Bitcoin Forum

Hi,

Has anyone ever encountered a situation where a transaction is confirmed (more than 6000 times) but the total balance is still pending?
The problem occurs with TXid:633f05443310c5012c5a0360299c3627b8d838af1fbe4aa4a4ab20d74521d04b
and a Bitcoin core installation v015.01 64 bit
Could i get my balance to available? I need to pay a friend some BTC...
Bitcoin core blocks a new TX because of "exceeding available limits".

With kind regards,

Peter

Are you sure your Bitcoin Core is fully synced (number of blocks >= 501491)? It should only show pending if it has not synced up to the block that this transaction was confirmed in. You can check the number on blocks in "Help -> Debug Window"

If it IS fully synced, then you probably need to either -rescan or -reindex the wallet... This is likely to take a while. Also, you should probably make a backup of your wallet.dat... -rescan and -reindex should not do anything "bad"™ but better safe than sorry ;)

I don't know if you can get the privatekey from bitcore and try to sync it in Electrum, it takes a long time to just sync the bitcoin-core qt.

P.S if you can access the funds in any wallet that should be available for spent.

I suggest you make a backup of your wallet.dat (you should of course have backups already, but make a new one anyway!), and start Bitcoin Core with the -rescan flag on it's command line. See if that makes Bitcoin Core realize it's confirmed already.

Thanks for the answers and suggestions! It feels like a wam bath after a frustrating evening ;)
I have a processed number of blocks of 501568 (looks like thats up to date (?) )
But still there is a pending total of +/- 2.8 BTC
I can try to move the private key to Electrum (thanks for the suggestion!) But i rather do it as last resort.
I prefer to understand what's going on.

Can it have anything to do with to transactions i've send from my old wallet (which was with Qt on windows 7) to my new wallet (which is on Linux Mint with Bitcoin Core) ?
On the same evening i started with sending 0.0002 BTC to my new wallet, to see if public keys were correct etc. This transactions has also more than 6000 confirmations. And this transaction is now shown as available balance ! (i would rather have it the other way around ;)  first TX pending second available)

Final question: can i start rescan from the debug window? Or if that's impossible how do i start a rescan from a linux terminal?

Thanks for helping me out!

Peter

That is accurate indeed.

I've had some unexpected results too after an upgrade of Bitcoin Core in the past: New install, new version of Bitcoin Core, weird Pending amount [SOLVED] (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1379392.0).
In my case it wasn't a real transaction going into my wallet.
If 16u1VqPgTnGrAXQreLFBbVoUkgaATeHXKA (https://blockchain.info/address/16u1VqPgTnGrAXQreLFBbVoUkgaATeHXKA) is part of your receiving addresses, it should show up after a rescan.

I got recommended this:
Full description:
I think a rescan is enough, if not, you can always still use zapwallettxes on your wallet. Make a backup first though!

I can't tell you the exact cause, but I've seen wallet.dat files mess up before.

Just do it from a terminal:
I'm not sure if "bitcoin" is the default name, or that I created that simlink on my own. You may need to use this:
This may take a while :P

You have quite a strange issue.
But this definetly did not happen because of a specific set-up (regarding sending-/recieving- wallet).
This is most certainly an issue with core. Since your transaction propagated correctly and already got confirmed it surely can't be because of your QT-client.
As LoyceV already mentioned the rescan-command should solve this issue.

Well I tried "bitcoin-qt -rescan". It went from 1 % to 100% in 10 minutes or so. Not bad at all. But ...

No change in my pending total.

My new wallet has had an total activity of 3 Transaction. First two where transferring the old wallet balance. The third transaction was a test transaction of sending 0.05 BTC to a friends wallet.
The third transaction has 0 confirmations, it was offered to the network with a fee of 0.00000224 BTC. Obviously i was to greedy, because from 20 december up to now (28th of dec) nobody put it in a new blockchain. The transaction id of the third transaction can't be found anymore on Blockchain.info so i guess it is officially dead now.

My line of thinking was to create a new TX  (a fourth one) with the option "Request replace by-fee" ticked, sending 0.05 to the same wallet of my friend. But helas... I have insufficient available balance te create a new TX of 0.05. ... Looks like a Catch 22...

My available balance is 0.0002 BTC (my pending balance is still 2.8). Should i try to send my last available balance to get the third TX afloat ? Silently hoping that this will get al of my pending total back to available, or is it something else?

Thanks again! Humble waiting for advice Peter..

Let me guess: you're running it from an SSD? It takes my PC 2 hours!

I'd say try the zap-thing:
That will also get rid of your unconfirmed transactions in your wallet, if it's also dropped from mempool you can make it again.

It's a different input and has nothing to do with RBF.

