Blockstack error "Could not broadcast transaction"

Support
#1

Hello,

When running:

$ blockstack register MYID.id

I get the following response:

Registering MYID.id will cost 0.00416 BTC. Continue? (y/n): y
{
“error”: “Couldn’t broadcast transaction. You can try again.”
}

Note: MYID is not the actual name I am trying to register, just using it here as a placeholder. :smile:

I have enough bitcoins to pay, as is shown when I run ‘blockstack balance’. I have tried waiting a while and trying again but I get the same response. Here is what I see when I run whois and lookup:

$ blockstack whois MYID.id
{
“registered”: false
}

$ blockstack lookup MYID.id
{
“error”: “MYID.id is not registered”
}

Any help?

#2

Hi Usman,

I’d recommend restarting the background daemon processes. Here is how you can do this:

$ ps -A | grep registrar.rpc_daemon

You’ll get the PID number of two processes. Let’s say the numbers were 1801 and 1808. You can then do:

$ kill -9 1801
$ kill -9 1808

You can start using the CLI and it’ll automatically restart the daemon processes.

Let’s see if this solves the issue. Otherwise, we’ll need to get more detailed debug logs to see what’s going on.

#3

Hello muneeb,

Thank you for your reply, I killed the two daemon processes, and then ran the command again, but I still got the same error. Where does blockstack store its log files?

I am on OSX 10.11.3 if that helps.

#4

I just checked the status of the remote server and everything is normal. I also tried registering a new name from a freshly installed CLI version and that also worked:

{
    "message": "The name has been queued up for registration and will take a few hours to go through. You can check on the status at any time by running 'blockstack info'.",
    "success": true
}```

Looks like there is something going on at your installation. We don't have explicit debugging going to a file currently (this is only the first release and we're adding new features). Are you comfortable with editing Python code?
#5

I have installed blockstack on my linux machine (Fedora 20 Linux 64bit) and I am getting the same error (as on my OSX machine). So I think I am doing something wrong.

The only thing config. wise that I am changing, is the value of “payment_addresses” in file wallet.json to my bitcoin address.

I can edit/change the python code if you like.

#6

Oh oh, yeah that’s the issue then. That value is not meant to be changed manually. We should make that clearer in instructions. We currently do not support importing private keys into the CLI wallet (see this issue). So you need to

(a) start a new wallet
(b) send some small amount of bitcoins to it
© start registering names using your wallet

I think what is going on is that the CLI is trying to sign transactions from the payment address you entered in wallet.json but the wallet does not have access to the private key of that address.

#7

Great! I followed your steps and the registration worked.

Thanks for all you help. :grinning:

1 Like
#8

Awesome to hear! Let us know if you have any other questions.

#9

I have a similar issue but I am not sure I have a registrar.rpc_daemon.

I did a pip install of blockstack but never really manually start any background daemon (nor is explained on the guide). So naturally there is no daemon. Doing the ps -A |grep registrar.rpc_daemon turned out with no return.

#10

The daemon starts automatically and terminates automatically as well (if it’s not used for sometime). Normally, you never need to think about the daemon at all. If it’s not running and you issue a new register/update/transfer command the CLI will first start the daemon.

Can you post the output of a register command? And we’ll add more documentation about this under troubleshooting. Thanks!

#11

Well here is some register examples:
$ blockstack register …id
Registering …id will cost 0.00041 BTC. Continue? (y/n): y
{
“error”: “Couldn’t broadcast transaction. You can try again.”
}
$ blockstack balance
{
“addresses”: [
{
“address”: “…”,
“balance”: 0.001
}
],
“total_balance”: 0.001
}

#12

Are there any pending transactions on the payment address you’re using? You can go to https://live.blockcypher.com to check if there are any 0 confirmation transactions where your payment address is used.

We’re working on more helpful error messages in the next version.

Also, please join http://chat.blockstack.org and chat in #server or DM me directly and happy to help you with debugging the issue.

#13

I’ll check the chat out, but yeah I dont think this are pending transaction, the installation is brand new and the transfer to fund the newly created wallet had more than 6 confirmations last night (up to 80 today). As you can see it shows a balance alright.

#14

New user here. I just had the same problem. I have sufficient balance but I get the same error message. Did you get a solution to this problem?

#15

@fluidvoice can you kindly start a Github issue on https://github.com/blockstack/blockstack-client/issues and we’ll try to debug this with you? Thanks!

#16

This issue was resolved by @muneeb on #Slack. The reason was my balance was too low. I added a couple bucks and it worked. @muneeb said will be fixed in later release.

1 Like