I noticed that the majority of my lightning payments fail despite increasing the fee. It’s been like this over the last two months.
Investigating this matter, I found an inactive channel in the output of listpeerchannels:
{
"peer_id": "03864ef025fde8fb587d989186ce6a4a186895ee44a926bfc370e2c366597a3f8f",
"peer_connected": true,
"reestablished": false,
"channel_type": {
"bits": [
12,
22,
46
],
"names": [
"static_remotekey/even",
"anchors/even",
"scid_alias/even"
]
},
"updates": {
"local": {
"htlc_minimum_msat": 1,
"htlc_maximum_msat": 7549746000,
"cltv_expiry_delta": 34,
"fee_base_msat": 1000,
"fee_proportional_millionths": 10
}
},
"last_stable_connection": 1721499560,
"state": "AWAITING_UNILATERAL",
"scratch_txid": "991419d10eb2f1f01596e68eac18dafcb34b24ff7a03e21936a739c4128cd460",
"last_tx_fee_msat": 2888000, (my note: Saturday, 20 July 2024 18:19:20 GMT)
"lost_state": false,
"feerate": {
"perkw": 2276,
"perkb": 9104
},
"direction": 0,
"channel_id": "881895f720246c99b6d4d9278510d37370344239e2e235f5e61c792ec495ea0e",
"funding_txid": "0eea95c42e791ce6f535e2e23942347073d3108527d9d4b6996c2420f7951888",
"funding_outnum": 0,
"close_to_addr": "bc1pv5jzxk7h60ea3wnk4a92yxjufdyj7689fc936yn0ln5d7q4ykwnsc46cgf",
"close_to": "51206524235bd7d3f3d8ba76af4aa21a5c4b492f68e54e0b1d126ffce8df02a4b3a7",
"private": true,
"opener": "local",
"alias": {
"local": "740013x9434280x28179"
},
"features": [
"option_static_remotekey",
"option_anchors_zero_fee_htlc_tx",
"option_anchors",
"option_scid_alias"
],
"funding": {
"local_funds_msat": 16777215000,
"remote_funds_msat": 0,
"pushed_msat": 0
},
"to_us_msat": 16777215000,
"min_to_us_msat": 16777215000,
"max_to_us_msat": 16777215000,
"total_msat": 16777215000,
"fee_base_msat": 1000,
"fee_proportional_millionths": 10,
"dust_limit_msat": 546000,
"max_total_htlc_in_msat": 18446744073709551615,
"their_reserve_msat": 167772000,
"our_reserve_msat": 167772000,
"spendable_msat": 16602238000,
"receivable_msat": 0,
"minimum_htlc_in_msat": 0,
"minimum_htlc_out_msat": 1,
"maximum_htlc_out_msat": 7549746000,
"their_to_self_delay": 144,
"our_to_self_delay": 720,
"max_accepted_htlcs": 30,
"state_changes": [
{
"timestamp": "2024-07-20T18:20:19.887Z",
"old_state": "CHANNELD_AWAITING_LOCKIN",
"new_state": "AWAITING_UNILATERAL",
"cause": "protocol",
"message": "channeld: received ERROR channel 881895f720246c99b6d4d9278510d37370344239e2e235f5e61c792ec495ea0e: unknown channel"
}
],
"status": [
"Loaded from database"
],
"in_payments_offered": 0,
"in_offered_msat": 0,
"in_payments_fulfilled": 0,
"in_fulfilled_msat": 0,
"out_payments_offered": 0,
"out_offered_msat": 0,
"out_payments_fulfilled": 0,
"out_fulfilled_msat": 0,
"htlcs": []
}
I have no use of this channel and so I tried to close it,
sudo lightning-cli close 881895f720246c99b6d4d9278510d37370344239e2e235f5e61c792ec495ea0e returned
{
"code": -32602,
"message": "id: Channel id not found: invalid token (see logs for details)"
}
Over the last months I attempted to benefit from low fees by opening
lightning channels paying 2-3 sats/vbyte in fees. I did it over poor, intermittent connectivity, and
I was frequently shutting down my node while the funding transaction was still unconfirmed.
I have private channels, 6 with ACINQ’s node and 1 with ALLNICE | TORQ.co.
From what I gathered from the values of last_stable_connection and timestamp (of the last state change)
the channel was force-closed before it was locked-in with six confirmations. Yet,
it has been a week since the inactive channel and there
is no history of any transaction involving close_to_addr.
1. What does status Loaded from database mean and why is the channel referred to as unknown?
2. Can it be that my node was flagged by ACINQ node after this force-closure was triggered.
Might this the cause of the failure of my payments?
3. Should I do anything about it? How much sats am I going to loose with this
force-closure?
4. How could I prevent similar issues from happening in the future?










