Bitcoin Forum

What does this message from the bitcoin client mean?

 "This transaction is over the size limit.  You can still send it for a fee of 9999.9999 BTC, which goes to the nodes that process your transaction and helps to support the network."

what is the transaction size limit?
how do i avoid the fee?
who are the "nodes" and how do i become one?

You may try to send without fee but it may get stuck

Hopefully that 9999.9999 was your edit and the number it actually showed was like 0.0005 or 0.001 BTC.

 - http://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Transaction_fee


Generally, if you either recently received coins, or you mine or do something else where you receive tiny fractions of a bitcoin then your payments will incur a fee.  If the fee is needed because the coins were recently received, waiting a day or so might allow the transaction to be sent without a fee.  But the fee is generally an amount worth less than a penny.


The nodes that process transactions are mining nodes.

thanks, yes, the 9999.999 was an edit.

I noticed that if i increase the amount to send, the fee actually goes down.
I eventually sent the payment with the fee being 0.0005

So now i am really confused.  My wallet says i sent 0.0105  but the block chain says i sent 0.0205.
Whats going on?

http://blockexplorer.com/tx/1d975f2e6ee864527c7c382d1306e38e7b07dc8d0e4910cc548ba24a5db46ba0#i5640806 (http://blockexplorer.com/tx/1d975f2e6ee864527c7c382d1306e38e7b07dc8d0e4910cc548ba24a5db46ba0#i5640806)

0.01 was sent back to yourself as change (https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Change).

So a new address was created and assigned to my wallet, even though that new address doesn't show anywhere on my BTC client GUI?
That's weird and confusing

You're not supposed to care about this. The information displayed by the GUI is exactly the information you need.

Whether I care or not depends on my motivation & PoV.  What i care about is understanding the block chain.  I guess the block chain explorer report is the confusing part.

  it makes it seems like      0.01 + 0.0005  is supposed to equal  0.01 + 0.01 + 0.0005
that's not the way accounting works

when you spend bitcoins, its all or nothing being sent from an address.

you sent 0.01 btc, a 0.0005 Fee, and i guess you had another 0.01 left in that address. The blockchain spends all the funds with that address or addresses, and the sends the change back  to yourself.

its like paying with a 5$ bill for a $1.10 drink. You spend the 5$, get back your change.

Then you need to read up on how transactions work. An input to a transaction is the output of a previous transaction. If you want to send an amount smaller than the output value, you need to send back some to yourself as change.

No, blockexplorer.com reports the transactions as they are.

No, it makes it seem like 0.02 + 0.0005 equals  0.01 + 0.01 + 0.0005.

From an output, not from an address.

Especially to an outsider looking at the transaction.  The outsider doesn't know which Is the output that was change back to you versus the output that went for your purchase.   This helps to maintain anonymity.

Some other clients allow you to choose which address to use as an output.  The Blockchain.info/wallet allows this, for example.  This would allow you to have to change go right back to the address where the payment came from.

 - http://Blockchain.info/wallet

Another thing to note is that the main bitcoin client handles both the change output as well as the inputs automatically, so change sent to an address in your wallet that you don't know about will be automatically used as an input in a future transaction.  If this bothers you, the other wallets mentioned will let you see all of your addresses, corresponding balances, and also let you pick which input is used for a transaction as well.

It's a little more nuanced than this.

If you get 1BTC at an address and then another 2BTC at the same address and go to spend 1BTC it will not send all 3BTC, only 1BTC.

The input on any transaction is actually a prior transaction not an address. It is all of a previous transaction that must be used at once, the remainder sent as change.

The GUI is like the driver's seat of your car. The details of the engine will not be apparent from there.

Output, not transaction. If a transaction has multiple outputs which belong to you, you are able to spend one without the others.