I have a BTC lighting channel that's DISCONNECTED. I've never closed a BTC lightning channel before and want to know how to recover the unspent funds. I've looked far and wide, but can't find anything useful that explains this. I see "Force-close channel" as an option, but is that safe to use? And if so, how long does it usually take to recover those funds?

Background: I've had an open BTC lightning channel with coingate for almost two years that I've been making a monthly subscription payment from. Electrum hasn't been running for probably a week. In the meantime coingate has apparently quietly withdrawn from using the lightning network--the option to pay invoices with the lightning wallet has been removed from their interface, they haven't responded to queries about it (so far), and I guess they've closed their end of lightning channels (or whatever they've done has caused an electrum indication of DISCONNECTED on my end).

Thank you for your help,
Chris

[practical]

All,

Can anyone recommend any practical presentations for using bitcoin that I could provide to my friends or family?

Can anyone recommend any practical presentations for using the lightning network for me?

The following is context for what I'm asking.

I've been using bitcoin for less than two years, and I've only ever made payments to two different recipients. Yesterday I used bitcoin with the lightning network for the first time. I've watched a number of videos and read a whole bunch of articles and tutorials on the lightning network before I was comfortable enough to open my first lightning channel. I did the same before I bought my first bitcoin. I felt that I didn't really have any understanding of bitcoin until I bought and started using it. They say a picture is worth a thousand words, but it seems that practical experience with using bitcoin is so much more effective for understanding it than the sum of all I'd read, seen, and heard before I'd experienced it.

I feel like a video or account of someone actually using bitcoin for everday practical things would go a long way towards helping people understand it better and become more comfortable with starting to use it. Much of what's out there approaches it from an abstract perspective. I understand that these are abstract concepts, and there's a place for those types of instructions and tutorials just as there's a place for the more technical presentations, but I'm hoping to find something that's more practical.

As an example, related to the lightning network I'm sure most of you are familiar with the presentations that talk about Alice, Bob, and Carol. Most of what I've seen use these stories, and this method was really good as it gave me a very high level understanding of the basics quickly. But it seems like this abstract description steers the discussion towards the very high level and somehow avoids the practical altogether. I have many questions I'd like answered that I can't seem to find the answers to. I won't list these questions in this post, but I feel like some practical, real-world (i.e. not in a lab) presentation might cover some of those questions or perhaps make obvious why some of them may be moot. I also think such a casual presentation could give others enough confidence to take the steps necessary for their first experience.

Thank you for your consideration,
cdoug