Setting up my LN node on my Start9... issues

348 sats \ 14 comments \ @kenobi_ninja31 6 Oct lightning

Ok, I am relatively technical (computer savvy, work in tech) and have a pretty solid understanding of Bitcoin and the LN. I am running my own node, Start9 OS, and running Core Lightning. I've funded my wallet and opened a channel with Olympus Zeus (350k sats for starters) via RTL. I have this one and only channel open, with no receive liquidity. Ok...so to my issues - I am trying to SEND sats to one of my custodial LN wallets, just to test things out. No matter how many times I try and how many sats I try to send (500-50k) it always fails. Is it safe to assume Olympus' node could find a path to someone like Strike or Kraken?

What am I doing wrong here? I have not had the time to dig into the specifics of node management, private vs clearnet, etc. (I live in FL, prepping for another big storm) and just want to be able to send some sats out of my self-custodial wallet... that's it. However, I do not want to have to open several 500k+ sat channels, since I do not need that really. If the answer is the LN is not yet optimized for a user like me, then so be it. But it can't be this difficult... if it's this hard for me I can only imagine how hard it would be for a non-technical normie.

I am open to ideas, suggestions and resources that are relevant and useful. Thank you!

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10 sats \ 0 replies \ @sudocarlos 6 Oct

Add other peers to your node and see if that helps. Alby hub does this with the ldk node and adds these peers (i think, some might be due to channels i opened)

0364913d18a19c671bb36dd04d6ad5be0fe8f2894314c36a9db3f03c2d414907e1
03864ef025fde8fb587d989186ce6a4a186895ee44a926bfc370e2c366597a3f8f
038a9e56512ec98da2b5789761f7af8f280baf98a09282360cd6ff1381b5e889bf
027100442c3b79f606f80f322d98d499eefcb060599efc5d4ecb00209c2cb54190
035e4ff418fc8b5554c5d9eea66396c227bd429a3251c8cbc711002ba215bfc226
031b301307574bbe9b9ac7b79cbe1700e31e544513eae0b5d7497483083f99e581
02fcc5bfc48e83f06c04483a2985e1c390cb0f35058baa875ad2053858b8e80dbd

21 sats \ 1 reply \ @Wumbo 7 Oct

My personal recommendation:

Sometimes you think you have open a channel to the "right" node but you get the wrong one. Some wallet providers have several lighting nodes and it is easy to open channel to wrong one. Example: https://amboss.space/search?term=dm9sdGFnZQ==

You end up thinking it should be a simply payment but ends up with many hops and "large" fees.

Lets simplify the troubleshooting (as you might do in your tech job).

What I would do in your spot is open a channel to a know node that you will end "wanting" in the future. Stacker News Node is a good one (https://amboss.space/node/03cc1d0932bb99b0697f5b5e5961b83ab7fd66f1efc4c9f5c7bad66c1bcbe78f02)

Once the channel is open and has several confirmations try funding your SN wallet with some sats.

This test will end being just your node and SN node. So simple payment path.

Let me know how it goes and if you have any questions.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @kenobi_ninja31 OP 7 Oct

Good recommendation, thank you!

5 sats \ 0 replies \ @DarthCoin 7 Oct

There are many things you didn't mention here, to be able to give you the correct diagnostic:

you open a private or public channel
how did you open it? buying it from https://lsps1.olympusln.com/ or simply searching Olympus in any LN explorer and open a channel towards that node with your onchain funds? Usually Olympus is offering also inbound liquidity when you buy a channel and you can customize your outbound liquidity too.
being a new node, the first channel open take time until is well known in the whole LN graph. So have more patience or open 1-2 more channels with different peers.
do not open channels lower than 500k if is private channel and lower than 3M sats if is public. Read my guides to find out why.

If the answer is the LN is not yet optimized for a user like me

I think is the way around: YOU are the one not prepared for LN. You need to read more and test more. https://darth-coin.github.io/nodes/nodes.html

49 sats \ 4 replies \ @SwapMarket 6 Oct

CLN has issues with pathfinding. It does not learn from failures. LND is a better implementation imo.

65 sats \ 2 replies \ @kenobi_ninja31 OP 6 Oct

I will probably spin up LND and use it as well. However, my application requires the use of BOLT12 which LND does not yet support natively. Any idea when they will develop support for BOLT12?

0 sats \ 1 reply \ @SwapMarket 6 Oct

Not soon ( 0.19

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @028559d218 7 Oct

My understanding is that LND will support BOLT12 first quarter next year.

Source? Zeus Wallet developers on NOSTR

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @nikotsla 7 Oct

This is a good place to look for information, if you run CLN https://github.com/ElementsProject/lightning/issues/7180 maybe try to pay with "Renepay" instead of the default implementation.

22 sats \ 1 reply \ @mo 6 Oct

Has the channel opening be confirmed? I mean did you verify the transaction in the mempool? It may need 3 or more confirmations.

If yes, you have 3 options:

send smaller amounts instead of a big chunk
increase fee, as for big amounts there are less routes and routing those is generally more expensive
stop giving away your sats to exchanges

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @kenobi_ninja31 OP 6 Oct

The first two bullets make total sense. Not entirely sure about the 3rd bullet though…

21 sats \ 0 replies \ @Satosora 6 Oct

@DarthCoin Ask this guy, he really knows a lot about running nodes.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @nikotsla 7 Oct

Use https://docs.corelightning.org/reference/lightning-renepay instead of https://docs.corelightning.org/reference/lightning-pay that could help, a lot.

Source: https://github.com/ElementsProject/lightning/issues/7180

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @BlokchainB 6 Oct

I had the same exact issues with CLN on start 9. It just didn’t work well. I switched to LND and had no issues since