Running freedom tech is great until something goes wrong.
I've been running Start9 for 2 years without a single issue. Then the long-awaited update appeared, and of course I first read the how-to on migrating to the new version. I regularly make backups on 3 USB dongles stored in 3 different locations so I am relatively safe, so I did a cleanup of unused services, stopped the rest, and did everything right from my point of view.
The update to 0.4.0 went smoothly. Bitcoin node started, Electrum started, but then LND never really finished starting...
I don't know what hit me, but I hit "uninstall LND," and in a millisecond it hit me: Fuck!!!
Of course the channels were gone, and all I was left with was the aezeed seed phrase and my backup dongles. I was still tried to install LND but even reinstall didn't solve the stuck in starting mode.
Well, since I can presumably downgrade to 0.3.5.1 and keep the chainstate intact, it will be easy peasy to get back to my channels. Oh boy, was I wrong!
There's no way you can preserve a chainstate when downgrading from 0.4.0 → 0.3.5.1 (there's nowhere in the docs I can find anything about that!).
Luckily for me, I never lost the SSH connection to my Start9, and I started to copy the Bitcoin blocks and chainstate to an external drive (3 hours).
Then I made a full clean installation of StartOS 0.3.5.1 just to get back to my funds. It took another 3 hours to copy back the chainstate and blocks, but then the indexing took another 8 hours. Fuck me, this is so time-intensive. But I comforted myself with the thought that my funds would be recovered soon. And yes, I finally started configuring Bitcoin node, LND, and Alby. LND took another hour or so because of graph sync, but then I was hit by another fact I didn't know about! If you do a backup, your channels are backed up, but when you restore from a backup, you signal to the peer that you fucked up and need a force closure.
The happy ending is that I did get all of the funds back on-chain, but the struggle to get to that point was a weekend wasted!
Once you blow it like that, you start to look at custodial wallets a bit differently and appreciate the debugging with AI. Self-sovereignty isn't for everyone and never will be.
Lessons learned 📚
Now please, leave me for another day or so, because I have to update my #start9 to 0.4.0 🚀.
I've been running Start9 for 2 years without a single issue. Then the long-awaited update appeared, and of course I first read the how-to on migrating to the new version. I regularly make backups on 3 USB dongles stored in 3 different locations so I am relatively safe, so I did a cleanup of unused services, stopped the rest, and did everything right from my point of view.
The update to 0.4.0 went smoothly. Bitcoin node started, Electrum started, but then LND never really finished starting...
I don't know what hit me, but I hit "uninstall LND," and in a millisecond it hit me: Fuck!!!
Of course the channels were gone, and all I was left with was the aezeed seed phrase and my backup dongles. I was still tried to install LND but even reinstall didn't solve the stuck in starting mode.
Well, since I can presumably downgrade to 0.3.5.1 and keep the chainstate intact, it will be easy peasy to get back to my channels. Oh boy, was I wrong!
There's no way you can preserve a chainstate when downgrading from 0.4.0 → 0.3.5.1 (there's nowhere in the docs I can find anything about that!).
Luckily for me, I never lost the SSH connection to my Start9, and I started to copy the Bitcoin blocks and chainstate to an external drive (3 hours).
Then I made a full clean installation of StartOS 0.3.5.1 just to get back to my funds. It took another 3 hours to copy back the chainstate and blocks, but then the indexing took another 8 hours. Fuck me, this is so time-intensive. But I comforted myself with the thought that my funds would be recovered soon. And yes, I finally started configuring Bitcoin node, LND, and Alby. LND took another hour or so because of graph sync, but then I was hit by another fact I didn't know about! If you do a backup, your channels are backed up, but when you restore from a backup, you signal to the peer that you fucked up and need a force closure.
The happy ending is that I did get all of the funds back on-chain, but the struggle to get to that point was a weekend wasted!
Once you blow it like that, you start to look at custodial wallets a bit differently and appreciate the debugging with AI. Self-sovereignty isn't for everyone and never will be.
Lessons learned 📚
Now please, leave me for another day or so, because I have to update my #start9 to 0.4.0 🚀.
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