Alby transaction not sending (stuck) \ stacker news ~bitcoin

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370 sats \ 14 comments \ @PictureRoom 18 Mar bitcoin

I went to send out some funds from my Alby account today but the transaction seems to be stuck in "sending" mode still. I'm not sure if the payment will eventually cancel or what, but this is a first that I have seen. There's enough outbound liquidity in my channel, so I'm not exactly sure what is going on.

Any insights are welcomed, thank you. And I did contact Alby as well, so I'll see what's up.

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21 sats \ 4 replies \ @DarthCoin 18 Mar

Based on the lack of information you've just posted anybody trying to give you an answer will have to use the magic crystal ball guessing what happened:

Sending a payments over LN depends of many factors that are missing in this post:

type of node you have
destination node
channel peer or LiSP you have used
fees set you were willing to pay
LN graph sync status
type of connection you were using

Practically NOBODY will be able to give you a pertinent answer based on that useless screenshot. Just because you have enough outbound liquidity it means nothing. Is like saying "I have this glass full of water, why I can't pour it into this tiny pipe?" Your problem is the pipe not the glass.

In addition I would like you to read this guide about how LN liquidity works https://bitcoin.design/guide/how-it-works/liquidity/

and watch this excellent short video by Rene Pickhardt

10 sats \ 3 replies \ @PictureRoom OP 18 Mar

This video was a great demonstration. Thank you!

Answers to some of your questions:

Start9 (server one)
Sending to CoinOs and Boltz from Alby (doing some coin control)
See photo attached*
I am using clearnet

21 sats \ 2 replies \ @DarthCoin 18 Mar

Start9 is not a node, is just an UI for a node. When I refer to "node type" it means:

private or public (announced or unannounced channels)
type of LN implementation (LND, CLN, LDK, Rust, Eclair). There are (still) some incompatibilities between implementations si is good to mention what type of node you are running.

Nice balanced :)

So now, after you saw that video demo, I hope you understand where could be the problem: those channels somewhere in between do not have enough liquidity for your HTLC (amount of sats to go through a HTLC) or they are using some kind of filter in HTLC size for your channels.

My advice (now that I see you have also Thunderhub installed):

try to use a specific channel (create the payment with specific route) when you pay
try to use MPP (multi-part payment) with 2-3 channels and many shards. That means your payment can go through multiple channels and using multiple small parts. If one of those peers is limiting the HTLC size, by using MPP you also reduce the HTLC size, bust is like sending multi tiny parts at once.
increase the fee % willing to pay for that payment.

10 sats \ 1 reply \ @PictureRoom OP 18 Mar

Thanks @DarthCoin, I always appreciate your help. Sorry for my ignorance, still trying to learn this stuff.

When you say to use MPP, are you referring to the "max paths" option in thunderhub when sending? I've actually never sent directly out of thunderhub, always just through alby, but I should probably change that.

My intention for having my node is to receive payments mostly. Receiving paymens for products that I sell, and also purchasing more sats on RoboSats and sending out to atomic swap for coin control before cold storage.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @DarthCoin 18 Mar

Yes, "max paths" means MPP. You can also select channels you want to sue for that payment. Yes, Alby doesn't have (yet) this function for MPP.

0 sats \ 2 replies \ @WeAreAllSatoshi 18 Mar

@alby any ideas?

26 sats \ 1 reply \ @Alby 18 Mar

Hey, @PictureRoom has contacted us (also) over our support channel, and we reply to all - here is a bit easier to miss, and dedicated tech help is at support.getalby.com

We're happy to help, but as @DarthCoin pointed, it would be easier to diagnose, troubleshoot and help you if such topics are not scattered, and if more details would be provided.

There can be multiple reasons and answers to "something doesn't work, plz help", and in 90% of cases it is some user's error. We're always eager to help and fix, if things are broken!

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @PictureRoom OP 18 Mar

Hey @Alby thank you for getting back to me. I can provide a screenshot of my channels here and perhaps that could help you a bit with some insights on routing?

And as of right now, those payments are still "sending"

0 sats \ 3 replies \ @aliceandthewonderland 18 Mar

had same issue, ended up losing 25 sats. It never came back to me, nor sent.

100 sats \ 2 replies \ @Alby 18 Mar

Could you please report it with details to support @getalby.com? Thank you!

100 sats \ 1 reply \ @bataroot 18 Mar

I have to say that my experience with Alby support is top notch. Thanks guys! 👏

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @Alby 10h

Thank you sir, we're doing our best! We are all generation of early adopters of lightning, we gotta help each other, believing in its future!