Hi all, i just started a LND node a few days ago and want to become a routing node. I have two open channels now with two peers. I have outbound liquidity, but started with no inbound liquidity. I did some little payments and have small inbound liquidity. But untill now not a single routing has taken place. So i presumably need more inbound liquidity.
I wanted to do a loop-out in lightning terminal, but get the same error message everytime i try:
Unable to Perform Loop Out
rpc error: code = Unknown desc = cannot initiate swap: payment tracking failed: payment isn’t initiated. consider removing pending token file if error persists. use ‘listauth’ command to find out token file name
Becoming a routing node means having something like dozens and dozens of large channels very carefully chosen to fill gaps between different areas of the lightning network. It means having lower fees than large competitors, and having a faster response time, something that is unlikely to be the case over Tor.
You mention you have just a little inbound liquidity. If you don’t have multiples of 100k sats inbound and outbound on channels around 5m+ then it’s unlikely you’ll ever route much.
Finally the message you mention is so specific to Lightning Terminal, it would probably make more sense to ask their community. It’s not a very specific error, and looks like the intent to make a payment didn’t even make it as far as LND itself, though you could check the logs there.
Since you’re only getting started, you might like to use something like boltz.exchange while you figure out this issue.