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854 sats \ 21 replies \ @k00b 15 Jan \ on: Zaps Failing, Fragility, and Bet Update meta
I'm sorry this is hard to use and hard to keep it working. We know it's difficult to use and have a lot of work left to do. We will make it better.
For context, it's quite a bit more complex than say making a button do something when you press it. We are coordinating a payment between multiple computers we don't control. Our goal is to get it close to button-press-like easiness in terms of your experience, but it's going to take us time, lots of fucking work, and experimentation to hide and communicate that complexity.
This thing is a Model T right now - you crank it, press 2 buttons, 3 switches, blow in a tube, pray, then maybe it gets you where you're going. It'll get better faster than a model T did because it's software, but a lot of what we're doing is new.
Also, your complaining helps a lot so please keep it up. I struggle with how angry you sound sometimes but that's on me. Most people in your shoes would've given up. Props to you!
My zaps fail only rarely -- when they do, the logs report something about routing fees are too high. When I retry, it has always worked. I don't actually change anything about my setup -- I wouldn't know how to do more than add another channel, and the channel I have goes to a pretty fat LN pipe.
I know ya'll have no shortage of stuff to do, but it would really be illustrative to know what's happening on the backend, how you're iterating and evolving things, etc. I feel like this pragmatic guide to using LN in real life is totally dark territory. Could you an @ek do a podcast every couple weeks or something?
If I was in Austin I'd do a documentary on ya'll.
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The only time my zaps fail is when I have a problem on my end. Usually lost internet connection or my computer that runs my wallet restarted.
I highly recommend everyone who wants to use Stacker News with an attached wallet to use a self-custodial lightning wallet with a direct channel. You will not pay any routing fees and you will have a consistent, reliable experience.
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I highly recommend everyone who wants to use Stacker News with an attached wallet to use a self-custodial lightning wallet with a direct channel. You will not pay any routing fees and you will have a consistent, reliable experience.
I may have spoken too soon, lol.
Last night my computer restarted and when I reopened Alby, I reopened the wallet, but the NWC connection to SN couldn't get re-established. I ultimately had to delete the old NWC connection and start a new one.
I'm curious as to why that might be. The wallet logs didn't show any routing errors or anything, just timeouts on sending/receiving payments.
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I've noticed after prior updates to Alby Hub my NWC strings are all invalidated. I think it might be a symptom of Alby Hub being kind of new and them correcting mistakes they made with our older NWC strings when we update. I hope this won't always be the case.
I'm curious as to why that might be. The wallet logs didn't show any routing errors or anything, just timeouts on sending/receiving payments.
NWC strings are doing two things:
- giving us permission to do stuff on your node
- telling us how to communicate with your node to do that permitted stuff
So, when an NWC string goes bad, it either has to do with those permissions going bad, ie being revoked or expiring, or the way we've been instructed to communicate with your node changing or not working.
Routing and fees are in another layer, let's call it The Lightning Layer, and The NWC Layer sits on top of it doing the things I mentioned above. If The NWC Layer goes bad, it means we can't communicate with The Lightning Layer, and the only indication we have that that's happening is The NWC Layer ignores us and we timeout.
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Ok, then I'm reasonably sure the error was related to NWC strings and not Lightning.
What I don't quite understand is that the wallet was working right up til last night. My computer restarted after I went to bed, and it wasn't working after restarting the wallet in the morning. It started working again after I downloaded the new Alby update, deleting my old NWC ones, and making new ones.
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Restarting must have invalidate the NWC strings on Alby Hub's end.
The NWC connection isn't persistent or anything, so it wouldn't affect our end. On our end, if you give us an NWC string, whether good or bad, all we can do is sign messages with it and publish them to the relay specified then wait for responses.
Timeouts usually happen when responses don't come back, and responses don't come back when Alby considers the NWC string invalid afaik.
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Curious as to why you'd get routing fee errors then, if you have a direct channel.
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My guess is that since the whole point of this is that SN is not the custodian, and since other people don't necessarily have a channel open to SN, that it's something to do with that leg of things. If it were just me > SN > them via direct channels it would probably be fine.
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Appreciate it, sir. You keep on doing your thing and I keep doing mine (complaining, venting) and we'll both end up someplace good!
Also love this
This thing is a Model T right now - you crank it, press 2 buttons, 3 switches, blow in a tube, pray, then maybe it gets you where you're going
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