Namecoin name_new fee for already taken I'm very new to Namecoin and tried to to register a domain with name_new d/&lt;name&gt;. I received the tx and rand response which seemed normal. Later (after 12+ blocks) when I did firstupdate and it responded with an error (using windows and I think I had escape issues):

error: {"code":-1,"message":"name_firstupdate &lt;name&gt; &lt;rand&gt; [&lt;tx&gt;] &lt;value&gt;\nPerf
orm a first update after a name_new reservation.\nNote that the first update wil
l go into a block 12 blocks after the name_new, at the soonest."}


So I corrected the escape issues and reissued firstupdate:

error: {"code":-1,"message":"this name is already active"}


And then thinking maybe the original firstupdate took, escape issues and all, I tried an update:

error: {"code":-1,"message":"this coin is not in your wallet"}


I then did what I should have done first and looked up the domain name and found it exists and will expire in 188 days.

So... my questions are: 

1) Why did the name_new not inform me it was taken? The Wiki implies using name_new checks for existance:


  Or check if your domain if free with the command line (the command
  line don't do the conversion) :

./namecoind name_new d/&lt;name&gt;



2) Does the .01 fee for name_new just disappear?
Maybe a little bit late, but for everybody who is interested, the easy command to check if a name exists is simply:

&gt; ./namecoind name_show d/&lt;name&gt;


It will return some informations should the name already be registered, or it will return 

error: {"code":-4,"message":"failed to read from name DB"}


if the name doesn't exist.