Stuck Bitcoin transaction

[Angula77]

Hello,

I've been trying the lightning network recently with my own node. Unfortunately I experienced a power outage which turned off my node and my channel with ACINQ has been 'Remote Force Closed'. Now I have a pending on-chain Bitcoin transaction that remains unconfirmed for already 3 days. Could you please explain when I will be able to use again this UTXO. Sorry I'm still a beginner. Is this because the fees have been set at a very low level (1.02 sat/vB) so no miner is picking-up the transaction? Is there a way to speedup the transaction from my side? Is there a risk that the funds are being returned back to ACINQ?

Your help is very much appreciated. Kind regards

[1714536615]

1714536615

[1714536615]

1714536615

[1714536615]

1714536615

[bitmover]

Did you use RBF ((replace by fee)? If you did, you can just send another one with a higher fee.

If you didn't, there isn't much you can do.


If you check http://mempool.space/ you will see that transactions need about 10 sat/vbyte for a confirmation, as there is high price volatility now and people are making lots of transactions.

You can paste your transaction ID there to see how much time you are likely to wait. But it will eventually get confirmed. 

[DaveF]

The other option is doing a CPFP (child pays for parent) transaction.

You can send the incoming BTC from your wallet to another address with a fee high enough to cover the 2nd transaction AND enough for the 1st one also and a miner will probably pick it up. So you are probably looking at about 25 Sat / VB as of this moment at a minimum.

ACINQ might be able to bump the fee on their end but I don't know if they do that for people.

-Dave

[hosseinimr93]

But it will eventually get confirmed.  

There is no guarantee that the transaction in question will be finally confirmed.
OP's transaction is now around 200 vMB from the tip and there's a big possibility that it won't be confirmed in the next 14 days and will be dropped from nodes mempool. It's even possible that nodes remove that transaction from their mempool earlier due to reaching their size limit.

[Angula77]

Thank you very much for your answer. As far as I understand this was an automatic return of funds on-chain further to the forced closing of a LN channel I had opened with ACINQ. I don't think I can increase the fees at this stage.

Actually, my understanding of the context of the transaction is not clear. I just know those funds are mine ;-)

This is the transaction ID: 46fecd345b06242984e57e0cc437cf3178cfa7a581a9d84e59dc7c742e6aa6e3

Thank you again

[BitMaxz]

Currently, the mempool is pretty congested so I don't think this will confirm today it would take days unless if the network transactions are decreasing or less congested.

Do you mind to check the history tab if you received this transaction? If there is a transaction under the history tab then right-click it and then you can select CPFP which is the only option to increase the fee as suggested above.

[Angula77]

I sorry, I don't know which history tab.

As far as I understand this transaction has been initiated by the other side of the Lightning channel who unilaterally closed the channel due to failure of my node. I have not initiated the transaction so I cannot increase the fees.

Please let me know if you have another idea.

Thank you very much

[nc50lc]

Please let me know if you have another idea.

Child-Pays-for-Parent will work in your case, you just have to spend that specific output and it'll bump its fee.
The problem is, nodes with default mempool size are now beginning to drop 1sat/vB transactions and yours might have already been evicted from some nodes' mempool.

Can you tell what wallet are your using?
Because depending on which wallet, there may be easier way to perform CPFP.
And depending on the state of mempools, you might have to rebroadcast it or wait for the average mempool size to settle a bit lower.

[hZti]

If you can not replace by higher fee, since it is not your transaction, the transaction will sooner or later (2 weeks) be thrown out of the mempool. After that you have to see if it can be send again with higher fees. If you are lucky enough the 1.02 will be enough to send after around a week, but that will grately depend on network load in the next days.

[UchihaSarada]

In this board, you have a sticky thread that is helpful for your question.
All about "stuck" transactions and what you can do to fix them

Three topics with more detailed step-by-step guidelines
Make sure to avoid wasting BTC for too high fees – step by step guide (Electrum)
TUTORIAL: How to use Electrum (for advanced users)
[TUTORIAL]getting a low-fee transaction unstuck by creating a CPFP with electrum

You can try free accelerator https://www.viabtc.com/tools/txaccelerator/

[Lucius]

You can try free accelerator...

No free accelerator will accept a transaction with such a low fee, not even the one you suggested (which is the only one that works). Even if we pay a fee with which we could "speed up" the transaction, the time until confirmation depends on when that pool will find the next block. The best way is still to check the mempool before sending the transaction and adjust the fee depending on the time in which we want the transaction to be confirmed.

[Charles-Tim]

OP's transaction is now around 200 vMB from the tip and there's a big possibility that it won't be confirmed in the next 14 days and will be dropped from nodes mempool. It's even possible that nodes remove that transaction from their mempool earlier due to reaching their size limit.

