<p>This seems pretty normal. When you force close a Chanel this means that your node publishes the latest presigned commitment transaction. However we have no way of knowing if is really the latest or an older one. That is why there is a timelock on your own output which gives the other party time to invoke the penalty mechanism in case you didn't vpublish the latest commitment transaction.</p>
<p>I don't know your config or the defaults in umbrel but a typical timelock value can be 2016 blocks which is equivalent to about 14 days. If you had posted the short channel id of your channel (potential privacy issue) we could probably have investigated further what exactly is the situation of your force close as we could lup the transaction on chain</p>

CC BY-SA 4.0
2021-08-30T08:56:35.557Z
Thanks for that info! Interestingly enough as soon as I posted the question here, the channel closed :)
Zuppa2020
CC BY-SA 4.0
2021-08-29T07:07:14.143Z
2021-08-29T07:07:14.143Z
Rene Pickhardt
<p>I requested to close a lightning channel on my Umbrel node. Sometimes this is a quick process. And other times it takes days. It's been like 2 days now that a lightning channel with peer &quot;Lightning. Watch&quot; has been closing. It is still not closed. I can't find an option to force close.</p>
<p>However, I do see on Ride the Lightning App on Umbrel (under peers/channels) that the channel is pending force closing. Should I be worried?</p>
<p>This is the first instance where it has taken longer than 1 day to close a channel.</p>
<p>Any thoughts?</p>

<lightning-network><full-node><bitcoin-wallet-app><channels>
Force Closing a BTC lightning channel on Umbrel
Zuppa2020
# Force Closing a BTC lightning channel on Umbrel

(Asked by: username_0 on 2021-08-29)

I requested to close a lightning channel on my Umbrel node. Sometimes this is a quick process. And other times it takes days. It's been like 2 days now that a lightning channel with peer "Lightning. Watch" has been closing. It is still not closed. I can't find an option to force close.

However, I do see on Ride the Lightning App on Umbrel (under peers/channels) that the channel is pending force closing. Should I be worried?

This is the first instance where it has taken longer than 1 day to close a channel.

Any thoughts?

**Tags:** lightning-network, full-node, bitcoin-wallet-app, channels


---

## 1 answers

### Answer by username_1 on 2021-08-29. Score: 1

This seems pretty normal. When you force close a Chanel this means that your node publishes the latest presigned commitment transaction. However we have no way of knowing if is really the latest or an older one. That is why there is a timelock on your own output which gives the other party time to invoke the penalty mechanism in case you didn't vpublish the latest commitment transaction.

I don't know your config or the defaults in umbrel but a typical timelock value can be 2016 blocks which is equivalent to about 14 days. If you had posted the short channel id of your channel (potential privacy issue) we could probably have investigated further what exactly is the situation of your force close as we could lup the transaction on chain

> **Comments:**
> **username_0**: Thanks for that info! Interestingly enough as soon as I posted the question here, the channel closed :)  

---