If the zap-thing doesn't work, next step is to export your private key. Since you have the 0.0002, your wallet should have the private key to the 2.9 at the same address. I kinda expect the zap-thing to work, but if it doesn't, the next step would be to export your private key and import or sweep it into Electrum.

Thanx for the swift reply LoyceV!

No SSD here, hyper-v server, quite an old one. But Bitcoin core is much faster on Linux than old Windows 7 Bitcoin-qt version (?). Although that was a very old version of bitcoin-qt.

I'm going to try zapwallet option right now, let you know the outcome...

Cheers Peter

Well the result:

Available 0.000
Pending 0.000

total 0.000

Should i get worried?

I feel like the squirrel in Ice Age, what a joke! haha

(the feeling angry part still has to come i think)

All the arrows pointing to Electrum now?

I have a backup, does anyone know the restore statement?

I would greatly appreciate some good advice! Thx Peter

Oh hold on.. need te rescan aswell.. fingers crossed...

Correct.

Zapwallet removes ALL transactions from the wallet (confirmed, unconfirmed, sent, and received).

Then when you re-scan, the wallet finds all of the CONFIRMED transactions (both sent and received) in the blockchain.

The end result will be that your wallet should ONLY have CONFIRMED transactions and that the balance should reflect the total amount of confirmed transactions you received minus the total amount of confirmed transactions that you sent.

Note that it is possible for someone else to keep a copy of any unconfirmed transaction that you have ever broadcast to the network.  As long as that unconfirmed transaction is still valid, they could re-broadcast it without your permission.  Therefore, it is possible that, at some time after the re-scan, an old unconfirmed transaction could show up in your wallet again.

It works, great!

Sorry for giving up so fast! With a rescan it works brilliant !

Can you leave your public key LoyceV ? (then i can do a first test  payment to you!)

Thank you so much!

Very greatfull , Peter!

Al others thank you very much aswell!

Great! Now I only wonder why the rescan without zapping wasn't enough, but who cares, it works!

Cool :D You'll find my address in my profile (click my name).
One more tip: you also wanted to pay a friend, if you click Add Recipient on the Send tab, you can send funds to more than one address at once. This saves a lot in fees compared to making several transactions (and if everybody would do this, it would reduce the congestion on the Bitcoin network).

Glad to help, I love the feeling of finding back crypto, even if it isn't mine.

Oh no, 10 minutes ago the total balance was available and now the old situation has returned! this is how it looks (again):

avail: 0.0002
pend: 2.8
total:  2.8002

This is very strange, i go for the electrum option i guess.

Anyways 2.8 pending is better then 0 total ;)

thanks guys (will make my payment from electrum then LoyceV ;) )

I'm flabbergasted, this can't be :o

Can you try this:
Click Settings > Options > Wallet > Enable coin control features > OK
Click Send > Inputs > check the "Received with address" for your 0.0002BTC.
Is that address 16u1VqPgTnGrAXQreLFBbVoUkgaATeHXKA ? (It should be)

But it can't be after a zap & rescan, it should be confirmed. Something is definitely off.

Download Electrum (http://electrum.org/), set up a new wallet, safely write down and store your word seed phrase, and sweep your private key from Bitcoin Core. Don't bother importing, just sweep it onto a new address in Electrum and go from there.

To get your private key out of Bitcoin Core:
Click Help > Debug Window > Console > Enter walletpassphrase yoursupersecretpassword 300
(the above unlocks your wallet for 300 seconds)
Enter dumpprivkey 16u1VqPgTnGrAXQreLFBbVoUkgaATeHXKA
This should show the private key. Sweep it into your brand new Electrum (and pay a high enough fee).

Assuming you have the private key to 16u1VqPgTnGrAXQreLFBbVoUkgaATeHXKA, this should work. If you don't have the private key, you're screwed :(

DO NOT post the private key!

Update: you keep saying 2.8, and I assume that's the 2.9 from 633f05443310c5012c5a0360299c3627b8d838af1fbe4aa4a4ab20d74521d04b (https://blockchain.info/tx/633f05443310c5012c5a0360299c3627b8d838af1fbe4aa4a4ab20d74521d04b). I'm starting to think the 2.8 is from a different transaction, that would mean the 0.0002 is from a different address, and that would mean 16u1VqPgTnGrAXQreLFBbVoUkgaATeHXKA isn't part of your wallet.

Sure it can...


He should be able to see the unconfirmed transactions in the wallet.  A getrawtransaction on those transaction IDs should provide the information on where those pending bitcoins are going to or coming from.

Yes the address is as you mentioned:
16u1VqPgTnGrAXQreLFBbVoUkgaATeHXKA

I'll try to install the electrum software (probably takes 200GB to download the block chain again right?)

Is going to take the rest of the evening i'm afraid...

Btc is a new kind of slavery i guess...

Wish me luck, over and out for tonight Peter

That's something!

