How to restore your node wallet (updated)

I’ve checked, same. First i was thinking because of the blockchain wasn’t sinchronized yet but now it is and still nothing. I’ve noticed in the amboss some of my peers already has closed channels successfuly. Where are going my sats then?

I’m with this guy… I can get logged on to my node via CMD with SSH. But after that I’m not sure how to manually copy the backup file on my PC.

So far:

1.) Open CMD
2.) ssh -t umbrel@umbrel.local
3.) enter PW to log on

… and that’s where I’m at

I’m an idiotbackup … DLing it from the dashboard works for me -

I was running into the same issue and found another post that helped. I pasted the part of the post that I found helpful and the link below. The lightbulb moment for me was that the SCP command should be run from your local machine, not after you have SSH’d into your node. I am in Windows and opened Powershell and ran the following command PRIOR to SSH’ing into the node. It will ask you for your node’s password after the command executes.

scp C:\Users\MAIRE\Downloads\my-umbrel-channels.backup umbrel@umbrel.local:/home/umbrel/umbrel/lnd/channel.backup

It seemed to work and showed that some data had been transferred. I then SSH’d into the node and ran this line.

cd ~/umbrel && docker-compose exec lnd lncli restorechanbackup --multi_file /data/.lnd/channel.backup

My channels are now closing. Hope this helps.

You can follow these instructions to recover a channel backup:

Step 1: Copy over the channel backup file from your computer to your Umbrel.

Open the “Terminal” app on Mac/Linux, or “PowerShell” on Windows and run this:

scp <path/to/your/channel/backup/file> umbrel@umbrel.local:/home/umbrel/umbrel/lnd/channel.backup

(Replace <path/to/your/channel/backup/file> with the exact path to channel backup file on your computer)

You will be asked for a password which will be your Umbrel dashboard password, or if you haven’t set one up yet, enter moneyprintergobrrr.

Step 2: Recover the channel backup in LND

Run

ssh -t umbrel@umbrel.local "cd ~/umbrel && docker-compose exec lnd lncli restorechanbackup --multi_file /data/.lnd/channel.backup"

Use the same password you used above.

After you run this, wait for 1 minute. You should now be able to see your channels being closed on http://umbrel.local/lightning .

Help Recovering Lightning Channel (Linux) - Support and Troubleshooting - Umbrel Community (getumbrel.com)

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Do you know how long it takes for the channels to get closed? So far I’m almost done with my recovery but some channels are still closing… six days now.

could take 40 blocks, 144 blocks or more. Just have patience.
Check in the troubleshooting manual how to see at which block the funds will be released.

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Sometimes just a simple restart release them back. Thank you Darth, your support here is priceless!

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Hi,
I’m unsure how to proceed with restoring the node.
The node is OK, except for the channel.db. The channel.db cannot be saved either. Also chantools brings an error “out of range”.
I have the channel.db.backup required for the recovery, it is the latest version. The node has not been online since (11 days).
Well I would prefer not to reload the blokchain, the transfer rates here are not good. and local copying is also estimated at 60 hours.
How do I replace or reset the channel.db? does it work automatically? Or will the channel.db be recreated if I delete it? Deleting would be the easiest. I would do it with the Bilxt method.
I’m not going to do it now and am waiting for your professional opinion and the approach you recommend.
PS: Above you would help, hence the message :grin:

Why are you so fixated in channel.db?
There are many other options before doing things that you don’t understand.
Read careful the ENTIRE guide, don’t cherry pick only what you think it’s easy for you (but is not).
The guide is structured in 8 parts, each situation for a specific case. So choose wisely and pay attention to details. It is explained STEP BY STEP.

Blixt Method worked perfect for me! Thank you very much! @DarthCoin

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I am glad you recover your funds and you learned something new with Bitcoin.
This is the way!

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Hello, I am restoring my node,since I moved it to other location. Meanwhile the blockchain is being downloaded, I’m trying to restore my channels backup following guide number 1. However, i see that my channels are still active (checking my node in 1ml).
I also see the following error on the logs: LndError: Unable to list channels.
It seems that my LND wallet is not created. Could anyone please help? it might be necessary to wait until bitcoin blockchain is 100% synced? thanks in advanceumbrel-1645367113863-debug.log (30.6 KB)

You are right! I’m a non tecky user, I spend a lot of time figuring out why I was gettting “no such file or directory error”.
So the solution that worked is what you are saying. I think that the guide 1 should be updated because it seems that you dont need to SSH first

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What do you think?
Can you use something that is not yet available?

Well, for bitcoin i understand that yes, but for lightning, no idea… but for your anwser, i understood yes! thanks

My node bricked and I was able to get my onchain fund via sparrow and I did try to use blixt to get access to my channels but they didn’t show up I probably don’t have the most up to date logs. I assume. My counterparties all forced closed already as well so I should have a sats in my wallet. How do i go about getting the host channel logs?

Seems that you didn’t read carefully the guide and you mixed up things.
Please pay attention to all details explained there, don’t cherry pick only what you think you like to do.

I tried resolving my “locked wallet” issue and even though I recieved a message saying it was successfully unlocked, my node showed “synchronizing” with no balance on-chain or on LN… So I went with option #3 of your wallet recovery guide, and now I have a few questions.

#1 I had 10 channels with “force closing” status in my blixt app for 3 days. Now 9 of them are “waiting for close” while one is still force closing. Is there any action I should/could take to speed this up or verify that everything is closing properly?

#2 Some of my channels aren’t showing up in blixt. I used the most up to date channel backup file I had, which I downloaded minutes before installing blixt. Is this normal?

#3 Can I reformat my hard drive and flash a new copy of Umbrel and start up a new node from scratch while I wait for this process to play out? Obviously I would create a completely new instance of Umbrel OS without using any prior seed phrases.

Thanks for the help/advice!

  1. Wait. Force closing takes time.
  2. Maybe were already closed, or were with 100% of the balance on peer side so you get nothing
  3. Yes. If you have the seed + channels.backup is all you need. Start a new fresh wallet, do not restore the old one anymore.
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