Electrum Wallet: Unconfirmed Transaction and Fee Issues

Hey everyone, I tried sending some bitcoin through my Electrum wallet, but now I see this yellow exclamation mark next to my transactions that says: Unconfirmed Parent. Check out this screenshot https://imgur.com/a/NGDsgS5 When I attempted to bump up the fees, I got this error message: The server returned an error while broadcasting your transaction. Maybe try connecting to a different server or updating Electrum. Insufficient fee; your transaction is trying to replace another one in the mempool, but it doesn’t meet the criteria to do so. So I should try raising the fee. Here's the screenshot of that error https://imgur.com/a/901dHx9 Here's what I've done so far: - Switched to another Electrum server - Updated Electrum to the latest version - Used a free bitcoin accelerator to try and rebroadcast the transactions Originally, my fee was set at 2 sat/b, and I’ve tried raising it a few times to 6, 7, and even 14 sats/b, but still no confirmations.

Transactions can only be confirmed when their parent transaction is confirmed. Certain miners would mine both the child and the parent transaction if the fees are high enough. You would probably need a much more fees for a fast confirmations and without the details of the transaction it would be hard to estimate how much is required. Do you mind sharing the transaction IDs?

Mempool is full: you currently need more than 12 sat/vbyte for a fast confirmation. If you're not in a hurry: just wait. Chances are mempool clears over the weekend, and your transactions will confirm. I think this means your increased fee is too close to your previous fee. Note that increasing the fee for your first transaction invalidates the later (child) transactions.

As far as I understand, you already have one unconfirmed transaction and you are trying to send another or the you have an incoming unconfirmed transaction and you are trying to send it while it's still unconfirmed? Either way, you just need to wait for that unconfirmed transaction to get atleast 1 confirmation before you can send your balance. That yellow exclamation is a sign that the source of your funds is still not confirmed on blockchain.

It can be both. If there is an unconfirmed parent then you can use CPFP (Child Pays For Parent) meaning (more or less) that your transaction has a high enough fee that a miner will also mine one of the incoming (parent) transactions. If you sent the transaction with a fee high enough that a miner will not want to include the parent then you have to wait. If you do not have RBF (replace by fee) set to on then once you broadcast that transaction it's out there, you cannot add a larger fee to get it confirmed more quickly. I'm on mobile so I can't see the images. If you give the TXID others can probably help more. -Dave

Here's the amount of bitcoin I tried to sent First transaction (Unconfirmed parent): 0.00051675 BTC Second transaction(Unconfirmed parent): 0.00047 BTC Third transaction(Unconfirmed): 0.00021227 BTC

The amount doesn't matter. Take the total fees of all of the transactions and divide by their size. For example: If TX 1 is paying 1000 satoshis in fees, 300 bytes, TX 2 2000 satoshis in fees, 400 bytes, TX 3 4000 satoshis in fees, 400 bytes. Then the effective TX fees across all of the transactions would be 7000/1100: 6.3 satoshis/byte. If the result of your calculation isn't at least 12 satoshis/byte then you probably won't get a confirmation so soon.

Yeah, when I tried increase the fees and set it further from my previous fee, it got changed I normally set the fee to 2 sat/b, and it takes around 1 hour to get confirmed. This is the first time I set the fees higher but still not getting confirmation in 2 days I haven't understood what you said 'Note that increasing the fee for your first transaction invalidates the later (child) transactions'

Transaction 1 (Unconfirmed parent) Fees   : 0.00002016 BTC (14.3 sat/vB) Size:   223 B Virtual Size: 142 vB Transaction 2 (Unconfirmed parent) Fees: 0.00000929 BTC (6.6 sat/vB) Size:   222 B Virtual Size: 141 vB Transaction 3 (Unconfirmed) Fees: 0.00001008 BTC (7.0 sat/vB) Size:   225 B Virtual Size: 144 vB

