I know that in at least earlier versions of bitcoins there was a significant problem with transactions that would never confirm due to double spend: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=85689.0

Has this problem been resolved? If so, which version? And if anyone could point to the particular code/commit that fixes it, I would be most grateful.

Thanks,

Matthew

That's the problem. There was a problem where a double spend would remain in the wallet and the wallet would try to spend from unconfirmed double spends, so you would try to make transactions but they would end up unconfirmed.

Using -salvagewallet is one way to fix this, but it shouldn't be a problem in the first place. I'm wondering if it is fixed?

Also the software should not spend unconfirmed outputs, that's a bad idea.