So man its been a while since I have used my embassy. I believe its on a very old version of the OS, additionally I have bitcoin stuck in old lightning channels.
I used LND and RTL for my nodes.
For some reason when trying to close these channels to pull the bitcoin back to on-chain I am getting 500 errors.
Looking up the error it seems to be a 2022 bug with btcd. A fix went out in version 0.15.2 of LND to fix it. My LND is on 0.13.3.
I would assume I need to upgrade the LND app, but I can’t reach my marketplace to begin that process. I am getting a registry is unreachable message. I would appreciate any help anyone can offer to rescue this bitcoin.
Also heads up I don’t have the seed to the LND and I don’t think I am able to get it at this point bc I probably saved it at creation. I do have my channel backup file though.
Hi. There are a couple of steps that you’d have to do, but we should be able to help you out. First, could you please confirm what version of StartOS you are running?
It would seem that since you are on LND 0.13.3 that you are on StartOS 0.2.x but we’d need for you to confirm this to make sure how you go about the updating process.
Generally you would need to migrate to StartOS 0.3.x before you’d be able to get updates for LND.
It would seem that this won’t be a straight forward migration as there have been major updates between the version you have and where we are now. So this isn’t a simple reflash, but will require a hardware upgrade.
I have asked the Senior Techs & Devs about this in the meantime to see what is the best way forward and if they have any recommendations to try first.
That said, depending on how much money it is that you have stuck in the channels, you might prefer to just let it be lost as the cost in time and money to do the hardware update might not be worth it.
Thanks for the help. It’s a decent amount that I think would be worth saving. I have a Lenovo Thinkcentre M190Q running ubuntu server, I will wait for direction from techs and devs but just making it known that I do have some hardware around that might be able to help. My only real concern is with keeping everything intact since I don’t have the LND seed.
Definitely a pleasure. I will send this information on the the Senior Techs & Devs.
They aren’t really on shift right now so it might take some time & subsequently be one of them that reach out to you directly on here instead of me, if I don’t manage to get you an answer before my shift is up.
This is a difficult position for us. It is nontrivial (time-wise) to walk through the migration because it is necessary to run through several versions of StartOS/LND. We have not supported the v0.2 series for a very long time now, and the further out of date it gets, the more of our time it takes to assist users that have not touched their devices in over a year (on this timeline, we expect anyone with funds they care seriously about to have reached out by now). We are a small team, so this will always take time away from progressing Start9/StartOS forward.
How significant are the funds? Are you comfortable working through this on your own if I give you some pointers?
I understand your position entirely, I work in the bitcoin space and (free)support like this is incredibly cumbersome. Its about 2.5M sats stuck in 3 separate channels where its all a local balance.
I would be willing to try my hand at this solo with some steps and pointers. Also would be willing to split the amount rescued, though I know even that may not justify the time being invested by you guys.
Edit: I am pretty technical, so if you think your pointers can get me there, I love a good challenge.
Lastly, I wonder what would happen if the channels were force closed by the entities they are open with. If the sats would go back to my on-chain balance, I know the on-chain transactions out of RTL are somehow still operational (otherwise it would have been a lot uglier amount lost). Not sure how force closures actually look though and if its possible to coordinate with the entities to do this. The lightning channels are with PayWithMoon, WoS, and Milky Way. And just noting, not expecting you know all of the answers to this stuff but just trying to provide max amount of info, plus throw around ideas.
Sorry this got buried - The LND bug ceased the ability of the node to sync the chain at all. This means that you’ll need to get onto the next version in order to save the onchain funds, even if the channels have been closed. You can follow the flows to update to v030 and the earliest version of LND available there, and then do step-wise updates of LND until you get on a version that isn’t completely broken and withdraw the funds.