My Balance Disappeared

Solution 1: First, make sure you correctly entered the seed. If you copied and pasted the seed incorrectly, then you will be unable to access your iotas. If you copied your seed into a text editor or word processing app, be aware some apps may add special characters to the beginning and end of a copied seed (if you also copy spaces). So, be careful to only copy and paste the seed itself. Do not select any spaces, either in front of or behind the seed.

Alternatively, copy only the 79 middle characters of the 81-character seed, then type the first character manually, then paste the 79 middle characters of the seed, and finally type the last character manually.

Solution 2: Generate some addresses. Go to “Receive” section, then click “Generate address" / "Attach to tangle". Repeat until balance returns.

Example: Let’s say you’ve previously sent 3 transactions with your wallet. This means that your wallet started with a balance in the 1st address, which was then moved to the 2nd address after the first transaction. The second transaction moved the balance from the 2nd address to the 3rd address. Finally the third transaction would move the remaining balance from the 3rd to the 4th address. This means that the first 3 addresses associated with this seed (and therefore in your wallet) all have 0 IOTA in them, and only the 4th address contains your balance. Addresses are generated deterministically based on your seed, so you’ll just need to generate 4 addresses to see your balance if the host/full node you’re using doesn’t keep your history in its memory.

Flip to the section "How Addresses Work" for more details.

Solution 3: If you used IOTA before August 11, 2017, you may need to transition. See "Guide: Transition".

Solution 4: The node you're connected to may be behind or overloaded. To change nodes, see the section in Misc.

Why did my Balance Disappear?

Balances are only held in the most recently used address. Each new transaction made in your wallet automatically sends the remaining balance to a new address within the wallet.

Using a light wallet, you are completely dependent on your full node host to provide your access to the Tangle. They may or may not keep all of your recently used addresses in their memory. If they decide to snapshot, or otherwise change their memory, or if you connect to a new host that has no memory of your History, then your addresses may not be stored in your light wallet & will "disappear".

Fix: You simply generate some new addresses to let the network repopulate your history for you. Think of it as calling out to the network, to receive your history on-demand.