Blixt Wallet - Tips and tricks \ stacker news ~bitcoin

NOTE

This is not a full guide for Blixt Wallet! It is just an additional "tips & tricks" for those that were starting with Blixt and are stuck, don't know how to use it properly or need a bit more "guidance".

If you want a full guide about Blixt you can find it on my guides page here and I wrote even more guides on Blixt page here and the FAQ page here.

After seeing several noobs getting stuck using Blixt, I got to the conclusion that people do not want to read first the documentation, they just jump directly into using an app, without knowing absolutely anything about how it works or at least some basic steps they should do. And they start doing all kind of mumbo jumbos, getting things even worse.

So I will try to write here some warnings, tips and recommendations for all those not knowing in which direction should go. Blixt is a complex NODE on your mobile, do not treat it as a regular dumb custodial account app atht you just open it and you expect to see everything there. A self-custodial node is a node and REQUIRE some steps to do and some basics understandings.

I will stick with information only about Android version. The iOS version is slightly different and is not worth it. Is time for you to change the fucking iShit device for a proper Android device with GrapheneOS.

CASE 1 - SYNCING PROBLEMS

My Blixt is not syncing... My Blixt do not show the balance... My Blixt cannot open channels... I tried to restore it in another device... etc

All these issues start because YOUR DEVICE IS NOT SYNCING PROPERLY. Please understand this important aspect: Blixt is a mobile LND node, that uses Neutrino for syncing / reading the blocks.

Here's a less technical explanation from Bitcoin Magazine.
Here are more technical resources from Bitcoin Optech.
Here is how you can activate Neutrino on your own home node and serve blocks filters for your mobile node, from Docs Lightning Engineering.

REMINDER: Using Neutrino over clearnet is totally safe, your IP or xpub are not leaked. You are just reading blocks from a remote node with neutrino. That's all. All the rest is done on your local device.

So there's NO NEED to use it with Tor. Tor will add a huge latency on your syncing process and will make your Blixt very unstable. If you really want to use over Tor, be sure what are you doing and have a good connection and patience. Same case for using a VPN. Be careful what latency is given to you from that VPN.

You can test the latency of a neutrino server by simply ping it, from a PC or from your mobile.

This is an usual ping to the neutrino server europe.blixtwallet.com, this shows that the connection is very good with a response time of avg 50ms and a TTL of 51. The response time can vary but not too much. TTL must be stable.

If these values are higher than 100-150ms then your syncing process will stale or even worse, it could cause closed channels by peers ! Do not ignore this aspect. Without a proper sync, you also cannot see the correct balance or your LN channels will not get online and operational. No matter how many giga ultra terra mbps you have the download speed IT DOESN'T MATTER. It matter the time response and TTL (time to live).

This is like a general case for LATAM users. I don't know what happen down there but you guys have a terrible connection with pings of over 200ms that can disrupt any sync.

So what is the solution for these desperate users?

stop using Blixt with Tor. Is totally useless
you can use a VPN but choose it wisely and monitor all the time the ping. Use one that is closer to your geographical location. Distance means more ms response time, remember.
select wisely your neutrino peers, here is a list of well known public neutrino servers

btcd1.lnolymp.us | btcd2.lnolymp.us - for US region
sg.lnolymp.us - for Asia region
btcd-mainnet.lightning.computer - for US region
swest.blixtwallet.com (Seattle) - for US region
europe.blixtwallet.com (Germany) - for EU region
asia.blixtwallet.com - for Asia region
node.eldamar.icu - for US region
noad.sathoarder.com - for US region
bb1.breez.technology | bb2.breez.technology - for US region
neutrino.shock.network - US region

Another way is to select one from this list of nodes announcing the "compact filters" (BIP157 / neutrino) https://bitnodes.io/nodes/?q=NODE_COMPACT_FILTERS Choose one that is closer to your geographical location.

Another way (the best way) is to connect to a local community node, run by a friend or group that you know them, and is offering neutrino connection. Here are the instructions how to do it. Their node will not be affected in any way, they just need a stable and public connection.

There is a need for more neutrino servers in the LATAM region, for a better and fast sync. So please organize yourself, with your local Bitcoin community and decide who and where is running a Bitcoin Core + Neutrino for your own use. With just a public IP is enough. If you do not have access to a public IP, you can use a VPS IP and make wireguard tunnel to your home node. That way you redirect all the traffic to your local VPS IP, without revealing any private information about your home node.

CASE 2 - NEVER FINISH SYNCING

My Blixt have good connection with neutrino server but is stuck syncing.

