PSA for Umbrel node runners: if your channels are offline, it's probably not your fault. Tor on umbrelOS is broken.
Posted 20 days ago by Trepnick
My node lost all Lightning connectivity recently. All channels offline, watchtowers unreachable, .onion services dead. After some digging it turned out to be nothing local:
UmbrelOS (up to and including the current 1.7.3) ships Tor 0.4.7.8, a version that reached end of life in January 2024. After the Tor network's directory authority changes, this old client can no longer validate the network consensus. Every Tor container on the node is stuck forever at "Bootstrapped 30%" with the error "Consensus not signed by sufficient number of requested authorities".
Why this kills Lightning specifically: Umbrel routes ALL of LND's outbound traffic (onion and clearnet peers) through its Tor SOCKS proxy. Dead proxy = zero peers = all channels offline. Your funds are safe (bitcoind and chain watching still work), but you can't route, send or receive, and your watchtower protection is offline.
Quick check on your node: `sudo docker logs tor_proxy` and look for "Stuck at 30%".
I filed a full analysis with a verified workaround (swapping in a current Tor image) here:
https://github.com/getumbrel/umbrel/issues/2189
The workaround has to be re-applied after every reboot, so the real fix has to come from the Umbrel team via an image update. If you run Umbrel, please check your node and add your confirmation to the issue. The more affected nodes report in, the faster this gets fixed. Some of your "inactive" channel peers may be Umbrel nodes with the same problem right now.
1 Comment
Trepnick wrote 19 days ago
Update: this is fixed! The Umbrel team reacted quickly after the report.
What to do on your node:
1. Update umbrelOS to 1.7.4. It ships a current Tor for the system daemon, which is the proxy LND routes all its traffic through. This was the part that took channels offline.
2. Update your apps. Bitcoin Node, Lightning Node and about 15 other Tor-dependent apps (Core Lightning, Electrs, Fulcrum, Monero Node and more) got updates with Tor 0.4.9.11.
After both updates everything works out of the box again, no manual steps needed. If you applied the manual workaround from the issue: nothing to undo, the updates replace the patched files automatically. Give LND a few minutes after the restart to sync and reconnect its peers, then your channels should come back on their own.
Details and history in the issue: https://github.com/getumbrel/umbrel/issues/2189
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