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Transaction Creation Failed when trying to send Namecoin

Posted: Thu Jun 01, 2017 1:18 am
by Ron
When I try to send Namecoin using Namecoin-qt 0.3.80 on Mac, I get the error "Transaction Creation Failed."

I receive mined Namecoin payments just fine every day. But I can't send.

It shouldn't matter, but I am trying to send NMC to Shapeshift.io.

Re: Transaction Creation Failed when trying to send Namecoin

Posted: Thu Jun 01, 2017 6:58 am
by JoeSmith
Thanks for posting! You beat me to it! I have the same exact problem. I tried Googling it and all I found was people saying that we should ask in the IRC channel #Namecoin on Freenode IRC. I haven't used IRC in about 30 years, but thought I would give it a try. The IRC channel seemed very dead. I asked the same question about 5 or 6 times over the course of 24 hours, hoping someone would come onto the IRC channel and help. Some guy named Jeremy Rand started screaming and cussing at me, accusing me of spamming. He also called me a moron for expecting any help for something I hadn't paid for. I said that we pay fees when sending and my problem is that I can't send. He started screaming at me about being on the development team and I should have looked that up, so I would know who he is, as if that was supposed to impress me. He couldn't help with the problem. I remained relatively polite, never stooping to cussing at him and calling him names as he was doing to me. Then he kicked me off of the IRC channel. I expect this post will be deleted by him too. He was very rude. I looked up the Namecoin developers and sure enough, it says he is the Lead Application Engineer and Community Organizer. I guess not fixing a bug in the software is expert engineering and kicking people off the IRC channel for seeking help is community organizing.

Very sad. :( I was thinking of steering 20 TH/s of my miners to Namecoin. I don't think so now.

Re: Transaction Creation Failed when trying to send Namecoin

Posted: Thu Jun 01, 2017 11:00 am
by cassini
Namecoin-Qt 0.3.80 is an outdated client version. It is still useable, though it creates an increasing number of undesired side effects caused by recent changes to Bitcoin's and Namecoin's block header structure.
The "Transaction creation failed" error looks like it's the result of a former wallet transaction that is still pending, maybe because of the "0.3.80 Transactions Not Confirmed" effect.

If you post or send me some more details I'll have a look at the issue and try to find a solution.
Click "Help" > "Debug Window", in the Debug Window click the "Console" tab and enter

Code: Select all

getinfo
listtransactions
listunspent
and copy-and-paste the outputs of these three commands at pastebin.com or privatebin.net or similar. Post the resulting link here or send it to me in a forum's private message,
or via Bitmessage to BM-2D8MU2Jo6Y2UT8ks44BnbRW3fZ8Cc7MNvt

Re: Transaction Creation Failed when trying to send Namecoin

Posted: Fri Jun 02, 2017 5:56 am
by Ron
Thank you very much Cassini!

It won't allow me to send private messages, because my account here is too new, I guess.

Is there another Namecoin wallet that is better to use? I use a Mac.

Here is the link you requested. I hope it helps!

https://pastebin.com/GDXjNMuP

Thanks again!

Re: Transaction Creation Failed when trying to send Namecoin

Posted: Fri Jun 02, 2017 8:05 pm
by cassini
Wow, which mining pool are you using? They send out the NMC earnings in hundreds of ridiculously small amounts over time. A first quick look at your data lets me guess this is the very problem. In other words: if you want to squeeze all these 438 inputs (as seen in your listunspent data) in one single transaction then Namecoin-Qt has to apply a pretty high fee, possibly more than the ~ 0.9 NMC remaining in your wallet after creating the 45.0 NMC transaction. Well, this is my first wild guess. I'll have a closer look at it tomorrow.
Ron wrote:Is there another Namecoin wallet that is better to use? I use a Mac.
Namecoin Core is strongly recommended as it is based on the current Bitcoin Core code. On a Mac it is currently only available by building it from source, though.
In this case, however, even an up-to-date Namecoin Core client may have problems creating this huge piece of transaction data. Same issue would occur in Bitcoin in a similar situation, I suspect. More on this after my closer inspection.

