Bitcoin Forum

Bitcoin => Electrum => Topic started by: Clobber on February 26, 2017, 12:36:40 AM



Title: Stop Re-Broadcasting?
Post by: Clobber on February 26, 2017, 12:36:40 AM
I have been waiting for a transaction to be abandoned and the coins to return to my wallet. The transaction had been pending due to low fees. I have read several different times, from 48hr-2weeks for the transaction to stop and the bitcoins to be back in the account. My account shows the pending negative transaction.

Electrum then re-broadcat the transaction today. Will it just keep doing this? What can I do to prevent this and get access to my funds?




Title: Re: Stop Re-Broadcasting?
Post by: Abdussamad on February 26, 2017, 06:18:04 AM
write down your seed. use file > new/restore to restore your wallet from seed. see if that does it.

if it doesn't then rename your electrum data directory which is one level up from teh wallet directory:

http://docs.electrum.org/en/latest/faq.html#where-is-my-wallet-file-located

then run electrum and restore your wallet from seed. see if that fixes it.



Title: Re: Stop Re-Broadcasting?
Post by: pooya87 on February 26, 2017, 06:46:15 AM
write down your seed. use file > new/restore to restore your wallet from seed. see if that does it.
if it doesn't then rename your electrum data directory which is one level up from teh wallet directory:
http://docs.electrum.org/en/latest/faq.html#where-is-my-wallet-file-located
then run electrum and restore your wallet from seed. see if that fixes it.

that is not going to work. Electrum is not "re-broadcasting" the transaction. the nodes are. Electrum is just getting the transaction from them.
it calls the node that it connects to and asks what transaction belong to my pubkey and then tell it this and that and this is unconfirmed.

(*) this means even if you delete,.... restore,... you still get the transaction as unconfirmed in your wallet and still can not spend the funds.

a weird way that i can think of would be making a raw transaction with the same outputs with a different tool and then restore your wallets offline to sign the transaction and broadcast it online through somewhere that allows you to double spend.
i say offline to eliminate the (*) step above

p.s. there may be easier ways such as using the console but i am not familiar with it.


Title: Re: Stop Re-Broadcasting?
Post by: HI-TEC99 on February 26, 2017, 09:52:51 AM
write down your seed. use file > new/restore to restore your wallet from seed. see if that does it.
if it doesn't then rename your electrum data directory which is one level up from teh wallet directory:
http://docs.electrum.org/en/latest/faq.html#where-is-my-wallet-file-located
then run electrum and restore your wallet from seed. see if that fixes it.

that is not going to work. Electrum is not "re-broadcasting" the transaction. the nodes are. Electrum is just getting the transaction from them.
it calls the node that it connects to and asks what transaction belong to my pubkey and then tell it this and that and this is unconfirmed.

(*) this means even if you delete,.... restore,... you still get the transaction as unconfirmed in your wallet and still can not spend the funds.

a weird way that i can think of would be making a raw transaction with the same outputs with a different tool and then restore your wallets offline to sign the transaction and broadcast it online through somewhere that allows you to double spend.
i say offline to eliminate the (*) step above

p.s. there may be easier ways such as using the console but i am not familiar with it.

A moderator of this board made some software that can create such transactions (Replace-By-Fee transactions). It's available at this link, but it requires some technical skill to use.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1506632.0

The software will take the raw hex of a transaction, ask the user for some information, and create an unsigned transaction which can be signed outside of the program. Then the signed transaction can be broadcast from the software.


Title: Re: Stop Re-Broadcasting?
Post by: ThomasV on February 26, 2017, 11:06:58 AM
Electrum then re-broadcat the transaction today. Will it just keep doing this? What can I do to prevent this and get access to my funds?

This is a misconception.
Electrum does not rebroadcast transactions.
May I ask what makes you believe so?


