Lightning Channel in "Closing" Status for days, can't do anything else.. Please help!

[khmu007]

Using Umbrel Home, I closed a lightning channel (LC) on the Lightning Node App. The LC status says "Closing", I see all the info and my Sats in the LC, but my Lightning wallet is decreased to 0 Sats and it hasn't showed up in my BTC wallet. I can't do anything else to the LC. Is there a way to find the "Closing" LC on the RTL app so I can see what's going on? How can I find the transaction ID to look up in the Mempool, because I don't see one? Any advice is appreciated, thank you.

[saubyk]

Hi @khmu007 couple of questions:

1. Was it a cooperative close of a force close? Do you know if the channel was inactive/active when you closed it?
2. What do you see when you log into RTL on the Peers/Channel page? You can get to it by clicking on Peers/Channels menu under Lightning. You should look at the Pending or the Closed tab

[khmu007]

No, it's still in "Closing" status.

[saubyk]

Basically, it's uninstalling, then reinstalling the lightning node using your 24 recovery words, and selecting the time your node was last online. The funds could take up to 2 days to show up in your BTC wallet, but it never did

Did you attempt a recovery process for your node? The status flag ChanStatusRestored indicates that channel funds are getting restored from the backup

Another thing you can try is reach out (if possible) to your peer and ask them to force close this channel

[khmu007]

Yes I did, using the Automatic Channel Recover method, but the Sats still aren't showing up in my BTC wallet and it's been 3 days since I did it. With the status flag saying "ChanStatusRestored", does that means it'll show up in my BTC wallet eventually?

Also, what do I give/tell my peer so they can force close this channel? The channel point, my node ID, etc.

[saubyk]

I wish you didn't attempt to recover the node, as I was hoping to figure out a way to broadcast the channel close transaction. And I did advise you to just restart.

Anyway, If the status has been ChanStatusRestored for the last 3 days, then only thing left to do is contact your peer, give them your pubkey and request them to force close the channel/s they have with your node

If none of this works, you can work with chantools to recover your funds: https://github.com/lightninglabs/chantools
But I don't have expertise in that, and you'll have to seek help (in case you need it) separately.

Hope this helps

[khmu007]

Ok, will do.. Thanks for trying and helping out, I really appreciate it. Is the pubkey my Node ID?

[saubyk]

Ok, will do.. Thanks for trying and helping out, I really appreciate it. Is the pubkey my Node ID?

yeah pubkey is the node id