Bitcoind in test network doesn't display transactions

Question

Hello i'm setting up the bitcoin-core daemon, i use version 160300 ( but it is same problem with newer version ).

I have made config like this:

testnet.conf

server=1
listen=50
listenonion=0
testnet=1
bind=127.0.0.1:18333
proxy=127.0.0.1:9050
rpcuser=bob
rpcpassword=12345
rpcport=18332
port=18333

datadir=/home/testnet/
pid=/home/testnet/.pid

then i run bitcoind:

bitcoind -daemon -conf="~/btc/testnet.conf"

Now i got me some address, using: bitcoin-cli --rpcuser="bob" --rpcpassword="12345" --rpcport=18332 getnewaddress "test_user"

Result is 2NF9YinW7mqpUGy1GySD2xEV11uVPbQggbb

Then i go to this site https://coinfaucet.eu/en/btc-testnet/

I enter this address 2NF9YinW7mqpUGy1GySD2xEV11uVPbQggbb and press send, it gives me back transaction id, this is it here https://live.blockcypher.com/btc-testnet/tx/d2aa744b33e60f959217cf2ae3852f8826bb2d977839b4a2be0a958aec6a9984/

But i do now:

bitcoin-cli --rpcuser="bob" --rpcpassword="12345" --rpcport=18332 listtransactions  

and in result get this:

[
]

No incoming transactions. getbalance returns 0

Can someone help. what is going on, do i need to mine blocks or something to get that transaction ? Or should i wait more for bitcoind to work ?

UPDATE:

The output of getblockcount is 1381543 and it seems to increase when i send getblockcount again

The output of getblockchaininfo is:

{
  "chain": "test",
  "blocks": 1381659,
  "headers": 1580289,
  "bestblockhash": "0000000000000095a7c30336ab1c9f12260b5a8fb2deb6dde59ab8c372376a64",
  "difficulty": 17349304.92883517,
  "mediantime": 1533662288,
  "verificationprogress": 0.8876421741980308,
  "initialblockdownload": true,
  "chainwork": "00000000000000000000000000000000000000000000008b05062dc0c9f9c122",
  "size_on_disk": 15923153327,
  "pruned": false,
  "softforks": [
    {
      "id": "bip34",
      "version": 2,
      "reject": {
        "status": true
      }
    },
    {
      "id": "bip66",
      "version": 3,
      "reject": {
        "status": true
      }
    },
    {
      "id": "bip65",
      "version": 4,
      "reject": {
        "status": true
      }
    }
  ],
  "bip9_softforks": {
    "csv": {
      "status": "active",
      "startTime": 1456790400,
      "timeout": 1493596800,
      "since": 770112
    },
    "segwit": {
      "status": "active",
      "startTime": 1462060800,
      "timeout": 1493596800,
      "since": 834624
    }
  },
  "warnings": ""
}

Answer 1

Bitcoin Core has not yet fully synced the testnet blockchain. You can see this in the getblockchaininfo output, it has "initialblockdownload": true and the number of blocks is less than the number of headers (headers are synced first so the number of headers indicates the number of blocks that need to be synced).

You should see your balance once your node has fully synced.

Answer 2

Sounds like you did not give bitcoind time to "sync", no other explanation comes to mind. Starting bitcoin-qt may be more obvious.