unable to route payment to destination: TemporaryChannelFailure

Question

Keep getting this error following attempting to pay an invoice.

root@ubuntu-s-1vcpu-2gb-nyc3-01:~# lncli --network=testnet payinvoice lntb50n1pd65u8fpp5y0dwjcn6uhg05sla3djsa7h483nk07m5fs7v3qmnkcn37fq7n68qdqqcqzys98h745eywzuxcfa6c4avku3xzwxvjmfuvp3qe7r0ejnzt50vz3g565h83k56rz0l2v05575aj8x8738g2nnnm0zm26rgtg209ze2l0qp5gkdlc
Description:
Amount (in satoshis): 5
Destination: 0206b792e8b1bc1642c96d6e0a9abfe8d848355a51de27a035402358998ddb4c68
Confirm payment (yes/no): yes
{
    "payment_error": "unable to route payment to destination: TemporaryChannelFailure(update=(*lnwire.ChannelUpdate)(0xc00056b180)({\n Signature: (lnwire.Sig) (len=64 cap=64) {\n  00000000  af 2d cf db 50 97 e4 df  b4 d2 11 65 09 ba 8e fe  |.-..P......e....|\n  00000010  ad 36 33 c9 73 f2 53 01  25 12 2d 93 45 fd 41 27  |.63.s.S.%.-.E.A'|\n  00000020  76 e3 7d a7 ff 96 ae 6a  64 c7 45 cb d5 a6 0e 52  |v.}....jd.E....R|\n  00000030  78 a3 2d 16 5e 73 cd 3b  4e e2 3d 14 a5 68 fc 41  |x.-.^s.;N.=..h.A|\n },\n ChainHash: (chainhash.Hash) (len=32 cap=32) 000000000933ea01ad0ee984209779baaec3ced90fa3f408719526f8d77f4943,\n ShortChannelID: (lnwire.ShortChannelID) 1414303:221:0,\n Timestamp: (uint32) 1537893401,\n Flags: (lnwire.ChanUpdateFlag) 1,\n TimeLockDelta: (uint16) 144,\n HtlcMinimumMsat: (lnwire.MilliSatoshi) 1000 mSAT,\n BaseFee: (uint32) 1000,\n FeeRate: (uint32) 1,\n ExtraOpaqueData: ([]uint8) \u003cnil\u003e\n})\n)",
    "payment_preimage": "",
    "payment_route": null
}

Both nodes are connected to the same node and should be visible to each other, however payinvoice always seems to fail due to routing.

What is causing this issue and how can I complete a payment correctly?

Answer 1

Figured it out!

This error showed up on node C, but I opened (and thus loaded) the channel from node A. What was happening was this error is returned if an intermediate hop does not have enough balance on their side to forward your payment. In this case all the coin was set in a way where payment was only possible from A -> B -> C but not A <- B <- C.

All I had to do was send money from the node that opened the channel