Stuck trades

Three statuses are transitional and should last seconds:

Status	Normally means
PENDING_ESCROW	The seller's lock transaction is being submitted
RELEASING	The release transaction is being submitted
REFUNDING	The refund transaction is being submitted

Why a trade can get stuck

If Horizon times out or the server restarts mid-operation, Nexlm doesn't know whether the Stellar transaction landed. It deliberately leaves the trade in its transitional state rather than guessing.

Automatic reconciliation

A background job runs every minute and picks up trades that have been in one of these states for more than 2 minutes. Stellar transactions are built with a 60-second timeout, so after that point they can no longer land.

For each trade it reads the escrow account and its transaction history:

Status	On-chain finding	Action
PENDING_ESCROW	Escrow exists with a lock transaction	Marks the trade ESCROW_LOCKED and starts the payment window
PENDING_ESCROW	Escrow account doesn't exist	Cancels with reason ESCROW_FAILED and reopens the order
RELEASING	Escrow merged, release transaction found	Completes the trade with that hash
REFUNDING	Escrow merged, refund transaction found	Cancels the trade with that hash
RELEASING / REFUNDING	Escrow still exists	Restores PAID (if the buyer had paid) or ESCROW_LOCKED so it can be retried

When to step in

If a trade stays stuck for more than ~5 minutes, check the server logs for Trade reconciliation failed or Escrow closed without a recognised transaction, then inspect the escrow address on Stellar Expert. See the developer page on reconciliation for details.