Failed to pay a resident... but balance changed....

[MikasaCC]

when I pay the my friend (as a land owner to me) the tenancy fee via "pay the resident", it just pop up the message "you failed to pay xxxx" but in transaction history it's listed as a successful transaction and my balance has changed. So if my friend didn't receive that, how to get support to solve this?

[Alwin Alcott]

9 minutes ago, MikasaCC said:

when I pay the my friend (as a land owner to me) the tenancy fee via "pay the resident", it just pop up the message "you failed to pay xxxx" but in transaction history it's listed as a successful transaction and my balance has changed. So if my friend didn't receive that, how to get support to solve this?

if your transactionhistory tells you it was successfull, ánd mentions your friends name, it might perhaps be your friend having the problem..... ór not telling the real truth.
Let your friend send a ticket?.. your side looks ok if it's on your history.

[Rolig Loon]

Check your Transaction History one more time just to be sure that you sent the money to the right person. If your friend usually uses a Display Name, you might have accidentally sent money to someone with a login name that is the same as your friend's Display Name.   It's unlikely, but it can happen. 

[Alyona Su]

2 hours ago, MikasaCC said:

when I pay the my friend (as a land owner to me) the tenancy fee via "pay the resident", it just pop up the message "you failed to pay xxxx" but in transaction history it's listed as a successful transaction and my balance has changed. So if my friend didn't receive that, how to get support to solve this?

ALWAYS open a persons PROFILE and pay them through that profile. ALWAYS.

[bunboxmomo]

Necrobumping this thread because this is currently the top spot on google search results for this error and it's worth clarifying the above answers are misunderstanding the issue so people looking for help on this issue do not come to this thread and begin to question their own perceptions of what's happening.

The above comments from Rolig Loon and Alyona Su have incorrectly asumed this was a case of the OP paying the wrong user by mistake or some other error that's occured between the OP making a payment and the recipient of the resident recieving the money.

This is not the case.

The error OP is reporting here is that the toast notifcation itself from Second Life shown in the viewer is You failed to pay [Resident Name] [Amount]. This is not the result of any trickery or some other error after the initial payment attempt itself failing, but rather the actual initial payment event itself has failed but the linden amount has been deducted from the payee.

This is also not a client side mismatch from this transaction itself between linden balance and reported linden balance as refreshing the linden balance does not fix this either.

Transaction history does not also report this transaction, neither in a successful or failed state, instead, quite literally, there is no record in any way shape or form that any transaction even occured to begin with.

Upon investigation, the issue appears to have been caused by a prior transaction on the current user session in the viewer in the following scenario:

1. User begins with L$ Balance of value N
2. User recieves a linden transaction of L$ amount X, updating L$ balance server side and client side to L$ (N+X).
3. In rapid succession, user makes a Linden transaction of L$ Y, updating L$ balance server side to L$ ((N+X)-Y), however the client side balance remains at L$ (N+X)
4. User attempts a transaction of L$ amount Z, where Z is greater than ((N+X)-Y) but less then (N+X), the server rejects this transaction as the server reports insufficient funds, but the client instead throws the error "You failed to pay [Resident Name] L$Z"
5. The standard payment sound occurs and the client side linden balance is updated to match the server side value, but this is not presented as such to the user, instead the client appears to and sounds as if, a payment has occured.

Admittedly, this is the first time I've ever seen this issue myself in about 10 years of Second Life, so the mistake is understandable but this is indeed a real issue that can occur, especially seeing as I just encountered it myself.

If the above doesn't help explain what has happened, see below for an explanation and suggested actions to trace the "missing" funds.

For the purpose of allaying any anxiety that may exist in those searching up this issue, your balance has not actually been updated, but rather your client was falsely reporting your balance to begin with. This has occured because in your current user session you have made a transaction rapidly after being the recipient of another transaction (we're talking almost instantly here). The result is that transaction went through successfully, but your balance was not updated as such on the viewer. This error has occured because you have attempted to make a payment of an amount that is greater than your current balance. Your transaction history will not report this failed transaction because as aforementioned, it hasn't actually happened. However, you should look through your transaction history at your recent transactions as the L$ amount has not actually been eaten, but rather were used in a prior transaction you've made. It is likely the case you've actually already paid the transaction you are currently attempting to make or alternatively you have a scripted object that's been granted permissions to manage your wallet and made a scripted payment upon recieving funds earlier, this rapid update causing a desync between your client's reported balance and your actual balance. Hope this helps!

Edited January 22, 2021 by bunboxmomo
Adding a summary of the issue for those who are not familiar with tracing code logic