Some aliases no longer visible in listnodes

I automatically find aliases via: lightning-cli listnodes

Since I updated to v0.7.3some aliases are no longer part of listnodes. The IDs are there but without aliases. I suspect it happens with c-lightning versions <= 0.7.2. LND and Eclair aliases seem the same (see my website and look for alias_unknown)

For example ln.rene-pickhardt.de. The node ID is in listnodes (I even have a channel with that node) but without the alias.

getinfo output

Alias: Bitkoins.nl
Version: v0.7.3rc3"

[darosior]

Since I updated to v0.7.3

Which version ? There has been some gossip fixups between the rcs.

Version: v0.7.3rc3 (that was written under getinfo output.) but the problem started already with rc2.

[niftynei]

missing aliases is a side-effect of your node not having the node_announcement gossip message for that node.

prior RC's of c-lightning weren't being very aggressive with pushing out their own node_announcements, see #3152

@niftynei So it's only a problem with c-lightning versions 0.7.3.rc1 and/or 0.7.3.rc2 or also with older versions of c-lightning? If only with the two rcs, I will close the issue.

[whitslack]

It was a problem in 0.7.2 too. See #2969.

I am still experiencing the issue on 0.7.3rc3. Even after my node has been running for three days on 0.7.3rc3, I am still missing node announcements for a sizable fraction of my connected peers.

[niftynei]

There are two issues to discuss here, which have the same net result— your node appears to be missing aliases for other nodes.

In the case of “my node is missing alias information from recent c-lightning nodes”, this is likely due to them not sending them very aggressively. #3152 addresses this, but requires affected nodes to upgrade

In the case of “Im missing large swaths of aliases from nodes, not just from clightning peers”, this is typically a result of not asking our peers for a wide enough range to net the missing information. It should be fixed in RC3 (we now look for a wide range of missing node announcements to ask our peers about). If you’re still having trouble, you can give it a kick by deleting* your gossip store, this will resync all the gossip en masse. Note that if the reason they’re missing is because the above issue, this won’t do much to help as it’s unlikely your peers have the missing information either.

*i.e. stop your node, rename the gossip store to gossip_store.bak, restart node

[whitslack]

@niftynei: Thanks for the clarifications. Even if I don't zap my gossip_store, shouldn't my node eventually fill in all the node announcements it's missing just due to routine gossip refreshes? How long is that expected to take?

[niftynei]

@whitslack well that depends on why the announcements are missing. assuming that they’re relatively well represented on other nodes, they should get picked up by the gossip seeker eventually. I’d need to check but I believe it was changed to run once every ~24hrs

[whitslack]

@niftynei: 100 of my 386 peers are showing no alias and no color after my node has been up for 62 hours. Does this suggest that the seeker is malfunctioning?

$ lightning-cli listpeers | jq -r '.peers[] | .id' | xargs -d'\n' -n1 lightning-cli listnodes | jq '.nodes[] | has("alias") or has("color")' | awk '{ counts[$0]++ } END { for (value in counts) print value, counts[value] }'
false 100
true 286

I've updated to the latest version (v0.7.3rc3-2-g0985c6e), removed the gossip_store (like I've done before) and the problem is still there for some nodes (probably only with c-lightning nodes).

Using whitslack's command:

false 7
true 13

[darosior]

probably only with c-lightning nodes

Yep, I've seen this on my node and it's indeed only C-lightning nodes. They might not have upgraded yet.

[whitslack]

it's indeed only C-lightning nodes.

@darosior: How do you tell what software your peer is running? I'd love to instrument that, but I haven't found a way.

[darosior]

@darosior: How do you tell what software your peer is running? I'd love to instrument that, but I haven't found a way.

Actually checking 1ML ^^
On this one you can give personal informations, and the node I'm connected to did. You could also check messages but it's more complicated..

@whitslack I only know they are c-lightning nodes because I decided to only connect to c-lightning nodes a couple of months ago when I was often getting fatal errors with LND nodes (this issue has now been resolved by ignoring these error messages). I found the c-lightning nodes looking for node IDs in the issues. Nevertheless an interesting question.

[darosior]

@whitslack I only know they are c-lightning nodes because I decided to only connect to c-lightning nodes a couple of months ago when I was often getting fatal errors with LND nodes (this issue has now been resolved by ignoring these error messages). I found the c-lightning nodes looking for node IDs in the issues. Nevertheless an interesting question.

Unfortunately so I did...