Bitcoin Forum

Hi,

another problem with the transactions fees using the official client (latest version):

When trying to send a small amount (0.0605 in this case) I get the following message:


Error: This transaction requires a transaction fee of at least 0.0035 because of its amount, complexity, or use of recently received funds  


After that I already tried to change preferences to "optional transaction fee 0.005" - didn't work (even after restart).

The funny thing is, that usually the client tells you that the transactin can only be made applying a fee of XY and gives you the choice to apply the fee or abort. With this error message above there is only "okay" as option (aborting the transaction).

Does anyone know what this is?

Why does the client choose this tx-fee of 0.0035 ? - I thougt the current min. is 0.0005 ?


 

fees also depend on the transaction size
if you try to spend bazilions of small btc amounts from your received transactions, they all add up and the fees are suggested based on the size of the transaction (in plaintext, or bytes, something like that)

and if you try to spend all your balance in a wallet and client 'thinks' it needs a fee, than you get an error (ok only / no option to pay fees) because your balance would become negative.

hope it helped a bit.
what helps a bit more is to try to send later, preferably after a new block is found, because each block has some space designed to include transactions free of charge. just have to make it into that block 'first'

The total balance is 0.0605

I tried sending:

0.0605 - error (obviously if txf is needed since I can't overdraft)

0.06015 - error (thought the client would withdraw 0.06015+0.00035 - didnt work)

0.06 - error (I thought the client would tell me - a fee of 0.005 is needed - but it didnt work - same error message)

Then I changed preferences: optional fee 0.0005

and tried to send 0.06 - still didn't work..?

Can someone explain?

https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Transaction_fees

Looks like the minimum transaction size without fee is 0.01 (though I only skimmed the site so I'm not positive).

I hope it stays at 0.01 for a long time to come...

I transfered 1,00 BTC to that wallet so balance would be higher.

Now - after 27 confirmations - I tried to send the whole balance of 1.0605 to my main wallet.

IT STILL DOESN'T WORK!!!

It only tells me that a fee of 0.0004 is applicable but it doesn't give me the chance to pay it!

(tried to send only 1.06 - but didn't work either...)


What is the matter???

This really has to be fixed!

In the options, the fee is per kb, so if you send a big transaction with the fee you put in the end fee will be larger (the .0003 fee, in this case).

Adding more to the wallet won't help because you're just making the transaction bigger.

To fix this, set the fee at .0001 in the options and try again; wait long enough for the coins to 'age'; or start the client with the option -nofee (IIRC).

Thank you for your help. I thought the bigger the amount the better the chance of an "easy" transaction.


Two more questions:

a) how long does it take for the coins to "age" (in days or confirmations)

b) can you do the -nofee option with the GUI client ?
I am using MacOSX snow leopard with the latest client

I know how to do the -rescan getting into the app. Will this work the same way just with ./bitcoin -nofee instead of ./bitcoin -rescan?

Thank you!

A: It depends - the smaller the transactions you received the lower priority (or spammier) the transaction will be seen as, so you have to wait longer. It shouldn't be too long unless you got a bunch of .00000001 transactions. I'm not sure of the exact math but it's pretty straightforward, as I recall, just a little algebra to figure it out.

B: It's currently not an option in the GUI, but it should work exactly as the -rescan option, again if -nofee is the correct command, I am fairly certain it is.

Keep in mind it'll take a bit longer for your transaction to confirm if you don't include a fee, but if you don't send a fee, send more coins. Part of the priority of a TX is how large it is.

-Garrett

Maybe it is only me, but I believe that 0.0035 BTC != 0.00035 BTC  ;)