Was it just me or did anyone else experience slow transactions and some congestion on Eth on Friday? (27.09.19)
This guide is for people who have stuck transactions that seem to be pending for ages. 👍🏼
Whilst we do get heavy loads on the network from time to time it is more likely your not using the right amount of gas by not using the Fast transaction speed.
I realise a lot of new people are coming into this space, and might not know the best practice, when it comes to sending Ethereum across the blockchain to exchanges, apps and other people. 🤔
The rule of thumb is - Always use FAST and you will be fine.
In this guide I will explain how to:
- Avoid a pending transaction
- What to do if you have a pending transaction
- What you can’t do. If your transaction is actually confirmed, you will just have to wait it out...
- To Prevent Pending Transactions - Edit and Use FAST 💨
All Eth transactions default to the - Average speed setting. As shown here. This is usually good enough if you are happy for it to go through in 2 - 24 hours. If you want it faster just pay a few cents more and get it done in a few minutes.
So how do you send it - Fast?
When your using an app or website to send your Eth to your wallet, it’s different than if you want to send it directly from your wallet to somebody else, but not by much.
So let’s do it one step at a time, the first way I will show you is:
- App to Your MetaMask or similar Wallet
Click on withdraw from app or website
It should open up your wallet, it will do this automatically on MetaMask as it usually is an extension of the browser your using, or the app/ website is open in the MetaMask browser 👍🏼
Click on Edit in the top left NOT confirm yet...
Then select FAST
Then click NEXT or SAVE
Then click CONFIRM 👍🏼
Now you have will have a fast 💨 easy withdrawal from the App or website to your wallet and not be pending for hours.
Next Way!
- Buying or Sending from your MetaMask Wallet
This is even easier, as you will see. Open up your wallet.
Click Send
Then click on FAST 💨
As AVERAGE the default isn’t that quick.
Then click NEXT
Then click CONFIRM or SEND
PRESTO! Nice fast and never congested for very long at all, super smooth ETH transaction ✌🏼👍🏼
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- What to do if you have a pending transaction
People send out transactions with the default gas price of AVERAGE or god forbid SLOW, which might stay pending for multiple hours.
This is a Major Pain In the Ass with Metamask, as we now have to export your private key and import it into EtherDelta/MyEtherWallet to follow the guide.
Ledger nano should work or a similar hard wallet device, as long as you are using a private key 🔑
The following Quick Guide to Over Writing your Transaction has been condensed from the reddit thread-
https://www.reddit.com/r/EtherDelta/comments/72tctz/guide_how_to_cancel_a_pending_transaction/
And has some additional comments that should help you out 😁👍🏼
Quick Guide to Overwriting your transaction with higher gas price
Go to Etherscan and find your earliest pending transaction. Note the nonce and your from address.
Go to https://myetherwallet.com, and select the offline transaction tab.
Enter your from address.
Send 0 ETH to any address of your choosing.
For gas limit, use 21000.
For gas price, use a higher gas price than what you used before. 30 gwei should be good.
Note: 30 gwei is 30000000000 wei (that's 9 more zeros after the 30).
Check ethgasstation.info for current gas estimates, as 30 might be too low/high at a certain moment.
Enter the nonce you got from Etherscan.
Import your private key.
Sign the transaction.
Send the transaction. It should overwrite your previous one.
Repeat as necessary to overwrite other pending transactions with low gas prices.
If THIS doesn’t work we can do a RETRY or CANCEL
RETRY:
Nonce
Every ethereum transaction has a number called the nonce (found at the bottom of the transaction details on etherscan). This number is the amount of transactions made by your address, and each transaction should have a nonce higer than the previous.
Stay with me, just go slow 👍🏼
You can create multiple pending transactions when clicking multiple orders. If you refresh the website, it will reset the nonce to the last confirmed transaction.
Now you get an error about pending transactions when trying to send a new transaction, as there already is a pending transaction with the same nonce.
If you manage to send out a transaction with the same nonce but with a higher gas price, there is a chance that the new transaction will replace the old one.
All you will end up doing is paying for the gas ⛽️ on the old transaction as well. You WONT SEND IT TWICE!
After refreshing and raising the gas price, perform the same trade/deposit/withdraw on you tried to do earlier. Within around 30 seconds you should see a new transaction hash on etherscan instead of the old one. Now we just hope that this confirms faster than the previous one. 🤞🏼
CANCEL
If You want to get rid of the pending transaction, but do not care about the contents of that transaction anymore. This is basically the same trick as the retry, we raise the gas price, but here we just want to send out any transaction quickly.
The easiest and cheapest transaction to make is to send a transaction of 0 ETH to your own wallet.
A withdraw is cheaper if you have anything to withdraw? Within like 30 seconds you should see a new transaction hash on etherscan instead of the old one.
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I hope that helped!?
Sometime you learn the hard way and just have to wait for the network to quieten right down. However if your still stuck and frustrated check out this Reddit link and follow some of the comments and replies people had in there 🙌🏼👍🏼
Peace! ✌🏼☮️