Unable to restore Bluewallet Lightning wallet

OK I have been running LND for a month or so now and have half a dozen Lightning wallets on there for the family. Kids like getting allowance in bitcoin and self custody and BlueWallet Lightning integration makes this easy. I have ~14 channels open and mostly standard setup (pi4 8gb, however I am running wifi on my node which was manual)

Each BlueWallet app is connected to the LND & electrum on the umbrel, payments work between the wallets without any issue. We backed up all the wallets and we have the LndHub://blablablawallet@blablablaumbrelnode.onion exports stored safely.

However since planning some family phone upgrades I wanted to test the wallet restore functionality, each time I attempt a restore I get an error pop up Import Error, Network Request Failed.

Now I am able to restore BlueWallet custodial lightning wallets in the app but not wallets hosted on my umbrel node. (I have tried LTE & via wifi to rule out my router) we are all on iPhones iOS 15 latest BlueWallet and latest umbrel 0.4.4

We also tried restarting LND by restarting the whole umbrel and this didn’t help either.

Anyone else tried this? I guess its either a BlueWallet issue with restoring wallets over TOR or a issue with TOR on the umbrel.

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I’m unable to install BlueWallet with my Umbrel user interface… maybe there’s a little snafu between the latest version of Umbrel and the BW app???

Try import the lndhub wallet backup into Zeus v 0.6 (integrated Tor) and will be just fine

I had zeus connected to the node anyway… not quite figured out how to connect these LND sub wallets yet… once I do I will feed back here

  1. LNbits LNDHUB wallet
  • Go to yourLNbits app in Umbrel
  • Create a wallet - save that page in your bookmarks !
  • Activate LNDHUB extension and create a LNDHUB wallet linked to the main one. You can have many lndhub wallets and each one with a main LNBits wallet
  • in LNDHUB extension scan that admin QR code with your Zeus app, by selecting “lndhub” in the first option of type of node/wallet. Select “use Tor”
  • Save that lndhub address in your backup password manager
  • Done, now you can use your new empty LNDHUB wallet

You can have multiple wallets in LNbits and switch between them in Options menu.

  1. Bluewallet LNDHUB wallet
  • Follow this guide BW LNDhub + Umbrel and create your LNDHub empty wallet first.
  • Save that lndhub address in your backup password manager
  • Go to point 1 and instead of scanning that QR code, just paste your BW LNDhub wallet address.
  • Select “use Tor” and save the wallet settings
  • Done, now you can have both LNDHUB wallets in your Zeus app and alternate them
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Hey DarthCoin,
Thanks for a comprehensive solution there. If I understand you correctly, you are suggesting rather than using the native LNDHub with BlueWallet app to use LNBits with LNDHub extension and use the zeus app.

I was assuming using the BlueWallet app and the BlueWallet LNDhub would be safer as they are built for each other, plus think BlueWallet is easy for the kids to pick up with a simpler UI.

I am 100% sure your solution will work, but I think that means there is still an underlying bug / config issue for anyone wanting to use BlueWallet natively with LNDhub. I think its that tor isn’t used on the import of the wallet but should be. Thoughts ?

Actually spent a bit more time on this today playing with LNBits with LNDHUB Extension enabled. I can import this into BlueWallet app however that imports a wallet with umbrel.local in the path which only works on wifi, when I access my umbrel via tor and create a wallet there and enable an LNBits wallet with LNDHUB I can’t add it to BlueWallet I get the same error as trying to import the ones in the initial post. I feel 90% sure the underlying issue is ability for BlueWallet to import a lightning wallet via tor on umbrel.

I also have tried manually starting the tor daemon in the app and that failed, maybe zeus is the safer option after all. :slight_smile:

Bluewallet is good, but still have these issues with Tor implementation.
Some phones works ok, some don’t. Some doesn’t connect at all.
And is NOT your node/Tor that is making problems, is BW Tor that is simply don’t connect.
That’s why I said, if you can create the BW lndhub wallet, I would use it in Zeus, which have better Tor integration.
Now, if you find a BW version with Tor or Orbot that works for you, you are lucky.

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I was chatting to BlueWallet support before posting here they advised that tor hard to debug… I will persist with them and in the mean time use something reliable here like zeus. I am even wondering if the LNbits web app is the answer. Its very simple.

Thanks for your assistance DarthCoin :slight_smile:

For the time being, I find LNbits LNDhub easier to manage, because you have also wallet management.
Works the same as BW LNDhub, no other secret magic, but the wallet is created and managed in the lnbits interface, not at wallet app interface. So you will have a better control when is about to recover a wallet (in case of lost phone etc)

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