I have been recently playing with the testnet (using bitcoin-qt -testnet). I have been able to mine a few coins and do some test transfers, but I have found some problems:
- The coins appear sent, but a second, receiving client never saw them.
- When launching the client some days later the mined coins (and all the blockchain data) have vanished.
I have read we are now in the third testnet. I have checked my .bitcoin directory and there are two tesnet directories, one named testnet and a second called testnet3.
Am I connecting to two different networks?
I thought there was just a testnet, but now I have my doubts. If there are many testnets or if the testnet can change, how can I make sure I can still check my old transactions?