Troubleshooting Setting up Bitcoin and Lightning Node on Apple Silicon (arm64) MacBooks

As I began my journey with the world of Bitcoin, the first challenge at hand was knowing how to get the work environment set up. The first problem is getting the info I need all in one place especially since am running an arm64 architecture. I found bits and pieces of how to go about it and decided to help the readers simplify their setting-up journey by sharing issues I faced and from other peers and how I solved them.

Prerequisites and Environment Setup

This tutorial assumes you have brew and git installed. Here a few points to note in setting up your environment.

Before anything, we should follow guidelines, and tutorials properly, here is a resource that does justice to installing bitcoin on MacOS Install Bitcoin on MacOS.

Run the following command to clone the repo:

1. Install Bitcoin with zmq

   You should compile bitcoin with zmq as it helps in debugging connections between bitcoin and lightning. To do this make sure zeromq is installed using

    brew install zeromq
   

   And then configure bitcoin using this command

    ./configure --with-zmq --enable-zmq
   

2. Aliases Update:

   Always make sure to update your aliases and run

    source ~/.bash_profile
   

   To update your current terminal tab.

Common Issues and Solutions

1. Command not found forlndorlncli:

   If the lnd installation was completed and go is installed, and still lnd or lncli command not found, run

    which go
   

   should return something like

    /opt/homebrew/bin/go
   

   then confirm the go executable path exist by running

    ls ~/go
   

   should return

    bin pkg
   

   We need to confirm lnd and lncli is part of the go path

    ls ~/go/bin
   

   should return

    lncli lnd
   

   Now we just copy the executables to default installation location

     sudo cp ~/go/bin/lnd /usr/local/bin/
     sudo cp ~/go/bin/lncli /usr/local/bin/
   

2. Error Message: `LND setup: unable to create partial chain control: status code: 401, response: ""

   This usually rises from when your rpcauth on your bitcoin.conf does not match your rpcuser and rpcpassword in your lnd.conf

   Make sure to use the username and password provided when you run this command

   python3 ./share/rpcauth/rpcauth.py<your-desired-username> <your-password>

   and place the returned rpcauth in the bitcoin.conf.

3. Error Message: Unable to connect to <lightingnode-pubkey>@127.0.0.1:9734: EOF

   You could get this if you trying to connect to a wrong identity-pubkey of another lightning node.

4. Error: Bitcoind testnetis consuming so much space when syncing.

   This is due to not having a limit to which the blockchain should sync, this imit it done by setting a value to the prune parameter in the bitcoin.conf

5. Error Message: error message: Fee estimation failed. Fallbackfee is disabled. Wait a few blocks or enable -fallbackfee.

   This happens when connecting two nodes and creating a channel.

   A walkaround for this would be adding fallbackfee=0.000001 to the bitcoin.conf and restarting bitcoind and lnd

   So that transactions are quickly added to blocks mined in regtest

6. Error Message : [lncli] could not load global options: unable to read macaroon path (check the network setting!): open /Users/decagon/Library/Application Support/Lnd/data/chain/bitcoin/mainnet/admin.macaroon: no such file or directory

   This simply says that your lnd is not talking to your bitcoind properly, meaning they are not on the same mode [regtest, testnet, mainnet]

   Check your lnd.conf mode and bitcoind with the same mode is running.

7. Balance not reflecting on regtest or testnet

   For regtest , you may get

    {
        "mine": {
            "trusted": 0.00000000,
            "untrusted_pending": 0.00000000,
            "immature": 100.00000000
          },
          "lastprocessedblock": {
            "hash": "5adf04f4ddbfe4d28e2f4877734a4171f726486e726aee3b2fbc0e6f558fe64f",
            "height": 107
          }
    }
   

   when you run bitstein-cli getbalances

   You need to generate some blocks say like 100 😀.

   For testnet , make sure your node is synced to the current block, don't forget to prune your node to avoid filling your space with older blocks.

8. Error:lndconsole stuck at "Waiting for chain backend to finish sync, start_height"

   Just generate a block in using bitcoin-cli generate 1 while

Conclusion

By addressing common installation issues outlined in this article, you can enjoy a seamless experience in setting up and maintaining their cryptocurrency nodes. Always refer to the official documentation and community resources for the latest updates and solutions to emerging challenges. In a future article, we’ll walk through creating a command line wallet that using bitcoinjs-lib.

If you have any questions, suggestions, or errata to submit, my DMs are open on Discord. I hope this helps you on and going as it did for me!