Chainlink node: What to do when transactions are pending?

Question

I have a chainlink node, and there are transactions that seem to be stuck. How can I fix pending outgoing confirmations?

Answer 1

Most often, you did not fund your chainlink node account with gas. Go to your configration and grab the ACCOUNT_ADDRESS and send ETH to that address.

The second most common is that you're using an outdated version of the chainlink node. Please use 0.9.4 or higher.

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For pending Outgoing Confirmations:

1. You did not fund your chainlink node account with gas.
2. The ETH chain is clogged up.
3. Your MIN_OUTGOING_CONFIRMATIONS variable in your .env is too high (it gets set to a default)

If you see pending transactions at your oracle contracts address then it is likely #2. If you don't see any, it's likely #1.

If #1, you can just send some ETH to your node and it should be fine. You can find your node's address ACCOUNT_ADDRESS in the configuration page of your Chainlink GUI.

If #2 you can either:

1. You can delete the pending transactions from your database and hope everything clears up (This is an OK solution, hopefully smart contracts have a retry parameter for dealing with you data. But if your node stays stuck, then NO one will be able to get data. )

DELETE FROM job_runs WHERE status = 'pending_outgoing_confirmations';
DELETE FROM tx_attempts WHERE confirmed = 'f';

2. If you need those transactions to go through, you can rebroadcast the transactions with more ETH gas to push them through faster. This is a little trickier to do. The Chainlink nodes have a built in system to push transactions through without you having to do anything, so hopefully they will kick in.

If #3 Set or change your MIN_OUTGOING_CONFIRMATIONS and restart the node.

For Pending Incoming Confirmations:

This is likely due to network congestion or you're working on a network that doesn't have many transactions. An easy fix is to reduce the number of incoming confirmations and restart your node.

In your .env file, add or set the following:

MIN_INCOMING_CONFIRMATIONS=0