I can vividly remember a time I had an unconfirmed transaction for over two months. It was from my wallet to one of the exchanges that I am using. I couldn't do RBF because the transaction was made on Coinomi (I was using Coinomi at the time), also I did not have any unspent output pertaining to the transaction which I can use to do CPFP as I sent all the coins at ones to an exchange. I got no option than to wait for the transaction to be confirmed. It was a frustrating experience as my wallet is rebroadcasting the transaction, I guess. Even while using Electrum, it is better to not let the wallet to synchronize with the blockchain and leave it not connected at all, because very possible any synchronization will likely rebroadcast the transaction. Or maybe the transaction did not leave all the mempool nodes and still was routed to another nodes. I just did not know what happened, but my transaction stuck like forever until it was confirmed after two months when the mempool become not congested again.

[DaveF]

I'm *assuming* the OP is running their own LN node since this was how this started. If so it's running core on the back end. They should be able to spend an unconfirmed from there.

IF that is not an option, getting the private key from that 1 address and importing it someplace else is also not going to compromise security since the entire reason is to move the funds out from that address.

@Angula77 what is your setup for the LN node?

-Dave

[Angula77]

Hi, thank you very much for your help, sorry my technical knowledge is rather limited but I can try to explain my set-up and what I see:

Set-up:

Umbrel Bitcoin Node
Umbrel Lightning Node

Channel opened with ACINQ using Ride The Lightning 3 weeks ago.

2 weeks ago: power outage, my node went off line for 3 days.

I have then re-initiated all my set-up and downloaded again the blockchain and opened again my LN node with the seed that I saved.

Then I noticed that the channel had been closed (remote force close) and that there was a pending transaction on-chain that I believe correspond to the return of my funds from the channel previously opened with ACINQ.

Now Ride The Lightning is showing my on-chain balance as "pending chain balance", and I am not able to use those funds.

I can also see the funds on my Bitcoin wallet but I am not able to withdraw them.

I don't know what I can do to make these funds spendable again.

Thank you again for your help, very much appreciated.

Kind regards


Hello,

I'm really sorry for all the misleading information.

I've been checking again what could have happened and realized that the issue with my stuck funds is not related to the closure of the LN canal but to a Loop out that I have performed just before by using Ligthning Terminal. ie. in order to send liquidity from one side of the LN channel open with ACINQ to the other through a server that sends back the BTC to my on-chain address (atomic swap LN to BTC if my understanding is correct).

This is the transaction: 46087e7a28056dc4e134007426b48dc4ca8d7898439644da33084628a0c517d0

I don't understand why the transaction is still presented as Unconfirmed and I'm not able to use my funds. What could I do to unlock those funds?

I'm so thankful for your help.


This post found on the web exactly describes what happend to my funds:

"I was trying to open a new channel but I was not able due to not having enough BTC. I tough I had, but when checking thunderbub I saw I had a big amount pending. I was not sure why, but it is due to an initated but not confirmed Loop Out on lighting terminal. I think it will take long due to the very low fees I used.

Does anyone know A. If a loop out can be cancelled (I'm prety sure It cant be reversed) and B. Where to find transaction ID to check on current status on mempool?"


I also found this, which might describe the situation and potentially the fact that I lost my funds:

"What happens if lightning loop transactions drop out of mempool?

I've looped out of a few channels a week or so ago. I normally use a UI but was having some issues at the time so used the terminal. So when I looped out the transactions were made with a really low default on chain fee (1 sat/byte). So they've been sitting unconfirmed for a while and probably will be until I start bumping fees.

I've noticed while these transactions are unconfirmed my channels do have the updated inbound capacity and I have been able to send payment to them (whereas they didn't have enough capacity before looping out).

What would happen now if the loop transactions dropped out of the mempool? Can that happen or will the lightning loop servers just keep broadcasting the transactions? Will they bump the fee?"

Somebody then answered: "Your loopd should automatically increase the fee over time as once the HTLC expires technically the loop server can steal your funds."

Did the loop server just stole my funds then?

Mod note: consecutive posts merged

[Lida93]

To be be honest, your fee was very low and it's most likely it couldn't stand the competition of dense numbers of transactions as at the period you made yours and you'll need to go technical in resolving the delay and as it also has to do with a power outrage issue.
Here's a suggested threads that can be of help and even with other related transaction issues you might face in future.

All about "stuck" transactions and what you can do to fix them by achow101
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1802212.msg17954548#msg17954548

Techniques to reduce transaction fees (Bitcoin Wiki) https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Techniques_to_reduce_transaction_fees