Electrum patches Lightning flaw, but old Bitcoin backups break
Electrum’s newest safety replace fixes a Lightning backup defect, but some Bitcoin pockets customers nonetheless want to switch saved backups.
Older backups from wallets with non-deterministic Lightning keys lack data wanted to reclaim funds from anchor channels, a Lightning channel kind, after a distant shut.
Version 4.8.2, dated Sept. 11, stays the newest launch listed on Electrum’s official website as of Oct. 1.
The individual-backup fix provides payment-key data wanted to assert the consumer’s stability from an anchor channel closed by the peer. Without that data, an affected backup lacks the important thing wanted to comb the output, that means declare the cash on the Bitcoin blockchain.
Which wallets want consideration?
Electrum’s release notes outline two circumstances that should coincide: the pockets has non-deterministic Lightning keys, and the backup considerations an anchor channel.
Non-deterministic keys can’t be recreated from the pockets’s seed. The warning covers particular person channel exports and exported full-wallet backups regarding Lightning restoration.
Lightning wallets primarily based on BIP39 seeds or imported prolonged non-public keys (xprvs) all the time have non-deterministic Lightning keys. Electrum-seed wallets differ: their Lightning keys are deterministic when the pockets file was created in model 4.1 or later. Files created in 4.0.x don’t qualify merely as a result of the software program is now newer.
On desktop, pockets data marks the Lightning channels as non-recoverable from the seed, whereas the channel-opening dialog warns {that a} channel can’t be recovered from the seed on Android. Anchor-channel use stays the extra situation for this backup defect.
The individual-backup repair additionally hides the choice to request a distant force-close when the backup can’t sweep the ensuing output. The restriction retains that backup from requesting a detailed whose output it can’t declare.
PR 10851 repairs wallet-file exports by retaining a randomly generated Lightning non-public key that the export beforehand deleted. Maintainer SomberNight explains that re-enabling Lightning in such a backup would generate completely different keys, leaving its older channel-backup data inadequate to spend anchor-channel funds.
An improve adjustments the software program that produces and reads backups. Electrum’s documented treatment due to this fact requires recent exports, and affected wallets show a startup warning.
The alternative step is determined by retaining the unique pockets information wanted for a recent export. Installing newer software program doesn’t assure restoration of key materials already misplaced with that information.
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