No, just a few MB.

True, but I meant the part where his 2.8 Bitcoin went from confirmed to pending. That part I don't get.
I think I get what you mean: someone else is broadcasting HIS outgoing transaction so that 2.8 is CHANGE from the 2.9 Bitcoin he had in his wallet. Correct?
If that's the case, I still don't understand why it doesn't show up on block explorers.

Can't answer that without a list of the transactions that the wallet has recorded.

Scrolling through your posts now Danny (sorry i m a single tasker)

Before getting into the hassle of new VM etc etc
Wouldn't it be easier to get the 0.05 tx conf then to start all over again (isn't this hanging TX going to cause trouble in Electrum?)

These are my TX'ids:

0.0002 Tx: daaef9d532d1a79b715ec28f561af99782b2ed4251abbbdd4e3cb5294dd1f0c3
2.8000 Tx: 633f05443310c5012c5a0360299c3627b8d838af1fbe4aa4a4ab20d74521d04b

0.0500 Tx : ae55f12d13c656a2107729dc3d7e0c7f8b2295c56376e9557347ce3479b9104e (unconf)

Thanks for walking with me here guys!

Peter (not so much over and out for tonight yet)

Maybe you can try to install the latest version of the client. At the moment it is 0.15.1 (0.15.01 is older). Or try an older client for example 0.14.xx.
But always make a backup of your wallet first. Hope this bring your bitcoins back. :)

https://bitcoin.org/en/version-history

When you look on the "Transactions" tab of your Bitcoin Core wallet, those are the ONLY three transactions that are displayed?

And all three of them have a check-mark in the far left column?

Ok an update.

Created VM installed Electrum.
Then i moved Private key to Electrum. Total balance is available as predicted (Yeaaahhhh, pfff that's a relieve)

A used the option "pay to many" in Tools, that's a bit scary with comma separation functionality but works like a charm!
Finally I let Electrum  suggest the fee. It estimated that the Tx should be confirmed in about 5 blocks (should be 50 minutes right?)
Tx send to the network at 23:29.

This is the id:
e68efb8fdf5e7d068014fe3d1244ba1ad8f55068c63fb7993ff824b0b9dc7814

But  9 hours later... no confirmation, still not enough fee? The fee was 0.001, can I speed up the TX by using "Child pays for parent" option in Electrum ?
I kind of want to get this over with...


Yeah you were right the total was +/- 2.9. But the total shown in Bitcoin Core was 2.88 (it already deducted the 0.05 TX)

Only the  first two TX in Bitcoin Core where confirmed, the last one was (and is still) unconfirmed, it shows a question mark to the far left.

Well i guess i am one step further but not totally there yet...

Kind regards Peter

Congratulations, for real this time!

There is no 0.05BTC outgoing payment, did you accidentally forget a zero and send 0.5BTC?

The current fee (https://btc.com/stats/unconfirmed-tx) for a fast transaction is 536 sat/byte, you paid 358. It will go through eventually.

I've never used CPFP by myself, you can try it, or just patiently wait for it to confirm. Usually fees drop on Sundays, so if it doesn't happen today, it'll happen tomorrow.
My Bitcoin Core estimates it'll be within 8 hours.

Thanks for the tip :)

One more thing
The Electrum wallet you created only holds your imported private key. The 1.419153 BTC change went back to the address you exported from Bitcoin Core, and should also show up in Bitcoin Core again.
If you choose to keep using Electrum, you should make a new wallet (the one that gives you a 12 seed word phrase to write down), instead of only using the same imported address again.
Or, I expect your Bitcoin Core to be totally fine again, so you can also keep using that client.

It appears it is now confirmed. (34 confirmations at this point in time).

I find this website useful when trying to decide what fee I want to pay:
https://jochen-hoenicke.de/queue/

You can look at recent history with the selectors at the very top of the page:
(2h, 8h, 24h, 2d, 4d, 1w, 2w, 30d, 3m, 6m)

You can filter out the lower fee rates by clicking on the lowest fee rate you want to see in the key on any of the graphs.

As the number of UNCONFIRMED transactions increases in a particular fee range, the band of color for that range widens.  Each time a block is solved, you'll see a collapse of the highest fee rate bands of color at that time (as all the transactions at the highest fee rates are generally included in the block and therefore CONFIRMED).  You can see if the system is catching up with the backlog of UNCONFIRMED transactions at various fee rates, or if it would be a good idea to bump your fee into a slightly higher range to get confirmed more quickly.

Thank you guys, for the support! The transactions have been accepted in the network!

0.5 was correct and the previous was indeed 0.05. 0.5 was the total that i owed.

I think i can close this post.

(although it remains a mystery why core wasn't working in the first place)

A good, successful and healthy 2018 for all of you!

A grateful Peter

(I will have a look at Core again in 2018)