Assume that you have sent bitcoin from address A to address B and then sent the same coin from address B to address C. If you bump the fee of the transaction made from address A to address B, the transaction made from address B to address C becomes invalid. The total virtual size of your transactions is 427 vbyte and the total fee paid for three transactions is 3953 satoshi. This means that the effective fee rate is around 9 sat/vbyte. Your transactions are now around 45 vMB from the the tip and you shouldn't expect them to be confirmed soon. If you are in hurry, bump the fee of transaction 3. Currently, for a fast confirmation, the fee of around 20 sat/vbyte is required. Given the total size of your transactions are  427 vbytes, you should pay 8540 satoshi in total. You have paid 2945 satoshi for the first two transactions and you need to pay 5595 satoshi for the third transaction. So, you need to bump its fee to 38 sat/vbtye. Again, if you are not in hurry, just wait. Edit: I assumed that transaction 3 is spending the fund received in transaction 2 and transaction 2 is spending the fund received in transaction 1.

My wallet has enough funds to make the 3 transactions above, there's no ongoing pending transactions before I made any of the 3 payments. I don't understand why the 'Unconfirmed Parent' occurred

An input that you used is unconfirmed. Check the transaction details and you'll realize that if you check the inputs of the transactions with unconfirmed parent, at least one of the input is unconfirmed.

Yes, 'replace by fees' is on for all 3 transactions A few points I haven't understood: How do I do a CPFP? You said the fees need to be high enough so miner will mine one of the incoming (parent) transactions, but you mentioned miner will also not want to include the parent if my fee is high enough. I am a little confused

If you're on Electrum, right click on the unconfirmed transaction -> Child pays for parent -> Enter the fee you're willing to pay on "Fee for child:" and click "OK". You'll have to be a little bit more generous to encourage the miner include both. That's the high fee currently:

The first 2 transactions are marked as 'Unconfirmed Parent' and the third transaction is marked as 'Unconfirmed'. What's the difference, do they link with each other ? Initially, my wallet have enough fund to make these 3 payments, they should be coming out independently, don't understand why 2 of them are 'Unconfirmed Parent' I remember I made the third transaction first (the Unconfirmed one), I made the other 2 transactions (Unconfirmed Parent) after that, but not sure which one of the 2 I sent first.

When electrum says that a transaction has unconfirmed parent, it means that the fund which is being tried to send in that transaction has been received in a transaction which is still unconfirmed. Assume that you have sent bitcoin from address A to address B and then the same coin from address B to address C. As long as the transaction made from address A to address B is unconfirmed, the transaction made from address B to address C can't be confirmed. The two transactions that have been marked as "unconfirmed parent" can't be confirmed before confirmation of their parent. Can you share your transactions IDs? With sharing your transactions, you may hurt your privacy. But it won't have anything with your security.

I open the details for all 3 transactions, each has inputs and outputs There's one output in transaction 3 (Unconfirmed) is the same as one input in transaction 1(Unconfirmed Parent) There's one output in transaction 1 (Unconfirmed Parent) is the same as one input in transaction 2(Unconfirmed Parent) What are the relationship of these 3 transactions ?

Transaction 3 -> Transaction 1 -> Transaction 2. For transaction 1 to have a confirmation, transaction 3 has to confirm first. Afterwhich, for transaction 2 to confirm, transaction 1 has to have a confirmation first. What kind of transaction are these for; for a payment, a transfer to someone, a transfer to yourself? You can choose to create yet another transaction(which is mentioned above) or to have a replace-by-fee on transaction 3 which will invalidate transaction 1 and 2. Afterwhich, you can choose to create a new transaction that is similar to transaction 3 and continue with transaction 1 and 2. Replace-by-fee is cheaper than CPFP.

Right I made transaction 3 first, then 1 and 2 (not remember the order between 1 and 2) Is transaction 3 (Unconfirmed) the parent for transaction 1 and 2 (Unconfirmed Parent)

As mentioned by ranochigo, you have made the transaction 1 before transaction 2. If you want these transaction to be confirmed fast, you should bump the fee of transaction 2 Note that with bumping the fee of transaction 3, you invalidate transactions 1 and 2 and with bumping the fee of transaction 1, you invalidate transaction 2.