[Webfunds-users] BUG REPORT

Sat Mar 25 12:06:00 2000

Craig Haynie wrote:
> 
> You might remember from my previous message that I ended up with two
> accounts called 'SnowDog' after I bought my first gram of DigiGold and did
> the UPDATE which successfully updated my WebFunds Wallet with this first
> gram.
> 
> Well, I created another account, along with my 2 accounts called SnowDog.
> This new account was called 'Craig'.
> 
> Then I moved my 1 gram of gold into the new account Craig by doing a direct
> payment from SnowDog, (I believe). The move worked just fine.
> 
> Then I deleted both of those SnowDog accounts by first deleting the sub
> accounts, then the actual accounts.
> 
> Then I re-added one account, called SnowDog, again.

All sounds good...

> Then I went to the 'Craig' account, where the 1 gram of gold was sitting,
> and I made a payment to 'SnowDog'. I did NOT do a direct payment, rather the
> other kind where you have to copy it, (I believe). I made the payment for
> 0.5 grams. Then I went to the new account SnowDog and did a deposit. The
> deposit reported that it was SUCCESSFUL.

This bit I'm unsure of.  The deposit really doesn't report success,
it just sometimes grumbles about failure.  (Plenty of potential for
improvement there.)

> Then I did an update and the
> account 'Craig' was properly reduced by 0.5 grams, but the new account
> SnowDog was NOT updated with the 0.5 grams.

You will probably notice that there are two balances for each account.
On the left is receipted, and on the right is predicted.  The right
balance tries to tell you how much you have available by subtracting
pending payments from the sum of all receipts you have.

Now, I would guess that what you have done is somehow lost / failed the
payment.  So Payee has no payment, reports no money.

Payer however, still wrote a payment, and accounts for that.  It will
in the current version continue to account for it until it is cancelled.

So, check the Payer History, and look for pending payments (they say
PEN... in the status column).  If you find any, cancel them.  Then
check whether the balances are back in line.

You may have to click on the balances to kick them into recalculating
(another bug).

> Currently I'm out 0.5 grams and do not know how to recover it, if it is
> recoverable.

From the ground up, the system is designed to not lose money.  However,
that doesn't stop the client software from getting confused about what
it's got:  the never-lose-money architecture is somewhat more complex
then simple accounting with human recovery, so we are still ironing out
bugs in WebFunds in its accounts presentation.

So, aside from marketing statements, it is definately recoverable, in
principle.

> I am under the opinion this is a software bug.

Depends.  Let us know how the cancel goes.

There are bugs there:

   * Deposit needs to be more informative
   * History (sort of) needs to automatically cancel expired payments
   * Some sort of audit/reconciliation button is needed that offers
     all payments for cancellation now...
   * balance needs to update when cancels are done

which is plenty, methinks :)

iang