Thanks, man! I realized something was fishy and I do manage to get txs through if i set the fee high enough.
I would have though that if this was a legitimate stress test or some kind of experiment the people behind it would have made some announcement. you said that this has been going on for a month, i suspect that this is some kind of spam attack. on the other hand, for testing purposes i could also use regtest net.
I also noticed a lot of outputs that are created are spent inside the same block (this is probably part of the attack logic). But i didn`t know this is possible (seeing those tx it clearly is). Can you confirm this?
Testnet3 is being flooded by 1 or a handful of individuals, probably not even for malicious purposes but to stress test the network. somebody with a few thousand coins can tie up testnet for a long time. its been happening for about a month, a lot of testnet services shut down, primarily the faucets.
looks like it will end eventually, or a new testnet will be released. in the mean time, use high fees and WAIT. ive been having a hell of a time finding coins and being able to get transactions to be accepted in a block, but not much anybody can do aside from using super high tx fees so you can get accepted in a block .