Re: Transaction Creation Failed when trying to send Namecoin

Posted: Fri Jun 02, 2017 9:54 pm
by Ron
Those payouts are from F2Pool. They pay out small amounts of Namecoin for bitcoin you mine. I have an Antminer S9 mining on that pool. I tried sending a smaller amount, thinking that maybe there wasn't enough left for the fee, but it didn't work either. I thought that the error in that case should tell me that I didn't have enough to pay the fee.

I am not really sure how to build something from source. If I were to attempt that, would it import my NMC from Namecoin-qt? I'll be honest, so much of this confuses me. For instance, I don't see how the number or size of payments makes a difference to my being able to use the NMC collected. I guess I picture it in my mind as a fragmented hard drive. It seems to me the entire block chain would get more and more fragmented until nothing could be sent, because the fees would grow beyond the value of the currency itself. I don't know, it's just not something I understand.

Re: Transaction Creation Failed when trying to send Namecoin

Posted: Mon Jun 05, 2017 2:16 am
by biolizard89
JoeSmith wrote:Thanks for posting! You beat me to it! I have the same exact problem. I tried Googling it and all I found was people saying that we should ask in the IRC channel #Namecoin on Freenode IRC. I haven't used IRC in about 30 years, but thought I would give it a try. The IRC channel seemed very dead. I asked the same question about 5 or 6 times over the course of 24 hours, hoping someone would come onto the IRC channel and help. Some guy named Jeremy Rand started screaming and cussing at me, accusing me of spamming. He also called me a moron for expecting any help for something I hadn't paid for. I said that we pay fees when sending and my problem is that I can't send. He started screaming at me about being on the development team and I should have looked that up, so I would know who he is, as if that was supposed to impress me. He couldn't help with the problem. I remained relatively polite, never stooping to cussing at him and calling him names as he was doing to me. Then he kicked me off of the IRC channel. I expect this post will be deleted by him too. He was very rude. I looked up the Namecoin developers and sure enough, it says he is the Lead Application Engineer and Community Organizer. I guess not fixing a bug in the software is expert engineering and kicking people off the IRC channel for seeking help is community organizing.

Very sad. :( I was thinking of steering 20 TH/s of my miners to Namecoin. I don't think so now.
And this, kids, is what apparently happens to the honesty level of people now that we have a President in the U.S. who proudly proclaims that "Alternative Facts" are a thing. Don't be this guy.

Re: Transaction Creation Failed when trying to send Namecoin

Posted: Mon Jun 05, 2017 2:32 am
by biolizard89
Ron wrote:Those payouts are from F2Pool. They pay out small amounts of Namecoin for bitcoin you mine. I have an Antminer S9 mining on that pool. I tried sending a smaller amount, thinking that maybe there wasn't enough left for the fee, but it didn't work either. I thought that the error in that case should tell me that I didn't have enough to pay the fee.
Older versions of Bitcoin didn't have as high-quality error reporting. Namecoin Core is likely to show significantly more informative error messages.
Ron wrote:I am not really sure how to build something from source. If I were to attempt that, would it import my NMC from Namecoin-qt?
The instructions to build Namecoin Core from source on macOS are at https://github.com/namecoin/namecoin-co ... ild-osx.md . The issue that's currently preventing us from distributing macOS binaries of Namecoin Core is https://github.com/namecoin/namecoin-core/issues/167 .
Ron wrote:I'll be honest, so much of this confuses me. For instance, I don't see how the number or size of payments makes a difference to my being able to use the NMC collected. I guess I picture it in my mind as a fragmented hard drive. It seems to me the entire block chain would get more and more fragmented until nothing could be sent, because the fees would grow beyond the value of the currency itself. I don't know, it's just not something I understand.
Bitcoin (and Namecoin by extension) charges a transaction fee per byte (this is an anti-spam mechanism). A larger number of inputs (or outputs) increases the transaction size, and therefore increases the required fee. If the required fee exceeds the value of the inputs, then you wouldn't be able to get the transaction accepted by the network.

