Unconfirmed Transactions

[NeonFlash]

My bitcoin transactions are unconfirmed since 11th December 2015.

Below are the 3 transactions:

Transaction #1 of 0.134 BTC: https://blockchain.info/tx/c66637778efae6faa30e679c9f18e3b1e3fc9ae70f6e2d3fe09755af22ba63b8
Transaction #2 of 0.1777 BTC: https://blockchain.info/tx/9da82bb9d28b02f39166c774b213dec5529e11c4509c00d7dd31f075368b6b52
Transcation #3 of 0.1843 BTC: https://blockchain.info/tx/eb29b90074d024c13d4feee0991c3220b48305536895019fe830de74a5dda24a

I understand the transaction #2 and #3 will be confirmed only when Transaction #1 will be completed. Also, transaction #2 and #3 show as double spend on blockchain.info. I think this is because transaction #1 has not yet completed and transaction #2 and #3 are using the change left from transaction #1?

Also, in my Bitcoin Wallet's Transaction history, I can see that they are made at the following timestamps:

Transaction #1: 11th December 2015 - 02:57
Transaction #2: 12th December 2015 - 00:43
Transaction #3: 12th December 2015 - 00:43

It has been 3 days since Transaction #1 and it is still not confirmed. Could someone please help in understanding what is the issue here?

My last successful bitcoin transaction was on 9th December 2015 and it went through successfully. It has 1008 confirmations.

How long would it take for my transactions to be confirmed?

Thanks.

[DannyHamilton]

- snip -
Transaction #1 of 0.134 BTC: https://blockchain.info/tx/c66637778efae6faa30e679c9f18e3b1e3fc9ae70f6e2d3fe09755af22ba63b8
- snip -
I understand the transaction #2 and #3 will be confirmed only when Transaction #1 will be completed.

Correct.

- snip -
It has been 3 days since Transaction #1 and it is still not confirmed. Could someone please help in understanding what is the issue here?

You (or whatever wallet you are using to create transactions) failed to pay an appropriate transaction fee.  Therefore, you are waiting for some generous solo miner (or mining pool operator) to confirm your transaction out of the charity in their heart.  Since most miners and pools operate for the purpose of generating a profit, you may end up waiting a long time until someone chooses to confirm your transaction for you.

- snip -
How long would it take for my transactions to be confirmed?

It is impossible to predict.  It may confirm in the very next block, or it may take many days (or any amount of time).
If the network has forgotten about the transaction and your wallet is not re-broadcasting it, it may never confirm.

[David Rabahy]

Hmm, the first transaction shows, "Received Time 2015-12-14 04:22:38" at Blockchain.info; perhaps it didn't make it there until then or maybe it was dropped and received again then.

My full node does not know about it;

13:46:33 getrawtransaction c66637778efae6faa30e679c9f18e3b1e3fc9ae70f6e2d3fe09755af22ba63b8
13:46:33 No information available about transaction (code -5)

[NeonFlash]

Thanks for the replies.

I have a few more questions:

1. What happens to transaction #2 and #3? is the amount deducted from my Bitcoin wallet balance?

I noticed that for transaction #2, it shows the status as Conflicted in the wallet history.

2. Is there any way I can prioritize the confirmation of transaction #1? May re-broadcast the transaction in network? If so, how can I do that and how effective would that be?

3. I also noticed that the date on blockchain.info for transaction #1 shows as 14th December 2015 even though the transaction #1 was made on 11th December 2015. My bitcoin client on the PC is always synchronized, so I am not sure why the transaction was not broadcasted.

[NeonFlash]

I read the post here: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=232979.0 and noticed that Bitcoin Core Client software will re-broadcast the transaction every 30 minutes. So, I will keep the client open for 1 day and hopefully the transactions will be confirmed.

[David Rabahy]

It may have originally been broadcast on the 11^th but if it was received at Blockchain.info then it was apparently dropped until a rebroadcast was received on the 14^th -- no biggie, these things happen.

[DannyHamilton]

If you shut down your Bitcoin Core wallet and then restart it from a command line with the zapwallet option, it will cause the wallet delete all unconfirmed transactions (and rescan the entire blockchain to make sure that it isn't missing any confirmed transactions)  Those bitcoins that were sent in those unconfirmed transactions will then be available in the wallet to try sending again.

Nodes on the network will reject any replacement transaction that uses the same inputs if they still knows about the earlier transaction, but over the next few days they will forget about that earlier transaction.  Then your wallet will be able to re-broadcast the new transaction.  Make sure you include a reasonable transaction fee with the new transaction and once it is able to be broadcast, it will confirm pretty quickly.

[David Rabahy]

The first transaction finally committed.

[NeonFlash]

Could you please tell me how to specify the command line parameter, zapwallet to start the Bitcoin client?

At present, I start the bitcoin client from a shortcut on Desktop and command line parameters are set as shown below:

Code:

"C:\Program Files\Bitcoin\bitcoin-qt.exe" -datadir=H:\Bitcoin

So, do I just add the zapwallet option this way:

Code:

"C:\Program Files\Bitcoin\bitcoin-qt.exe" -datadir=H:\Bitcoin -zapwallet

Will it work?

Also, should I backup my wallet before using this option?

[shorena]

From personal experience, creating a backup is not needed, but its no harm either.

I would not change the shortcut, as you will only do this once (or lets hope so), but use "run".

#1 make sure core is closed
#2 hit win+r to open "run"
#3 enter: C:\Program Files\Bitcoin\bitcoin-qt.exe -datadir=H:\Bitcoin -zapwallettxes
#4 confirm with ok and let core do its thing

If you want to read the log file while its doing so you can open it from H:\Bitcoin\debug.log