Seed Phrase Not Working? 7 Things to Check First

A seed phrase that is not working is nearly always a typing problem, a settings problem or a wrong-app problem — not a lost fortune. Before you conclude anything, separate the two failures. Either the wallet refuses the words outright, which is a problem with the phrase as typed, or it accepts them and shows an empty wallet, which is a problem with where the app is looking. The checks below cover both, quickest first.

The seven checks

• 1. The order. Words must go in exactly as written. Two swapped words fail the same way as twelve wrong ones.
• 2. Spelling and autocorrect. Turn off predictive text, use lowercase, one space between words. Phone keyboards cause more of these failures than bad memory does.
• 3. The count. 12, 18 or 24 words. If you have 11 or 13, something was miscopied when you wrote it down.
• 4. The right app. A Bitcoin-only wallet will not show your Ethereum tokens, and a Solana wallet will not show either. Restore into a wallet that supports the chain your coins are on.
• 5. The network and the token. MetaMask shows one network at a time and only a short list of tokens. Switch network, then add the token by its contract address.
• 6. The account number. One phrase makes many accounts. Add the next few in the list before deciding the wallet is empty.
• 7. A passphrase you set yourself. An extra word on top of the 12 creates a separate, completely empty-looking wallet. If you ever enabled one on a Ledger or Trezor, the phrase alone shows the wrong side of it.

What if it still fails?

Look the old address up on a block explorer such as Etherscan or mempool.space. If the balance is sitting there, nothing is lost and the fault is in the restore, so keep working through the list. If the address is empty and the last transaction is one you did not make, the wallet was drained rather than broken, and no amount of retyping will change that. Either way, ignore anyone who contacts you offering to fix it.

Work through the list on a calm evening rather than at midnight, and never type the words into a site that promises to check them for you. The two deeper cases have their own guides: the "invalid seed phrase" error if the words are refused, and the wallet recovery guide if you are not sure which situation you are in.