~/Library in the terminal, the data path is located at
~/Library/Application Support/Namecoin/.
Linux
On Linux the data path is located at
$HOME/.namecoin/.
Note, however, that you cannot use your wallet in multiple instances! Once you have made a transaction on the blockchain, this wallet will be the current one.
For the case that your wallet got corrupted and transactions are missing, e.g. after a hardware failure or a corrupted and restored operation system, you can restore your wallet to the current state on the blockchain with the following commands, e.g. on Windows in the CMD console:
cd C:\Program Files\Namecoin
namecoin-qt -salvagewallet
After the completion of the full indexing, the entire blockchain needs to be scanned again. Therefore, shutdown the wallet and restart with the following commands:
cd C:\Program Files\Namecoin
namecoin-qt -rescan
Please note that this emergency procedure takes several hours!
To avoid data corruption and financial losses, make sure to back up the
wallet.dat file regularly to a secure offline medium, especially before upgrading or changing the start sequence! The disclaimer from the following section
applies: