Channel recovery

[NEEDcreations]

Good morning,

First off I'll start by saying that I'm not very technical. I'm on Umbrel.
My node got corrupted so I had to initiate channel recovery back in April. Most of my channels closed and I've recovered most of my funds, but there are still 3 channels shown in the umbrel UI that say "Closing." I'm not sure why they haven't closed yet. Some have suggested that I bump the fee, and I know I need the channel close txn to do that, but I do not know how to get the channel close txn. Can you offer me any more help to recover the funds from these 3 channels? Thank you.

[guggero]

Can you post the output of lncli pendingchannels please?

[NEEDcreations]

I actually have been in contact with this node owner through Twitter in the past. They told me back in June that they recovered the node from backup. Was I supposed to re-initiate channel recovery after that in order to get the funds? Because I didn't know to do that. It looks like their node is down again as you say? I will reach back out to them in DM. What should I say?

[guggero]

You should have force closed the channel back then. Because when you know another node doesn't have its data anymore, any channel you have with them is at risk, in case you also lose your data.

If you are still able to contact them, you both need to go through the zombie recovery process.

[NEEDcreations]

ok so moving forward, if this other node (https://1ml.com/node/02af08e15f8164a698145e7ce50b7fd6062c49cff5eac54c40e1e04673f32f13c1)
can come back online, and I initiate a force close, then I should get the funds back then? Or is that node the only one able to initiate the force close? How does it work? If I can do it, can you explain what commands I need force close the channel please? Thank you.

[NEEDcreations]

just following up on this message above. thanks again @guggero

[guggero]

They told me back in June that they recovered the node from backup

and I initiate a force close, then I should get the funds back then?

No. Force close only works if one node has their database intact.

If I can do it, can you explain what commands

Did you read the document I linked above?

[NEEDcreations]

I also have a couple other questions (thank you very much for the help by the way). Can I be sure that the recovery process I already initiated was "complete" in that all my channels were closed? I had 60 something channels and I'm pretty sure I recovered most of my funds already, I'm just not positive it's 100%. The reason I ask is because I had the option to input a static channel backup file, and I wasn't sure if I was using the most recent file from when my channels were still open. Would that matter? I'm wondering if I have any lost funds still out there. How can I verify/confirm this? Did running "pendingchannels" do the job in confirming what I'm asking?

Additionally, my Lightning node app via Umbrel is showing that I have about 60,000 sats sitting on chain. But when I go to withdraw them to an address, I get an error from umbrel that says: "Unable to send coins, unable to broadcast sweep transaction: transaction rejected: output already spent." Why is umbrel showing me an on chain balance if the output was spent? I don't understand and I've never had that problem before withdrawing in this way.

[guggero]

You can't be sure, other than checking public explorers (which will only show public channels). See https://1ml.com/node/02af08e15f8164a698145e7ce50b7fd6062c49cff5eac54c40e1e04673f32f13c1

But if you used a backup file that was created before one or some of the channels were opened, then those won't be included. If you closed channels after the backup file was created, that's irrelevant, the node will recognize that.

If you see a ghost balance, that probably means your wallet got out of sync somehow. You can try re-scanning by setting reset-wallet-transactions=true in your config and restarting your node (this will take quite a long time).

[NEEDcreations]

Hi @guggero, I am revisiting this issue because I still have not been able to recover the funds from that zombie channel aaccbd8d638c445daaffc0d31aaf794ccc4be491169834c127a14ee5d84a0297:1

I have recently made contact with my channel partner and he gave me his seed, channel-all.bak file and lnd-rescue file. Do you think it'd be possible now to work out recovery for myself? I tried to follow your chantools documentation but it's a bit over my head. Would you be willing to give me some help with it all if I supply you with the necessary info?

• Phil

[guggero]

Hi. If you have the seed from the loveisbitcoin node, then yes, you can recover the channel yourself.
I created a web page that helps you with assembling the commands you need to run on your computer. But you still need to be able to install chantools on your Linux or Windows computer and be able to execute commands in the command line.

If you can handle that, then you can follow along on https://guggero.github.io/chantools/doc/command-generator.html
Just go to the bottom where it says "Select a command", then click on "Zombie recovery" (last option).

You can leave all the "Global options" as they are.
And I've already done the first step for you, as that info is in the issue text above. If you download
this file: match-0296f520-02af08e1.json, you can directly click on "Step 2: Prepare keys".

In the "Match file", you enter the full path to the location you saved/downloaded the above file to.
And the rest of the steps and values should be more or less self-explanatory.

And whenever it says "both peers", it means you run the command both with your node's seed and then also with the other node's seed.

That's the easiest it can be made at the moment, hope you'll manage.

[NEEDcreations]

hey @guggero!! With the help my friend Derek, we have recovered my sats from this channel!! The website you built was super helpful. Thank you so very much for taking the time to help me. Are you on X? I was going to make a post documenting the experience and I'd love to tag you if you want.

Again, thank you so much. Bitcoiners are awesome. God bless.

[guggero]

That's great to hear! Thanks for letting me know. Yes, same username there as here.