Topic: Multibit - transaction still unconfirmed after 1 day - is it normal? (Read 3750 times)

Ok, so I ended up resetting the blockchain and transaction to the 14th and the coins have come through. It wasn't syncing for some reason and was freezing on the 15th. This time when I hovered over the grey bar it showed details that weren't there earlier. All fixed but resetting that blockchain without any real feedback was disconcerting. 

Hi everyone smarter than I am (that'll be most of you I reckon)

I am having some initial issues with my MultiBit Wallet.

I run an Apple Mac OSX 10.6 and have the MultiBit wallet 0.4.14

I have a Bitcoin QT wallet which having not used for months has taken over three days to sync and still is. This is very unreasonable but unfortunately i deposited funds into there before i started to sync (lesson learnt there!)

So i set up a MultiBit wallet last night, deposited $$ AUD this morning (11am AEST) and it is now 4:30pm AEST and still no sign of these.

I have confirmation that it has been deposited by SpendBitcoins and this confirmation is available to be looked at on blockexplorer.

I thought MulitBit was alot faster than QT

Have a done something wrong?

Thanks

Sure, I'm talking about Multibit here, not the bitcoin protocol itself.

This is not a problem with the Bitcoin protocol itself. Transactions spending unconfirmed change are perfectly valid as long as the transaction from which the change originated is also valid. The Satoshi client (which was created, in part, to demonstrate correct use of the protocol) allows you to spend unconfirmed change. If you think Multibit's behaviour is seriously flawed, there are always other clients you can use instead.

It's a serious flaw and has nothing to do with anybody's earnings. Imagine Bitcoin is universally accepted as a payment method and you go downtown. Do you transfer on your mobile phone a huge amount of money? Of course not, because it's risky and you may loose it. So you transfer an amount sufficient for a week or two. And you go to buy some food at the grocer's, then you go out and want to buy some newspaper at the newsagent's (or whatever) - I'm sorry but you can't and need to wait about an hour to make another transaction because "change" must be confirmed.

The Satoshi client allows you to spend unconfirmed change specifically to avoid these problems. Besides, if you're living from paycheck to paycheck, you're doing it wrong.

Thanks for an excellent explanation. As Bitcoin will be more popular and more frequently used to buy something this may become disadvantage as far as in most cases there are less inputs than outputs.

For example: I buy Bitcoin on an exchange and transfer it to my wallet - get 1 input totaling to the whole wallet deposit (or close to it). Then when I make a transaction the wallet has to spend this 1 input to make a transaction and my "Available to spend" amount drops to zero (or close to it) and since then every time on.

Other example: I get monthly salary from my employer (maybe in Bitcoin in some [near] future ) - get 1 input totaling (nearly) the whole wallet deposit. In this case again - every time I make a transaction "Available to spend" amount drops to zero or close to it.

And both of this examples in my opinion are the most common situations in real life (except when you sell something which does not happen too often for most people).

A fee of BTC0.0001 is the bare minimum that is acceptable, and is likely to take much longer to confirm than the "standard" fee of BTC0.0005. Though that doesn't explain why it never appeared on the network in the first place. I'm sorry to say I'm out of ideas. Hopefully someone who knows more about Multibit than I do can tell you what to do about this transaction.

Not every transaction - just transactions that require all the outputs in your wallet to make. Say someone sends you two payments of BTC5, and then you want to pay BTC4 to someone else, your wallet would send one of the two BTC5 outputs, leaving you with the other BTC5 still spendable (which will increase to BTC6 once the change confirms). But if you wanted to send BTC6, you wouldn't be able to do it using only one of the two outputs, you'd have to spend both of them at once, leaving you with nothing until the change confirms. Your initial transaction required all of your outputs simply because there was only one available. Once you have several payments coming in to your wallet, you should never have a problem with your available balance dropping to zero, unless you're spending your entire balance or close to it.

The other thing that brought my attention is the way "change" works with Multibit. As far as I understand every transaction decreases "Available to spend" amount to 0 (zero) until the transaction is confirmed in the blockchain- which usually takes about 1 hour. Correct?

If so, you can not make more transactions from a single wallet than one in an hour?

I think you have to pay at least 0.0005 fee for transactions with outputs less then 0.01. See this post: https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.887491

The fee was set at a minimum level of 0.0001 as it is for testing purposes only (actually it's impossible to "spam" with Multibit owing to it requires to set the fee at least at a minimum level). I don't know why it was not accepted by the network.

A double spend is extremely unlikely to happen by accident unless you're doing something stupid (like running two copies of the same wallet on two computers at the same time). What was the transaction fee (if any) that you paid for this transaction? Since it is a "spammy" transaction, a fee of BTC0.0001 would have been required just to get it accepted by the network, and a much higher fee is recommended if you want it to confirm in a timely manner.

OK, thanks for an exhaustive explanation. The 0.0021 transaction was from one wallet to another on the same computer, so it must be some error/double spend - I'm not sure. Will try Multibit a little more to make sure that it works correctly before I use it with larger amounts.

Where did the BTC0.0021 transaction come from? Is it a transfer from one of your wallets to another, a payment you were expecting from someone else, or was it completely unexpected? It looks like it was rejected by the network (either that or it was never broadcast in the first place); most likely it is either a double spend, or it didn't pay the anti-spam fee (it is a "spammy" transaction and absolutely requires an appropriate transaction fee).

EDIT: About the missing BTC0.0001: it was actually the change from your BTC0.0011 transaction. This transaction was actually for BTC0.0012, since you didn't have any "outputs" (coins from transactions you've received) less than that in your wallet, and a transaction must spend an output entirely or not at all. So in order to send BTC0.0011, your wallet had to send the entire BTC0.0012 in one transaction, and send BTC0.0001 back to yourself as change as part of the same transaction. However, your change was not spendable until the transaction sending the change to yourself was confirmed (note that this behaviour differs from the Satoshi client, in which unconfirmed change is spendable, though obviously a transaction spending unconfirmed change will never confirm until the original transaction does). Note that change is not displayed separately in your wallet, as it can be a confusing concept for people unfamiliar with the technical details of Bitcoin transactions. As a result of all this, your spendable balance will be less than what it should be if you have unconfirmed transactions.

I've made another transaction back to Multibit1 wallet to check if it works correctly and find out how much time will it take to see it confirmed.



I wonder why "Available to spend" is 0 now even though the new transaction is only for 0.0011 BTC and the previuos available balance was 0.0012, so 0.0012 minus 0.00011 should be 0.0001 not 0. Looks like 0.0001 BTC missing.


///EDIT: After a while the transaction has been confirmed and quite strangely the missing 0.0001 BTC is back

I'm not sure, but something doesn't seem right with that 0.0021 transaction from 2012-09-04 03:57.  I don't see that transaction at blockchain.info at all (confirmed, or unconfirmed).

Hi there,

is it normal that after 1 day I still have an unconfirmed transaction on a Multibit wallet? I've got an impression that something is wrong with Multibit.