Title: Re: Stop Re-Broadcasting?
Post by: pooya87 on February 27, 2017, 04:55:05 AM
A moderator of this board made some software that can create such transactions (Replace-By-Fee transactions). It's available at this link, but it requires some technical skill to use.

achow101 is not the moderator of this board. ThomasV (Developer of Electrum and my above comment) is.
and I seriously doubt that OP's transaction is an opt-in RBF transaction, and even if it was he can easily do it through Electrum itself and no need for another tool.

and also achow101 tool is not only for RBF transactions it works for any kind of transaction.


Title: Re: Stop Re-Broadcasting?
Post by: HI-TEC99 on February 27, 2017, 11:36:32 AM
A moderator of this board made some software that can create such transactions (Replace-By-Fee transactions). It's available at this link, but it requires some technical skill to use.

I seriously doubt that OP's transaction is an opt-in RBF transaction, and even if it was he can easily do it through Electrum itself and no need for another tool.

and also achow101 tool is not only for RBF transactions it works for any kind of transaction.


Perhaps I should have written double spend instead of Replace-By-Fee transaction. However I chose to use achow101's terminology because I linked to his software's thread that uses the umbrella term "Replace-By-Fee transaction" to mean both Opt-in RBF and double spend.

My point is his software can create double spend transactions to speed up stuck low fee transactions. He specifically includes electrum in his list of wallets that do not allow you to make double spends (which he terms RBF transactions).



Attempting a Replace-By-Fee (RBF) double spend transaction

What is an RBF transaction

A Replace-By-Fee transaction is a transaction that is nearly identical to your stuck transaction but pays a higher transaction fee. Since the original transaction most likely does not use Opt-in RBF, the RBF transaction that we will be creating will be considered a double spend and marked as such. The transaction uses Full-RBF and thus may still take a little bit longer to confirm as it is technically a double spend.

How to make an RBF transaction

Making a RBF transaction depends entirely on the wallet that you are using. Some wallet support the advanced functionality required to make an RBF transaction, others do not.

*snip*

Wallets that do not allow you to or ones that I don't know how to make RBF transactions

Not all wallets support the creation of RBF transactions. Many wallets do not allow clearing all unconfirmed transactions to allow for making RBF transactions. The following is a list of wallet software which do not support RBF transactions. If a wallet on this list does support RBF transactions, please let me know and provide instructions for that so I can add it above.

  • Blockchain.info and web wallets in general
  • Electrum
  • Mycelium
  • MultiBit Classic
  • Bitcoin Wallet for Android
  • Breadwallet
  • Copay





achow101 is not the moderator of this board. ThomasV (Developer of Electrum and my above comment) is.


My point was achow101 is trustworthy because he is a moderator. Being pedantic he is a moderator of both the Development & Technical Discussion board, and its Alternative clients child board (sub-board), but not this grandchild board (sub-subboard). This link explains the semantics of simplemachines boards.

http://wiki.simplemachines.org/smf/SMF2.0:Boards

Quote
Count child's posts in parent's totals - Checking this option will mean that posts and topics in a board's child board (sub-board) will count toward its totals on the Board Index. This does not include grandchild boards (sub-subboards).

Using pedantic sematics this board is not a board, it's a grandchild board (sub-subboard).


Title: Re: Stop Re-Broadcasting?
Post by: pooya87 on February 27, 2017, 02:57:43 PM
meh, maybe it is just me but i don't like calling RBF as a double spend possibly because the BIP never uses the word "double spend"
https://github.com/bitcoin/bips/blob/master/bip-0125.mediawiki

and sorry, i was nitpicking about the moderator thing ;)


Title: Re: Stop Re-Broadcasting?
Post by: torusJKL on May 20, 2017, 11:09:02 PM
I had a similar issue.

It looks like the electrum server I connected to was rebroadcasting the old transaction with the low fees.
I was able to double spend with a higher fee by connecting to a different electrum server which I guess has already removed the old transaction from the mempool.

To be on the safe side I used RBF this time. :-)