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I have set up a lighting node months ago using LND under the tor network.
My node (Caffeine) looks correctly configured and connected to several channels but it is not routing any transaction. In the beginning, I thought it would simply take some time but after months still nothing!
What could be the problem?
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Obviously for questions like this I can't give a 100% certain answer as I would have to look at your nodes logfiles and configuration / state. However I can make some (hopefully) educated guesses and we can see if that helps you.
First of all it seems like you kept the standard base fee and fee rate. Following my analysis and video it seems pretty unlikely that payments are routed over your channels as there are many people currently offering cheaper routing.
Secondly if I read the data from 1ml correctly besides 1 channel with lnbig your channels are all channels that you have created in the past. If you have never paid someone the entire balance of the channel is on your side meaning they can only be used for routing if you also have inbound capacity (which seems to be the case only with the lnbig channel)
Last but not least: it is well known that lightning is still not very wide spread. There are currently only a few services and experimental projects using the technology so that many people don't use it for payments yet. For example my node has optimized routing fees and just earned a couple satoshis from a few hundred routing attempts over the last 6 months. Roughly half of the routing attsmps actually fail because I have way more inbound than outbound liquidity (the opposite situation from you)
There could be other errors which would need a close look at your logfiles / configuration.
Thanks for the insights. I will try lowering the fees although I am using the AUTOPILOT function of LND and I though it would do that by default. As soon I can I will post the configuration file. – alec_djinn – 2019-05-05T19:46:40.963
The autopilot of lnd does only suggest nodes to open a channel with. Maybe the current Verdun also suggests amounts. It does not adjust your routing fees for each channel which would be a nice feature. I wrote the autopilot for clightning and I might update the pilot to also adjust / optimize fees – Rene Pickhardt – 2019-05-05T22:00:03.010
That would be great! – alec_djinn – 2019-05-06T05:44:23.450
I have lowered the fee substantially but I can’t see any effect yet. I will wait more. Given your experience how long should it take to route at least one transaction? – alec_djinn – 2019-05-08T06:14:48.050
The update channel messages can take a couple minutes to hours to propagate through the network. Also keep in mind that you also need some inbound liquidity. As I mentioned it looks like you only have inbound capacity from lnbig who provide inbound capacity to many other nodes. So you could use a service like loop to rebalance your channels – Rene Pickhardt – 2019-05-08T09:00:11.713
Can you please post the link to this "loop"? I still not get the "inbound liquidity" problem. I thought It would be enough to link a wallet with some funds, which I did. Apparently, it is not the case. – alec_djinn – 2019-05-08T09:02:43.777
Mir info on this site at https://bitcoin.stackexchange.com/questions/87537/ive-been-reading-about-loop-in-and-it-seems-to-be-like-a-one-way-offline-chan and at https://bitcoin.stackexchange.com/questions/85912/how-can-lightning-loop-out-help-me-to-receive-more-payments the second link also refers to background about inbound capacity and a link to lightning labs article explaining loop
– Rene Pickhardt – 2019-05-08T11:21:02.603