Bitcoin Forum

Other => Beginners & Help => Topic started by: vermorel on July 18, 2011, 08:54:37 AM



Title: What happen to an incoming transaction while your bitcoin client is offline?
Post by: vermorel on July 18, 2011, 08:54:37 AM
Sorry for the naive question, but something that is still somewhat unclear in my mind is what happens to a transaction targeting my wallet (aka to one my addresses) if my bitcoin client is offline.

Well, for the duration of the offline status, it's very clear to see that nothing will happen which is just the nature of the bitcoin network; but what about the reconnection time?

I am guessing that the network provides some sort of catch-up mechanism, but I would be interested to understand better how a given wallet after of period of offline activity gets updated to its latest BTC value.

Thanks in advance,

Best regards,
Joannes Vermorel


Title: Re: What happen to an incoming transaction while your bitcoin client is offline?
Post by: Alex Beckenham on July 18, 2011, 08:59:59 AM
I am guessing that the network provides some sort of catch-up mechanism, but I would be interested to understand better how a given wallet after of period of offline activity gets updated to its latest BTC value.

Yes, once your client is online and has a few connections, the catch-up mechanism that it will automatically start downloading all the latest blocks (it gets the block chain up-to-date). Once you're up-to-date block-wise, you'll see any transactions that occurred while the client was offline.


Title: Re: What happen to an incoming transaction while your bitcoin client is offline?
Post by: vermorel on July 18, 2011, 11:34:19 AM
Thanks, this was what I was guessing.


Title: Re: What happen to an incoming transaction while your bitcoin client is offline?
Post by: spruce on July 18, 2011, 11:44:24 AM
@vermorel: Note that the transaction occurs in the same time frame and will show up in the block chain whether or not you *ever* fire up your wallet again.


Title: Re: What happen to an incoming transaction while your bitcoin client is offline?
Post by: BlackLung on July 18, 2011, 01:56:35 PM
Once I sent bitcoins to a wallet address I had used previously, upon noticing that I changed my wallet address and voila there was my transaction. It happened rather quickly with the 12 THash Network.


Title: Re: What happen to an incoming transaction while your bitcoin client is offline?
Post by: DullJack on July 18, 2011, 06:24:01 PM
The transaction happens whether your wallet is online or not. Once you do turn it on, it just reads the blockchain and figures out which transactions belong to it.


Title: Re: What happen to an incoming transaction while your bitcoin client is offline?
Post by: echo2 on July 18, 2011, 06:27:57 PM
it it normal to have like 250 connections then it dwindles down to like 50