Electrum - Lightning network - BTC gone?

[grg2342]

- I was asked to help to help move BTC from storage. I assumed it would be on smth like Ledger.

- I arrive, they have it on Sandisk + Electrum. They had X Sats (not on Lightning) which I just sent normally to a bitcoin addy.

- Go on channels tab. I can see X BTC balance in lightning network. It says they can send X BTC and receive 0 BTC in the top left. However they have no channels set up at all. Prompt is to create your first channel.

- Don’t know enough about lightning channels, so leave it for now. Set up my own electrum. Test it with my own money, set up a channel with the spending limit that I want to, submarine swap back from lighting, and send to my normal BTC addy. Received, all sorted.

- Go back to assist this person. I can see their X BTC balance on lightning network in channels, available to sent.

- Click setup new channel, enter amount much smaller than balance (but greater than minimum required) - ensuring to leave enough for fees. When click continue, it says not enough “not enough funds” (it has +X BTC left on balance).

- Electrum crashes. Reload. Try same. Same again.

- They take Sandisk to a new laptop + download electrum from the Electrum website. When Electrum is opened, the balance shows 0. It shows previous transactions, but it does not anything in the lightning balance or on channels.

- They plug Sandisk back into other laptop, Electrum prompts that “This version of electrum is too old to open this wallet” you require atleast version - go to official electrum and download.

- Sandisk connection to Electrum now works, but balance also shows zero across the app. Still shows previous txs. Last tx is 20 days ago. But cannot see the lightning network balance, no channels at all, can’t create channel.

I’m assuming the channel is connected to one of the priv keys, but don’t know which one yet (there’s 37). Mempool tx IDs are confusing (there’s like 20 branches, not sure which to follow).

I’m assuming what’s happened is that the connection to the channel has been closed on this end when the app has been updated. I don’t know enough though, so I’m asking for help.

- How TF do I get it to show up again?

- less important, but why TF wouldn’t it let me create a channel in the first place when there’s several BTC?

Any help here really, really appreciated

[nc50lc]

- less important, but why TF wouldn’t it let me create a channel in the first place when there’s several BTC?

It requires on-chain funds to create a channel while the wallet only has lightning funds (despite not having any channel).

- Go on channels tab. I can see X BTC balance in lightning network. It says they can send X BTC and receive 0 BTC in the top left. However they have no channels set up at all. Prompt is to create your first channel.

This shouldn't happen unless it's caused by a bug.

First thing to check if their Sandisk contains a static channel backup that can be restored to that wallet in "Channels tab->Wrench&Screwdriver Setting Icon->Import Channel Backup".
The backup may be a QR Code or long string.

Another is if the seed phrase is set to have "recoverable channels" (created in v4.1.0 with the setting ticked or later versions with it set by default);
In that case, Electrum could automatically recover a static backup of the channel after restoring the seed phrase.

If you're successful with either one of the two, you can use the "static channel" to request the remote node to force-close the channel.
Right-click on the static channel and select "Request Force-close".