Unconfirmed ghost transaction

[tinus42]

On 22 May I received 0.000004 BTC. But it still hasn't confirmed. I had used one of those faucets back then and realize now that it is uneconomic dust. Don't use the faucets anymore (what's the point).

But this transaction is still sitting there unconfirmed:

Status: 0/unconfirmed
Date: 5/22/2013 18:00
From: unknown
To: 1PUzJmW9VQabHEtxRxMYwWiKn4D6tFXmxV (own address, label: Bitcoin 06)
Credit: 0.000004 BTC
Net amount: +0.000004 BTC
Transaction ID: ff6bbf7a00bc0230275f99914c99e92e639508d84730affdf6d5aee7a2734a18

I upgraded to Bitcoin-qt v0.8.2-beta yesterday from v.0.8.1.

According to Blockchain.info the transaction does not even exist:

http://blockchain.info/tx/ff6bbf7a00bc0230275f99914c99e92e639508d84730affdf6d5aee7a2734a18

How can this transaction be confirmed?

Since I received it Bitcoin-qt is also acting weirdly, stating that the transaction fee exceed the balance when the balance is higher than the fee. E.g. I now have 0.04367453 BTC in my wallet but I can't transfer out 0.04 BTC because it's lower than the 0.0001 BTC fee.

Edit: tried the 0.04 BTC transfer again and now it does go through.

[1715513771]

1715513771

[grue]

This transaction may never be confirmed. You can use pywallet to remove the transaction from your wallet. Doing this will make your client "forget" about the transaction. Doing so will prevent you client from attempting to use the unconfirmed transaction for future inputs, which should resolve the problem you're experiencing. However, if the transaction magically gets confirmed, your client will receive it, so you're not risking anything.

[OpenYourEyes]

I had one of these transactions come through to my address (no idea why), it took about a week but it did confirm.

[Stephen Gornick]

How can this transaction be confirmed?

Unless the sender or some other node is re-broadcasting the transaction then today consider it as if that transaction had never been sent.

Your client could have seen the transaction back when it was last relayed to you but after a restart your client should not still have an unconfirmed transaction retained.

[tinus42]

How can this transaction be confirmed?

Unless the sender or some other node is re-broadcasting the transaction then today consider it as if that transaction had never been sent.

Your client could have seen the transaction back when it was last relayed to you but after a restart your client should not still have an unconfirmed transaction retained.

Well it happened. I tried running pywallet but I didn't get it running. Installed Python 2.7 on Windows with the listed extensions but I got the error SyntaxError: invalid syntax.

You should be able to remove these kinds of transactions from the client. Forget about common people with minimal computer literacy adopting Bitcoin else. It will remain the domain of the techsavvy and be labelled "hacker's money" by the media and Joe Sixpack will stay as far away from it as possible.

[grue]

Well it happened. I tried running pywallet but I didn't get it running. Installed Python 2.7 on Windows with the listed extensions but I got the error SyntaxError: invalid syntax.

are you sure you installed it properly?
 Python 2.5-2.7, with bsddb package
  twisted package is necessary if you want to use the web interface
edit: followed the instructions exactly and it works fine.

You should be able to remove these kinds of transactions from the client. Forget about common people with minimal computer literacy adopting Bitcoin else. It will remain the domain of the techsavvy and be labelled "hacker's money" by the media and Joe Sixpack will stay as far away from it as possible.

Then again, it might not be such a good idea. Users might randomly stumble upon features like this and screw up their wallet.

[tinus42]

I see I did two things wrong. First I downloaded the old version of pywallet from the first post. And secondly I tried to launch pywallet from the Python command prompt instead of the Windows command prompt.

If I understand it correctly the latest version is the one at

https://github.com/downloads/jackjack-jj/pywallet/PWI_0.0.3.exe

Which I got from

http://pywallet.tk/

I'll try it again later. I'm a bit to tired now to try stuff out.

[grue]

http://pywallet.tk/

Why would you download from some shady .tk site? I linked you to the official topic for pywallet.

[tinus42]

Pywallet.tk is operated by jackjack, the developer. See: http://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=34028.msg1658454;topicseen#msg1658454

Anyways the transaction has cleared now, 14 days later. Is that a record?  

[nimda]

Congratulations, you are the proud owner of a liability.

[tinus42]

Congratulations, you are the proud owner of a liability.

Care to explain? 

[nimda]

Congratulations, you are the proud owner of a liability.

Care to explain? 

Amounts that small just add size (= fees) to your transaction, without really any value, and certainly less value than the fee it necessitates.