I sincerely apologize to the channel partners of my node (MindlinerTre) for the mess. I had to panic shut down and roll back the VM (just a few minutes ... and finally understood that you cannot roll back a lightning server even a minute). 60 channels lost. #noderunner
Discussion
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What happens to bitcoin on those closed channels
Goes back to on-chain on your node or on the other person’s node. Depending where the liquidity is
Offf that would suck if it didn't come back to you.. for non node runners this is why i advocate stop parking btc in lightning if not gonna buy anything 🤷🏾
You always get back whats on your side of the channel. For a 1M sat channel for example. If my side has 100k sats and the other side 900k sats. I get back 100k the other guy gets 900k. Works well
If someone got a hold of a backup of your channel and tried to restore it while you’re offline, they could try and get your sats by closing the channel. But that’s why you setup watchtowers with your peers to protect you while you’re offline. (keep in mind thats pretty unlikely)
I spent quite some time reading about lightning. It is a fabulous system. Ad-hoc establishment of cryptographically secured payment routes is non-trivial, to say the least. I can imagine that the network will grow 1000x over the following years (and so will channel opening costs). So for people who have an interest in working on censorship-free and open payment rails for everybody who wants to use it: now is a good time to start (I know we can't have 8 bn lightning channels - not worried about that).
ugh, sounds ugly marius. what was the problem?
Mismanagement on my side. I was in the process of hardening my node (I should have done _all_ of this at the beginning) and (don't tell anyone) locked myself out. Luckily, I had a snapshot of the VM just a few minutes back and decided to shut down and roll back. At this point, I still had the real-time backup file (lightningd.sqlite3). I then started lightning, assuming it would either go with the most recent version or refuse to start because the DB and backup DB are not identical, at which point I would have duplicated the backup DB. Instead, lightning started, complained bitterly ( **BROKEN** lightningd: backtrace) but continued operation. I thought it would heal itself. I assume I should have duplicated the backup file _before_ starting lightningd. I am not worried about the funds that will come back (minus fees).
Ok got it. Damn it’s such a learning process🫣glad you managed it utterly quick!🙌
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One of the survivors \o/. We learn from mistake, you are going to be better.