Unconfirmed transaction not dropped out of mempool (> 2 weeks)

[nimbus22]

I've had an unconfirmed transaction for over two weeks. 

I noticed there was a period where it was dropped from blockchain.info but still showed unconfirmed in my electrum wallet.  Then a couple of days later it seemed to have been rebroadcast somehow.

Some questions

- Does electrum rebroadcast everytime I open my wallet?
- Can I do a double spend to a new output with a higher fee.  (I've made other arrangements for payment since the original payment is still stuck).  Anyone have a good tutorial how to do this?
- viaBTC is not really a solution in my case.  I just want the original transaction to be dropped.

[1715326606]

1715326606

[1715326606]

1715326606

[1715326606]

1715326606

[1715326606]

1715326606

[kolloh]

I've had an unconfirmed transaction for over two weeks. 

I noticed there was a period where it was dropped from blockchain.info but still showed unconfirmed in my electrum wallet.  Then a couple of days later it seemed to have been rebroadcast somehow.

Some questions

- Does electrum rebroadcast everytime I open my wallet?
- Can I do a double spend to a new output with a higher fee.  (I've made other arrangements for payment since the original payment is still stuck).  Anyone have a good tutorial how to do this?
- viaBTC is not really a solution in my case.  I just want the original transaction to be dropped.

Electrum shouldn't be rebroadcasting your transaction but the nodes may be rebroadcasting it for some time I think.

Yes, you should be able to double spend with a higher fee. It the transaction isn't showing in Electrum, this is an easy enough process. It could also be done if you enabled replace by fee. Otherwise, it can be more difficult. Sometimes restoring the wallet from the seed will allow you to respend the inputs. Eventually the transaction should drop out of the mempool and I would think that it should be pretty soon if its already been 2 weeks.

[HI-TEC99]

I've had an unconfirmed transaction for over two weeks. 

I noticed there was a period where it was dropped from blockchain.info but still showed unconfirmed in my electrum wallet.  Then a couple of days later it seemed to have been rebroadcast somehow.

Some questions

- Does electrum rebroadcast everytime I open my wallet?
- Can I do a double spend to a new output with a higher fee.  (I've made other arrangements for payment since the original payment is still stuck).  Anyone have a good tutorial how to do this?
- viaBTC is not really a solution in my case.  I just want the original transaction to be dropped.

Electrum shouldn't be rebroadcasting your transaction but the nodes may be rebroadcasting it for some time I think.

Yes, you should be able to double spend with a higher fee. It the transaction isn't showing in Electrum, this is an easy enough process. It could also be done if you enabled replace by fee. Otherwise, it can be more difficult. Sometimes restoring the wallet from the seed will allow you to respend the inputs. Eventually the transaction should drop out of the mempool and I would think that it should be pretty soon if its already been 2 weeks.

That's what I'd normally expect, but there are people complaining on reddit that transactions they made three weeks ago keep getting re-broadcasted.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/6cx8dl/bitpay_unconfirmed_transaction_for_weeks_keeps/di5qp8z/

Negative, almost three weeks now, it just got rebroadcasted about 8 hours ago.
This is pretty retarded

[pooya87]

it has nothing to do with electrum, it is how the mempool works.
when a node receives a transaction it can keep that transaction in its memory pool until the end of time. nothing is forcing it to drop it, that 72 hour thing is just a setting that can be changed.
also it is 72 hours after the node receives the transaction, they don't have a timestamp so some nodes may receive it after 24 hours (like being offline and coming online and asking for inventory from other nodes) and their 72 hours start later so they will continue having the tx and broadcasting it.

[ranochigo]

Electrum shouldn't be rebroadcasting your transaction but the nodes may be rebroadcasting it for some time I think.

Yes, you should be able to double spend with a higher fee. It the transaction isn't showing in Electrum, this is an easy enough process. It could also be done if you enabled replace by fee. Otherwise, it can be more difficult. Sometimes restoring the wallet from the seed will allow you to respend the inputs. Eventually the transaction should drop out of the mempool and I would think that it should be pretty soon if its already been 2 weeks.

Unless majority of the nodes has dropped your transaction, you cannot spend it since it basically cannot be propagated throughout the network. You have to get some of the nodes to drop your transaction or a miner to accept your transaction for it to work. Restoring the seed from wallet will just load the transaction back in again so it wouldn't work either.

If anyone rebroadcasts the transaction periodically, it will not be dropped until it stops.