Time Server

Sometimes people use various old devices or are not properly connected to a time server. Neutrino is syncing ok until reached the actual blocks that do not correspond to real local time. You will see in Blixt lnd logs an error saying that "block time stamp is far from future" or something related with "header don't pass sanity check".

Quick fix: set the correct time and date for your device and restart Blixt.

Low space on device

Sometimes using an old device, with low space, it can reach a threshold limit and stuck. Indeed for more you are using this mobile LND node, the neutrino files get bigger and also the channel.db file.

Quick fix: Go to Blixt Options - Debug section - Select "stop LND and delete neutrino files". It will restart the app and start a new fresh sync. Sometimes this quick fix can repair also corrupted data. Keep in mind that will take some time, between 1 and 3 min to fully resync. It is NOT deleting existing funds or channels, but yes, after resync it could trigger a re-scan of your bitcoin addresses and that could take more time.

Next step is to check how much data is still occupied. You can see this in Android App info - data. If is still bigger than 400-500MB, you can compact the lnd files. So go to Blixt Options - Debug section - Select "Compact DB LND". Restart Blixt app if is not doing automatically. The compaction is taking place at startup and is only once. Now you will see that Blixt data is more less occupied.

Persistent mode

Sometimes people do not open Blixt for long time, so is way too old the sync. But they expect to be synced instantly when they open it.

Please have patience, and look at the top spinning wheel. Optional you can go to Options - See Node Info and see if is synced to chain and synced to graph marked as "true". Without that "true" mention you cannot use properly Blixt, you cannot see correctly the balance, you cannot see the LN channels online, you cannot do payments.

Quick fix: There's a powerful option to "keep alive" your Blixt node. Go to Options - Experiments - Select "Activate Persistent Mode". That will restart your Blixt and will put the lnd service in persistent mode, aka will always be active and keep online your sync, even if you switch to another app or simply close Blixt (not force close or kill the task). You can keep it like that all day if you are in a stable connection and you need to use Blixt several times. It will not consume too much the battery.

CASE 3 - I WANT TO MIGRATE TO ANOTHER DEVICE

OK about this scenario I wrote extensive guide on the FAQ page: https://blixtwallet.github.io/faq#blixt-restore with 2 options, fast (cooperative close of channels before migration) and slow (force close channels because old device is dead).

But I want to reiterate here some important aspects and add a new "secret" procedure.

REMINDER:

Always do a backup of your channels status (SCB) AFTER each time you open or close a channel. It takes just few seconds to do it.
Do not keep the old SCB files, to not get confused and restore them. Are totally useless and could trigger a penalty procedure if you se them. Always use the last version of the SCB file if you proceed to restore.
Save the SCB file (is an encrypted text with the extension .bin) out of your device, in a safe place. You can use https://github.com/localsend/localsend for moving this file onto a PC or other device.
Save also the seed of your Blixt wallet in a safe place, for example an offline password manager / encrypted USB.

Secret method: How to migrate Blixt node without closing the existing channels. For this you will need to read and find where I inserted the secret procedure in the my Blixt guide: https://darth-coin.github.io/wallets/getting-started-blixt-wallet-en.html

This procedure IT IS NOT FOR NOOBS, it is only for advanced users! That's why is not widely open and I recommend to do it only with assistance from Blixt devs or my support. Please do not ignore this advice.

CASE 4 - WHAT PEERS TO USE TO OPEN CHANNELS?

As I wrote in Blixt guides there are many ways to open channels with this mobile LND node. But some important aspects I would like to remind you here:

open with well known LSP nodes and with community vouched peers. See here a list.
do not open with random Tor only nodes. Those are worthless and you will get only issues of not being able to do payments. No matter how good is your friend "the node runner" with a shity Tor node in a jungle, it will never give you the best routes for a mobile private node. You do not open channels with somebody because is your friend. This is not Facebook! You open a channel for: good routes, small fees, availability.
there's no need to open a shit ton of small channels, 2-3 or max 4, but with a good amount of sats. Do not open small channels, are totally useless. Smaller than 200k for a mobile have not much use.
keep in mind the LSPs that offer inbound channels and JIT (just in time) channels. Those are very useful because you do not need to use any of your UTXOs, you can pay the opening channel with funds you already have in other LN wallets, stacking and preparing them for a bigger channel to open. You should use these JIT channels in your favor. I've explained in this guide more options for peers for private nodes like Blixt. Also here in this guide posted on SN I explained how to manage the private mobile nodes liquidity.

Ok I don't want to make this a huge guide, I think is more than enough for the moment. As you can see are many aspects to discuss, but learning about how to use LN is a wonderful journey. Please bookmark this guide in case you need it later.