Specific Bitcoin transactions stuck in unconfirmed state

[imanz]

Hello guys,

I have been a long time lurker and reader but never had anything important to post, however now it seems i need your help!

I was playing around with SatoshiDice as I have in the past and it seems that I have about 6 transactions from around 1PM-1:30(EST) that have not confirmed, with no response from Satoshi. When I try to use the Transaction ID to check the roll on Satoshi it seems like the roll has never happened. The weird thing is I made multiple transactions before and after all of which have confirmed and received a win/lose response from Satoshi in the form of bitcoin. At this point these specific transactions are just sitting there for over 12 hours. I am using a mac running Bitcoin-QT, and my block-chain looks up to date. The strange part is that I was able to make fully confirmed transactions both before and after, and there is nothing specific about these that makes them different. In my transaction list they are just sitting there with a question mark next to them. Does anyone have any idea whats wrong? I could really use the help because honestly I have no idea what to do.

Again, I have not made a transaction in about 12 hours. Essentially I have 6 unconfirmed transactions in limbo, its only for 2.75 bitcoin but I don't want to send anymore if random transactions will just disappear.

Here is an example of the transaction details:

Status: 0/unconfirmed
Date: 2/27/13 16:58
To: 1dicegEArYHgbwQZhvr5G9Ah2s7SFuW1y
Debit: -1.00 BTC
Transaction fee: -0.0005 BTC
Net amount: -1.0005 BTC
Transaction ID: 15a6b72a33caab01671736371d3f25ea31ac39cd9dca95f3a28bb2d2f75e9986

If more information is needed please let me know.

Thanks!

[Stephen Gornick]

When I try to use the Transaction ID to check the roll on Satoshi it seems like the roll has never happened.

That's correct.  

If SatoshiDICE sends you a payout for a wager transaction, that transaction needs to eventually confirm.  If it was a double spend, it will not confirm and eventually disappear, as if it never happened.

At this point these specific transactions are just sitting there for over 12 hours.

If these are payouts to you and they ended up getting double spent, then in another 12 or so hours, they will disappear.

If they disappear and you are still due a payout from a confirmed wager transaction, SatoshiDICE will send a new payout so that every wager that has confirmed will get a payout.  That is provable, and periodically an independent person will double check that SatoshiDICE has made payouts on all transactions (... except for the most recent ones in the past day or so that might still be waiting for confirmations or whatever).

there is nothing specific about these that makes them different.

The BItcoin-Qt client doesn't tell you everything it could.  Blockchain.info gives a little more detail if it knows about the transaction.

[imanz]

I'm really sorry but I don't completely understand what you mean. What does double spent mean? Every time I would make a wager on Stoshi I wait until the amount in my wallet is confirmed and bet with that. The issue is, still at this point over 24 later I have 6 transcations in my wallet that are unconfirmed and about 3BTC that is just sitting there.

[cptmooseinc]

imanz,

It looks like SatoshiDice currently has a large backlog of unconfirmed bets. This happens sometimes and will eventually catch itself up.

If you did in fact have a double spend, you will need to look in to downloading/installing Pywallet and deleting out all your 0/unconfirmed transactions. You can search the boards and find the Pywallet thread. I also have a thread involving removing 0/unconfirmed that happened to me in case you need a little extra help.

I'd just wait for SDice to work through its backlog. I usually find I can see if it's happening if the address (as seen on Blockchain.info) has a high "final balance". It usually stays pretty low, so a big final balance means its having trouble and backlogged from what I can tell.

[Stephen Gornick]

Every time I would make a wager on Stoshi I wait until the amount in my wallet is confirmed and bet with that.

Well, here's the situation currently.

You said you have unconfirmed transactions, one of which is:
 - http://blockchain.info/tx/15a6b72a33caab01671736371d3f25ea31ac39cd9dca95f3a28bb2d2f75e9986

But Blockchain.info doesn't know about it.  That means one of two things ...   your client never broadcasted it (unlikely) or it is a double spend and thus no nodes will relay it.

So, to eliminate the former, make sure your Bitcoin-Qt client has connections, the blockchain has completed sync, and has been left running for about an hour (so that the client will try to re-broadcast any transactions it knows about yet at the same time do not show yet as having any confirmations.)

If that occurs, and the transaction still doesn't appear in blockhchain.info, then you are in the situation where you have for whatever reason a spend transaction(s) that are invalid and the network peers won't relay them to other nodes.

The only two solutions for you at that point are 1.)  to perform wallet surgery to remove all transactions and then -resync, or 2.) to import the private keys from your wallet.dat into a new wallet.   I believe you can do this with Blockchain.info with Drag & Drop like this:
 - https://blockchain.info/wallet/import-wallet

The issue is, still at this point over 24 later I have 6 transcations in my wallet that are unconfirmed and about 3BTC that is just sitting there.

As soon as the client no longer has those bogus transactions those BTC will re-appear as being spendable ... assuming the inputs they use (transactions which you previously received) were not double spends.  While entirely possible that you ended up with a double spend on a transaction (presuming it first had a confirmation and the Bitcoin-Qt was willing to use it) there were no orphaned block forks on Feb 27th when that transaction shows as being first received by Blockhain.info.   So Im stumped as to how this happened.    But the remedy is there if that is what happened ... to do the wallet surgery.

[prophetx]

I have this same issue, I accidently put in the wrong tx fee amount, so how do I do this

1.)  to perform wallet surgery to remove all transactions and then -resync,