# What happened to Lightning Funds? **URL:** \ **Category:** Support and Troubleshooting\ **Created:** [December 23, 2022, 3:57pm UTC](https://community.umbrel.com/t/what-happened-to-lightning-funds/10777 "2022-12-23T15:57:19Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 7\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![goliath77](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/46a35a/32.png) [@goliath77](https://community.umbrel.com/u/goliath77)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2022, 3:57pm UTC](https://community.umbrel.com/t/what-happened-to-lightning-funds/10777/1 "2022-12-23T15:57:19Z")
I am having trouble finding a clear answer on what happens to lightning funds WITHOUT A BACKUP if a node goes down. Will funds eventually settle to the on-chain wallet if the node goes down? My node wasn’t loading anything for 2+ days so I deleted and reinstalled the lightning node app without first creating a backup. I recovered using my 24 word phrase, but lightning wallet is showing 0. Am I SOL on recovering my lightning funds? its been 3 days and I haven’t found a great way to proceed. ---
**Author:** ![usernameisJim](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/flex030/user_avatar/community.umbrel.com/usernameisjim/32/3309_2.png) [@usernameisJim](https://community.umbrel.com/u/usernameisJim)\ **Post date:** [December 25, 2022, 1:50am UTC](https://community.umbrel.com/t/what-happened-to-lightning-funds/10777/2 "2022-12-25T01:50:12Z")
> **[Lifecycle of a Payment Channel](https://docs.lightning.engineering/the-lightning-network/payment-channels/lifecycle-of-a-payment-channel)** You can review the above under closures non-cooperatively, as well as documentation on HTLC contracts on step 4 here: [Hashed Timelock Contract (HTLC) - Builder's Guide](https://docs.lightning.engineering/the-lightning-network/multihop-payments/hash-time-lock-contract-htlc) (Like if Alice and Bob open a channel and Bob goes offline, Alice can force closure and usually funds are returned onchain. Bob won’t be able to recover those funds if he’s lost his backup and can’t access his node and they’re lost). > [@goliath77](#): > > reinstalled the lightning node app without first creating a backup. I recovered using my 24 word phrase, For this if you recovered your seed phrase you should have been able to select from the new automatic backups feature shown [here](https://twitter.com/umbrel/status/1562099972547690501), recovering also closes your channels and returns them to your onchain Bitcoin wallet, this can take up to two weeks sometimes. If you wish you can also rescan your UTXOs, to do so you can follow these steps: Step 1 - Enter using SSH into your node: Step 2 - execute the following command to rescan wallet’s UTXOs: `sed -i "s/\[Application Options\]/\[Application Options\]\nreset-wallet-transactions=true/g;" ~/umbrel/app-data/lightning/data/lnd/lnd.conf && sudo reboot` Step 3 - Wait some time so LND can rescan all wallet’s UTXOs. If it solves the issue, run this to stop it from rescanning on a future restart: `sed -i "s/reset-wallet-transactions=true//g;" ~/umbrel/app-data/lightning/data/lnd/lnd.conf && sudo reboot` As a heads-up this process may take some time, it can take upwards of 24 hours to complete. ---
**Author:** ![goliath77](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/46a35a/32.png) [@goliath77](https://community.umbrel.com/u/goliath77)\ **Post date:** [December 26, 2022, 4:20pm UTC](https://community.umbrel.com/t/what-happened-to-lightning-funds/10777/3 "2022-12-26T16:20:24Z")
Thanks for the reply. So when I entered my recovery phrase it just started syncing, it did not prompt anything about channels like in the twitter video. Would uninstalling _again_ and attempting a recovery using the backup phrase be a viable option? ---
**Author:** ![tangelit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/c37758/32.png) [@tangelit](https://community.umbrel.com/u/tangelit)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2022, 1:47pm UTC](https://community.umbrel.com/t/what-happened-to-lightning-funds/10777/4 "2022-12-30T13:47:40Z")
yeap, the same think here, my btc node was not synching for 2 weeks, i reinstalled it, have backup, but didnt get the message for the backup option and now my wallet is zero. Any option? Do i have to wait for a couple of weeks as the previous answer suggests? ---
**Author:** ![tangelit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/c37758/32.png) [@tangelit](https://community.umbrel.com/u/tangelit)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2022, 4:17pm UTC](https://community.umbrel.com/t/what-happened-to-lightning-funds/10777/5 "2022-12-31T16:17:36Z")
I did it manually and everything is ok, thankfully i had the backup… ---
**Author:** ![goliath77](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/46a35a/32.png) [@goliath77](https://community.umbrel.com/u/goliath77)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2022, 6:09pm UTC](https://community.umbrel.com/t/what-happened-to-lightning-funds/10777/6 "2022-12-31T18:09:48Z")
The sed command hasn’t changed anything as far as I can tell. I haven’t ran the stop command, figure it won’t hurt anything. Other than the Twitter video, Is there any documentation on backups for 0.5.3? Where would the automatic backups have been saved? Are there any options to have Umbrel devs help me pull my automatic channel backups? ---
**Author:** ![goliath77](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/46a35a/32.png) [@goliath77](https://community.umbrel.com/u/goliath77)\ **Post date:** [February 15, 2023, 3:09pm UTC](https://community.umbrel.com/t/what-happened-to-lightning-funds/10777/7 "2023-02-15T15:09:16Z")
For anyone who doesn’t know, when the automatic channel backup from recovery doesn’t automatically pop up like in the twitter video, head the the menu on your lightning node app. If you had automatic channel backups selected, you can choose which one to pull from in there. ![Lightning Node — Umbrel](https://canada1.discourse-cdn.com/flex030/uploads/getumbrel/original/2X/d/de8eb020e0ba4a83531777d7534f7694c1516ee3.png) After I recovered my channel backups, I had two channels stuck pending that would not close. that was solved here: ![](http://community.umbrel.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/g/46a35a/40.png) [[SOLVED] 2 Channels wont close after recovery](http://community.umbrel.com/t/solved-2-channels-wont-close-after-recovery/11264) [Support and Troubleshooting](http://community.umbrel.com/c/support/6)