LIGHTNING-DOWNGRADE(8)

💅 lightning-downgrade(8) — the girl's guide to going backwards

okay so bestie, welcome to lightning-downgrade — the manual page for the actual tool called lightning-downgrade. yes it's a whole thing, and yes it's about to be your new hyperfixation 🎀

✨ SYNOPSIS ✨

lightning-downgrade [ARGUMENTS]...

🌸 DESCRIPTION 🌸

lightning-downgrade un-does an upgrade by modifying the lightningd database back to the prior version. the way that it works is lowkey iconic. but — and this is the important part, so like, listen — lightningd must not be running at the time. not running. at all. not even a little bit. 💀

ngl, a downgrade might genuinely not be possible if some new feature got used that's incompatible with the older version. in that case the downgrade fails with a message and nothing gets changed — so like, no harm done, but also no downgrade. it's giving "we tried, we failed, we moved on" 😭

rule numero uno: use the latest lightning-downgrade to downgrade. fr fr. for example, the v25.12 lightning-downgrade won't know how to downgrade v26.06. like, it simply doesn't have the range, bestie.

good news though — all minor versions are compatible, so a downgrade to v25.09 will work fine with v25.09.1 or v25.09.2, etc. slay ✨

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🦋 VERSIONS 🦋

• v25.12 — downgrades to v25.09.
  • downgrade is not possible if withhold true has been used with fundchannel_complete, or if askrene-bias-node has been used. 🚫
• v25.09 — downgrade is not supported. that's it. that's the whole entry. 💀

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💜 OPTIONS 💜

okay this is the part where she pulls out the whole menu, and yes we're listing every single one 💅

• --lightning-dir=DIR — sets the directory for the lightning daemon we're talking to; defaults to $HOME/.lightning.
• --conf=PATH — sets the configuration file (default: lightning-dir/config ).
• --network=network — sets the network explicitly.
• --mainnet — sets the network explicitly.
• --testnet — sets the network explicitly.
• --testnet4 — sets the network explicitly.
• --signet — sets the network explicitly.
• --regtest — sets the network explicitly.

yeah, those six all do the "sets network explicitly" thing. they're a little squad. 🫶

• --rpc-file=FILE — the named pipe used to talk to the lightning daemon; default is lightning-rpc in the lightning directory.
• wallet=DSN — identifies the location of the wallet. for the details, go read lightningd-config(5). (note: no dashes on this one, she's built different 🎀)
• --help/-h — pretty-prints a summary of options to standard output and exits. the format can be changed using -F, -R, -J, -H etc. cute AND customizable.
• --version/-V — prints the version number to standard output and exits.

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🐛 BUGS 🐛

you should report bugs on our github issues page — and maybe submit a fix to gain our eternal gratitude! 👑 like, actual eternal gratitude. we will remember you forever.

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🧚 AUTHOR 🧚

Rusty Russell <rusty@rustcorp.com.au> wrote the initial version of lightning-downgrade and this man page. main character energy fr fr 🌟

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🔥 SEE ALSO 🔥

lightningd(8), lightningd-config(5)

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🌈 RESOURCES 🌈

main web site: https://github.com/ElementsProject/lightning

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💖 COPYING 💖

note: the modules in the ccan/ directory have their own licenses, but the rest of the code is covered by the BSD-style MIT license. main web site: https://github.com/ElementsProject/lightning

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ok that's the whole page bestie, you ate that 🫶✨

💅 Core Lightning v26.06.9 — mwah, that's a wrap, go downgrade responsibly 💅