Rescuing Inactive Channel Funds in Zeus and Blixt Wallets 👀 \ stacker news ~bitcoin

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Rescuing Inactive Channel Funds in Zeus and Blixt Wallets 👀

2509 sats \ 10 comments \ @Natalia 3h bitcoin

I have two inactive channels in both Zeus and Blixt wallets on an old phone, and I've been wanting to solve this issue ( long time no use, and failed to sync ) for a while. I even thought about putting the 24 seed words into another phone so that I could force close them ( bad practice 🥲 ), but Darth told me to read the FAQ and not to do that.

I followed ALL the possible solutions mentioned in the FAQ:

Rescan wallet
Reset express graph sync on startup
Stop LND and delete Neutrino files
Changing Neutrino peers

But none of them worked!

I then went back to read one of my old articles. Many stackers mentioned chantools; I didn't have a chance to try it before, and it looks really complicated, and guess what! I noticed there is a built-in chantools feature in the Zeus wallet, so I was really excited to test it out.

Process

Go to Zeus Wallet: Menu - Embedded Node - Advanced - chantools - sweepremoteclosed

If it's for the Zeus wallet

Default to the current wallet's seed
Put an external Bitcoin address
Choose the fee
Start sweep
Broadcast TX

My first trial showed an error. Then I clicked the advanced setting - Recovery window set to 1000, then I tried it again, and it worked like magic!

If it's an external wallet (in my case, Blixt), the process is almost the same.

Choose an external wallet seed
Enter 24 seed words
Put an external Bitcoin address
Choose the fee
Start sweep
Broadcast TX

Now, both inactivated channel funds are sitting in my on-chain wallet. It felt really great to rescue my old sats from being stuck due to a syncing problem! Meanwhile, I have a friend dealing with banksters for his pension funds, with people passing the buck instead of trying to solve the problem.

Takeaway

Always keep your mobile node active
Keep learning and stay humble

I'm really amazed that still able to learn something new even though you thought you knew enough, which truly keeps one humble. 🫡

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111 sats \ 3 replies \ @DarthCoin 3h

Always keep your mobile node active

Good advice ! Even that you do not use it so often, is better to sync it at least every week and better just do a simple payment, even that is tto yourself. That will keep updated the channels status and peers (maybe) will not close your channels.

By keeping long time a LN node offline, the peers will consider them as zombies and will force close your channels. That could end up with funds in limbo and indeed, you have to use the sweep option with chantools.

Very good guide.

100 sats \ 2 replies \ @Natalia OP 3h

I was also amazed that the peer didn't close it.

It seems the chantools can solve so many issues, much wow! From missing funds to inactive channels.

0 sats \ 1 reply \ @DarthCoin 3h

chantools is a really powerful tool !

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @Natalia OP 3h

I'm really happy that Zeus wallet got it built in!

0 sats \ 4 replies \ @0xbitcoiner 3h

I'm glad you got it. Blocked sats are dead sats. What is a recovery window?

33 sats \ 3 replies \ @Natalia OP 3h

thanks! but 1 sat is 1 sat. 😂 I've been sitting here all afternoon trying to rescue them.

What is a recovery window?

" The number of keys to scan per derivation path. "

0 sats \ 2 replies \ @0xbitcoiner 3h

ah ok thanks. I remember you having this issue before, I think it was about having too many addresses, or am I mixing that up with something else?

22 sats \ 1 reply \ @Natalia OP 3h

It's different problems, this is the third issue in my journey 🥸

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @0xbitcoiner 3h

Yo, that gap limit.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @SHA256man 1h

i wrote a story about recovering sats from unmaintained neutrino wallet using chantools; the learning curve was steep, took me a while to gather all the information and skills;

#902500

great to see Zeus integrate chantools and make it more straightforward for stackers;