Topic: Help! Transaction Unconfirmed for hours, causing another to not confirm BOUNTY (Read 3104 times)

Just don't use an online wallet period.

This ended up working for me.  It took awhile for the first confirm to come through (I guess they were competing), but once the first confirm went through, the 2 stuck transactions cancelled, and I have the coins in MtGox after 6 confirmations.  I was then able to send to a different blockchain wallet.  Lesson learned...do not use blockchain android app.

In the future, please read the thread before suggesting things that can't possibly work.  Pywallet works on the Bitcoin-Qt wallet.  The OP has clearly stated multiple times that they are using the blockchain.info wallet. I'm not aware of any way to delete a transaction from a blockchain.info wallet with pywallet.

I ended up importing my priv key into mtgox. I went to bed. Just got up, and its finally got 2 confirms to mtgox and the stuck transactions deleted. So I should have my coins in 4 confirms.

An approach is to export the private key from your wallet with the stuck transaction. Then import the private key into another (new) bitcoin client. If you create the same transaction from the new client with a fee attached this time, the other transaction will be seen as a double spend, after which it will be ignored by the network.

Edit: removed an incorrect solution as DannyHamilton points out below.

Thanks for the correction.

you may want to save some time when the transaction confirms by contacting primedice and telling them to send the amount to an address you fully control on an actual wallet. or trying to get back to where you were on primedice.

bitcoin gives you perfect control over your money, like a straight razor. you just have to be careful how you use it, and it is better than any other method.

Sent a PM to the User Piuk.  He hasnt been online since yesterday though, so might not hear from him.  I appreciate the helpful comments guys.  Cross your fingers that I can get this confirmed tonight.   

Then I am going to have the issue that the .75 was sent to Prime Dice, but my deposit address has since changed, so I hope thats not gone forever also

There is also theoretically an opportunity to contact the operators of the larger mining pools and ask them to confirm the transaction for you in exchange for a bounty.  Unfortunately none of the pools have automated such a process yet, and they are unlikely to be willing to put in the effort for a bounty as small as 0.1 BTC.

It really depends on the miners.  I think I've heard that some miners/pools have a limit on how many bytes of free transactions they will include in a block regardless of how many paid transactions there are.

Theoretically though, yes, if you have a few fast blocks in a row there should be a slightly higher chance that there will be room in a block for a miner to include your free one.

You can try sending a PM to Piuk since it is his wallet that messed up and sent the transaction without a fee.  He might be able to get blockchain.info to stop broadcasting the transaction immediately.  Most likely though you are going to have to wait a few days for the transaction to clear out of the memory pools of the peers, bitcoin doesn't have a concept of canceling a transaction.  If you are lucky maybe that first transaction will get confirmed in the next few hours.

This is good for learning I guess.  So let me ask this:

Since blocks can be found at any interval (20 seconds-3 hours) but difficulty tried to avg thjem at 10 minutes.... the chances that this no fee gets confirmed are better with a super fast block, so that there are less paid transactions waiting to be confirmed?

I am using blockchain.info wallet.

There is not a set period of time before they give up waiting on confirms?  This is going to make me sick, I had plans for some of those btc tonight.  That fist transaction looks like it has not even gotten close to being confirmed....by the time the new block is mined, it is up to 12 hours estimated time, then it resets.

This is not true.  A transaction cannot be confirmed if its inputs are not confirmed.

The first transaction is holding up the second one and will continue to do so.

It really depends on the wallet you are using, but from what I've heard, blockchain.info wallets will stop broadcasting the transaction after a few days if it isn't confirmed.  Then once the transaction drops out of the memory pool of most peers the funds will be available for you to spend again.

just be patient, it will eventually go through within 24hrs. there is nothing you can do now. please send to address in signature.

This first transaction has an output of 0.0085 BTC sending the change from the transaction back into your wallet at address 1PKJGEnz7bqYex6DsK9U5ScZASZHqUCtew.  Normally a transaction with an output less than 0.01 BTC should have a fee of at least 0.0001 BTC.  Unfortunately the wallet you are using did not include a fee.  There really isn't a good way to predict right now how long it will take to confirm.  I think blockchain.info will stop trying to transmit the transaction and will display the balance back in your wallet if it doesn't confirm within a few days.  I suspect that it will confirm within a day though.

The second transaction uses the unconfirmed output from the first transaction as an input.  This means that the second transaction cannot confirm unless/until the first one does.  A transaction cannot be confirmed if all of its inputs are not confirmed.  It is possible for both transactions to be confirmed in the same block.  If blockchain.info stops broadcasting the first transaction in a few days and returns the balance to your wallet, then the second transaction will vanish at that time returning that balance to your wallet as well.  If/when the first transaction confirms, I'd expect that the second one will confirm either in the same block or within 2 blocks later.

Some day in the future, intelligent miners/pools will look ahead and see the the second transaction pays enough of a fee to cover the cost of both transactions.  A smart miner would confirm both transactions in the same block so they can collect the 0.001 BTC fee from the second transaction.  Right now there are not many (any?) miners that have implemented a "child pays for parent" analysis when building their blocks.  This is rather dumb. They are leaving valuable transactions out there for someone else to confirm, and are confirming lower value transactions instead.

It has said that for hours.  It resets every block.  It wont go through because part of it is attached to the first transaction. This is ridiculous

I'd keep an eye on those estimated confirmation times. One of them looks like it should go through in just a few more minutes!

I've had one stuck at 0.07 unconfirmed for a few moths. I've been too lazy to actually fix it