How are connecting the old drive for the transfer? The Pi has power issues on the USB ports that can cause the transfer to fail. It’s best to use a drive enclosure that has it’s own power source, or a powered USB hub.
I did skip that step. Thanks for picking that up.
I have since tried with including that step, and things seem to work, but at about 75% of recovery, I get IO error and it fails.
I have started over about 5 times and every time it crashes out at some point before 100%.
I have decided to setup from scratch on the new drive, and try to restore my channels from a backup of the old drive.
I have now got the new drive working and it is 100% synched with bitcoin blockchain, but now I cant seem to restore my previous channels.
If I go to the restore backup option, and choose the folder where my backups were saved, I get a new error: “Network Folder does not contain a valid Start9 Server backup.”
This is even though there is a Start9 img file in the folder. (startos-0.3.5.1-39de098_raspberrypi.img)
What am I doing wrong? Please help.
I do also have a file called channel-all.bak which I am pretty sure is a backup of my lightning channels.
Would it be better to simply install and get all the services up to date (Bitcoin Core, LND, Electrs), and then try to restore just the lightning channels from the backup? Is that possible?
Its only the lightning wallet and channels I really care about. So maybe I should try that. What would you do?
I would transfer the system to non-Raspberry Pi hardware. The Pi is no longer considered adequate to run Bitcoin, and associated services. You’re going to increasingly have problems with it going forward. This unit is still perfectly suited to run other lighter weight services such as Vaultwarden, and even Nextcloud.
If you want to proceed with upgrading your existing hardware despite my warning, make sure the server is working in it’s original configuration first. And then start anew with this guide here.
Read through the guide in it’s entirety first, to familiarize yourself with the steps and to make sure you have what you’ll need. Ask any questions, and for any needed clarification before starting. Then follow the steps meticulously, one at a time. If something looks off, or you get stuck, don’t move on to the next step until we straighten it out. You may find live support more appropriate. Feel free to register here:
One thing to note. The Pi has power issues on the USB ports that may cause the transfer to fail. For best results, you’ll want the external adapter/enclosure to have it’s own power source. Or use a USB hub that has it’s own power source.
Lightning channels are sensitive to channel state. An inconstant state can cause total loss of funds within then channel. As a matter of caution, channels are closed during a restore process, and sats are sent back to the on-chain wallet.
This also illustrates why it’s important to wipe the old drive after transferring to a new drive. If the old system is ever booted, it may broadcast a channel state that is no longer current, potentially causing loss of funds.
I dont have that option…I have a raspberry Pi that was working fine, I just wanted to put a bigger drive on.
I now have a bigger drive but none of the data, channels etc.
I want to just restore the channels and lightning node. I was not able to transfer because I kept getting an error…maybe because of power problems on the pi.
So now I have setup the new drive as a new node and want to run again as before with the bigger drive and get back my channels and especially the wallet and balances.
If I cant restore the channels, I want to get the wallet balances if the channels get closed. If channels are closed during restore process…then maybe I must just put the old drive back on, sync it, and close everything down from there since its impossible to get things to just transfer to the bigger drive as it was before.
To upgrade Pi via a transfer thus preserving your lightning channels use this guide, but if you can supply your USB adapter with its own power it will more likely succeed. https://docs.start9.com/0.3.5.x/misc-guides/upgrade-pi
To restore from a backup, thus closing all lightning channels and receiving your funds back on chain use this guide Start9 | Backup Restore
But either way, if you plan on running Bitcoin services including a lightning node, you really should consider upgrading your hardware as the Pi will not work much longer if at all
Thanks for the advice. I have put the old drive on again, synced it, and closed all the channels. I also took the LND wallet seed and set it up on my PC so that I have access to the bitcoin.
I have now shut that node down for good (keeping the drive safe for a while just in case I need it again), and have the new node drive running again and synced.
I will keep running the pi node until it no longer works…
It took a few days, not sure exactly how long, but maybe its got to do with internet speed…its a Pi 4 with 8GB RAM so not sure.
In the future I want to take an old laptop and turn it into a Start9 node and maybe just move the hard drive from the Pi to the laptop once its running the software…is that possible or would I need to re-download the blockchain? The old laptop has a small 300GB internal hard drive that I want to boot off
StartOS supports migration during the initial setup using the transfer flow. This allows you to move the hard drive from the Raspberry Pi to the laptop and let StartOS transfer the configuration and blockchain data, saving you from having to re-download the blockchain.
However, keep in mind that a 300GB internal hard drive is not enough to run a Bitcoin node. The Bitcoin blockchain alone exceeds 500GB and is constantly growing. You’ll need at least a 1TB drive to accommodate the blockchain and leave room for other services you may want to use.
The best approach would be to upgrade your internal drive to at least 2TB and transfer the data. This will give you better performance and more room for growth.