@Cassini, is this an issue we should bring up with F2Pool?

Re: Transaction Creation Failed when trying to send Namecoin

Posted: Mon Jun 05, 2017 4:10 am
by Ron
cassini wrote:
Wow, which mining pool are you using? They send out the NMC earnings in hundreds of ridiculously small amounts over time. A first quick look at your data lets me guess this is the very problem. In other words: if you want to squeeze all these 438 inputs (as seen in your listunspent data) in one single transaction then Namecoin-Qt has to apply a pretty high fee, possibly more than the ~ 0.9 NMC remaining in your wallet after creating the 45.0 NMC transaction. Well, this is my first wild guess. I'll have a closer look at it tomorrow.
Ron wrote:Is there another Namecoin wallet that is better to use? I use a Mac.
Namecoin Core is strongly recommended as it is based on the current Bitcoin Core code. On a Mac it is currently only available by building it from source, though.
In this case, however, even an up-to-date Namecoin Core client may have problems creating this huge piece of transaction data. Same issue would occur in Bitcoin in a similar situation, I suspect. More on this after my closer inspection.
I have a bit more information, which may help or may just be of interest. I tried lowering the amount I was sending dramatically. I wanted to send 45 NMC. I tried sending 20 and go the same error and again at 15. However, when I tried sending only 10 NMC, I got a different result. It sent the transaction, but with a warning that the transaction was over the size limit. I am not sure what that means, but I paid the fee it asked for and the transaction went through.

So, I will send 4 transactions of 10 BTC. I can't send the other 5 for now, because the site I am sending to has a minimum of of 6.74 NMC that you can send.

Re: Transaction Creation Failed when trying to send Namecoin

Posted: Mon Jun 05, 2017 4:21 am
by biolizard89
Ron wrote:
cassini wrote:
Wow, which mining pool are you using? They send out the NMC earnings in hundreds of ridiculously small amounts over time. A first quick look at your data lets me guess this is the very problem. In other words: if you want to squeeze all these 438 inputs (as seen in your listunspent data) in one single transaction then Namecoin-Qt has to apply a pretty high fee, possibly more than the ~ 0.9 NMC remaining in your wallet after creating the 45.0 NMC transaction. Well, this is my first wild guess. I'll have a closer look at it tomorrow.
Ron wrote:Is there another Namecoin wallet that is better to use? I use a Mac.
Namecoin Core is strongly recommended as it is based on the current Bitcoin Core code. On a Mac it is currently only available by building it from source, though.
In this case, however, even an up-to-date Namecoin Core client may have problems creating this huge piece of transaction data. Same issue would occur in Bitcoin in a similar situation, I suspect. More on this after my closer inspection.
I have a bit more information, which may help or may just be of interest. I tried lowering the amount I was sending dramatically. I wanted to send 45 NMC. I tried sending 20 and go the same error and again at 15. However, when I tried sending only 10 NMC, I got a different result. It sent the transaction, but with a warning that the transaction was over the size limit. I am not sure what that means, but I paid the fee it asked for and the transaction went through.

So, I will send 4 transactions of 10 BTC. I can't send the other 5 for now, because the site I am sending to has a minimum of of 6.74 NMC that you can send.
Thanks for the follow-up info. In the interest of caution, I suggest waiting to make sure that the first transaction confirms before you send additional funds in this method. If you choose not to wait, it's probably possible to recover a hypothetical stuck transaction via CPFP (child pays for parent), but doing so might be tricky without Namecoin Core.

Even if this workaround is effective for your purposes, it doesn't negate the benefit of getting Namecoin Core binaries released to macOS users, and also doesn't negate the concerns Cassini expressed about F2Pool's transaction amounts. But, if it works for your purposes, then I guess there's not much need for you to worry about such issues.

Cheers.