Chia doesn't see my private keys in .chia directory

I migrated to a new system and I copied the ~/.chia directory.

Then I installed the app following INSTALL · Chia-Network/chia-blockchain Wiki · GitHub

but if I run cd /home/thomas/chia-blockchain && . ./activate && cd chia-blockchain-gui && npm run electron & it wants me to import the seed. Also, if I do chia keys show it says that there no private keys.

But I can see all the keys at ~/.chia/mainnet/config/ssl/wallet
private_wallet.crt private_wallet.key public_wallet.crt public_wallet.key

What’s wrong?

Just import the seed if that’s what it’s asking you to do.

If I just import the seed it’s going to be downloading the whole database and it’ll create a new config file. I’d like to know why it is not recognizing the keys.

Shut chia down, copy databases, restart chia, import seed, shut down again, replace database files, restart chia.

That should work.
I’m on Windows so have no idea why it’s not working, sorry, but if it’s asking you to import the seed that should fix the issue.

Edit.
I would guess that when you import seed it changes something in the config.yaml and without that being set correctly it won’t even bother to check if the keys are there.

Those are not your private keys, just ssl certificates for secure connection

Keys are stored wherever you OS stores private keys.

If you copied the database files in .chia folder and then import the private key seed, the blockchain does not have to resync from start because you already have a local copy of db.

The only thing that seems to happen sometimes is that the pool nft’s dont show up.
This can usually be solved by deleting the wallet db and letting that resync. ( Doesnt take as long as the whole chain)

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I’m on Ubuntu. Aren’t keys in ~/.chia/mainnet/config/ssl/wallet ?

it’s 4 files in that directory:
private_wallet.crt
private_wallet.key
public_wallet.crt
public_wallet.key

I thought that once I migrate to a new system all I need to do is to install chia-blockchain that will create the chia-blockchain folder in home and then the database, config and keys are all in the .chia folder that I can just copy form the old computer to the new ones. Is this not correct?

Private keys are not stored in a file like that. As far as i know Chia uses a Phyton keyring that’s stored somewhere in a system folder/registry

Everything gets copied the way you describe, exept the private keys.

So to re-install or move you just do a fresh install, copy the db files from .chia folder.
Them import you mnemonic seed.
Done, no ry-sync required.

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No, it’s in ~/.local/share/python_keyring/cryptfile_pass.cfg

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