bitcoin-qt v0.8.3 doesn't remember changing fee to non-zero #2894

I'm able to change fee to non-zero, click apply, and use client normally... but the setting does not persist across restarts, defaulting back to (hardcoded?) zero.

Not sure if this was a default config file, but I think this was overriding my settings every time I restarted bitcoin-qt:

noirc=1
maxconnections=300
server=0
paytxfee=0
allowreceivebyip=0

I deleted the file, and restarted.

After doing so, Bitcoin-qt re-initialized with a different fee value of 0.00100000 BTC (some hardcoded default?)

No new bitcoin.conf was created (automatically, manually, or otherwise)

Value of 0.00100000 BTC (non-zero) now persists against client restarts...

I changed the value to 0.01000000 BTC (10x higher) and then restarted.

No new bitcoin.conf was recreated, value upon restart is the new, 0.01000000 BTC (10x higher)

Bug should perhaps read:

Changes to the value of "fee" which are configured by the user via GUI settings in bitcoin-qt ... are ignored if a value for "fee" is configured via in bitcoin.conf (default conf, or otherwise)

The config file and command-line arguments always override GUI settings. This is sort of a weird situation, as the gui config is lower priority than bitcoin.conf. The result is indeed that if you try to change things from the GUI, which are already overridden, they will remain so. Perhaps they should become disabled in the GUI or something.

Thanks for confirming...

Just now, I just wiped relevant registry keys containing my settings for bitcoin (NT 6.1 x64 AKA windows 7) and did a fresh install because I was curious if a new .conf would be created.

Apparently 0.8.3 does not automatically create a bitcoin.conf file for the windows build. (not sure what the origins were... that one was generic looking enough that I couldn't say)

... I probably pulled it in when restoring a wallet backup during the upgrade to 0.8.3 (which seems plausible, as the file time on the conf was from april 2013)

Now I'm just wishing I had realized how great the gap was between the bootstrap.dat torrent and block 252138 ... client is still chewing on bootstrap.dat / 7.82 GB (8,402,191,958 bytes) / "Importing blocks from disk"

Neither Bitcoin-Qt nor bitcoind ever create a bitcoin.conf file. I'm closing this issue; it would be nice if Bitcoin-Qt kept you from shooting yourself in the foot this way, but that it is so low priority I don't think it will ever be fixed.