tty7/docs/reference/troubleshooting.mdx

---
title: "Troubleshooting"
description: "The things that go wrong, and what they actually mean."
---

## Start here

```bash
tty7 doctor
```

One table: whether the server is reachable, whether its wire dialect matches
your binary, the three environment variables, pid/uptime/panes, and how many
machine links exist. Most of what follows is a specific answer this gives you.

## `tty7: command not found`

The CLI is put on PATH the first time the app launches. If it is missing:

- Check **Settings → Integrations → Install the tty7 command on PATH** is on.
- On Unix it symlinks into whichever of `/opt/homebrew/bin`, `/usr/local/bin`,
  `~/.local/bin`, `~/bin`, `~/.cargo/bin` your PATH already covers — if none of
  those are on your PATH, add one.
- On Windows the install directory is appended to your user PATH, which needs a
  new shell to take effect.
- A `tty7` you installed yourself is never replaced, so an old one earlier in
  PATH will win.

Inside a tty7 pane it works regardless, since panes inherit the app's
environment.

## The server is unreachable

`tty7 doctor` says so, and the GUI cannot open panes.

Start it with `tty7 server start`. If you are an agent or a script,
**do not** — tell the user instead. Starting a server they did not ask for
changes what their GUI attaches to.

For logs:

```bash
TTY7_LOG=info   # must be set before the server starts
tty7 server logs
```

## Panes came back empty

A crash, a `kill -9`, or a reboot takes the shells with it — that part is
unavoidable. The *screens* should come back: tty7 keeps a capped tail of each
pane's output (256 KiB) and hands it to the pane that reopens on that id.

It is consumed once. If a pane was restored, then closed, then reopened, the
second time there is nothing left to restore — that is by design, not a bug.

## "The background server is still running <build>"

tty7 updated in place, so the app is new and your panes are still served by the
previous build. Restarting the server picks up the new one and **ends every
process in every pane**. There is no hurry — do it when your panes are idle.
[Updates →](/reference/updates)

## A remote machine will not connect

| Message | What it means |
|---|---|
| *"running an old tty7 server that this copy cannot talk to"* | The server there predates your client's protocol. Let tty7 update it — this ends every session on that machine. |
| *"running a newer tty7 server than this copy"* | Update tty7 here instead, or replace the server there. |
| *"answered, but not as a tty7 server"* | Something else is listening, or the binary is not what tty7 expects. |
| *"tty7 no longer has a way to reach <machine>"* | The SSH link dropped. Reconnect from the switcher. |

`tty7 -m <machine>` never dials a fresh connection by design — it uses a link
the local server already holds. Connect from the GUI first.

## <kbd>⇥</kbd> or <kbd>⌃ R</kbd> is not doing what I expect

Both are switches, and turning one off hands the key straight back to your
shell:

- **Settings → Terminal → Prompt & command history → Tab completion**
- **Settings → Terminal → Prompt & command history → Command history search**

If they do nothing at all in a particular pane, the shell there probably has no
[shell integration](/reference/shell-integration) — elvish, xonsh and friends
run fine but do not get the prompt layer.

## The directory stopped following my shell

The Files panel, new splits, and the sidebar's repo grouping all follow the
directory the pane's shell reports (`OSC 7`). If the pane is frozen on one
directory while you `cd` around, something in the pane is not reporting it.

The usual cause is a shell you started by hand. tty7 injects its
[shell integration](/reference/shell-integration) into the shell it launches
for the pane, and nothing else: run `zsh` at a bash prompt and that nested
shell has none. Locally you rarely notice, because oh-my-zsh reports the
directory itself — but the cwd reporter sits at the end of its
`lib/termsupport.zsh`, behind

```zsh
if [[ -n "$INSIDE_EMACS" || -n "$SSH_CLIENT" || -n "$SSH_TTY" ]]; then
  return
fi
```

so over SSH, where sshd sets those, sourcing stops there and the reporter is
never defined — only the title hooks above that line still run. A nested zsh
on a remote host therefore reports nothing, from either side, and the pane
keeps showing wherever the outer shell was.

**Make it the shell tty7 starts.** On the remote host:

```sh
chsh -s /bin/zsh      # then reconnect
```

tty7 asks the host for `$SHELL` at connect time and bootstraps *that* shell,
so this is what moves the integration into your zsh — oh-my-zsh keeps working
beside it. Starting `zsh` from a login script, or `exec zsh` from your
`.bashrc`, does not help: both run after (or instead of) the shell tty7 set
up.

**Or report the directory yourself.** If you cannot change the login shell,
add this to the remote `~/.zshrc` — it restores directory tracking only, not
prompt marks or command status:

```zsh
# Report the working directory to tty7 (OSC 7).
autoload -Uz add-zsh-hook
__tty7_cwd() { printf '\e]7;file://%s%s\a' "${HOST:-localhost}" "${PWD//\%/%25}" }
add-zsh-hook precmd __tty7_cwd
```

It is safe to leave in place afterwards: when tty7 *is* integrating that
shell, the two hooks simply report the same directory twice. The bash
equivalent is `PROMPT_COMMAND`:

```bash
__tty7_cwd() { printf '\e]7;file://%s%s\a' "${HOSTNAME:-localhost}" "${PWD//%/%25}"; }
PROMPT_COMMAND="__tty7_cwd${PROMPT_COMMAND:+;$PROMPT_COMMAND}"
```

Two other reasons a pane never reports its directory:

- **The shell is not one tty7 integrates.** It injects into zsh, bash, fish,
  PowerShell and nushell locally, and into zsh, bash and fish over SSH — a
  remote host whose `$SHELL` is anything else gets no bootstrap, silently.
- **You gave the shell your own arguments** in `shell` or a `custom_shells`
  entry, which turns the injection off by design.

Where tty7 can see the pane's processes it falls back to reading the
foreground process's working directory, which is why an unintegrated shell in
a **remote workspace** mostly keeps up — that fallback is a poll, though,
sampled while the pane produces output, so it can lag a `cd` until the pane
writes again. There is no such fallback for an **SSH pane** (the processes are
on the far end) or for a local pane on **Windows**.

## <kbd>⌥ B</kbd> types `∫` instead of moving a word

That is macOS's default. Turn on **Settings → Keyboard & Mouse → Keyboard → Option (⌥) acts
as Meta**.

## CJK characters have a gap on the right

Your CJK fallback advances 1.0em while the primary face advances 0.60205em, so
the glyph does not fill its two-column slot. Install
[Maple Mono NF CN](https://github.com/subframe7536/maple-font) — it is already
first in the fallback chain and fits Hack exactly — or change the primary face.
[The full explanation →](/customization/fonts#cjk-and-the-two-column-grid)

## A theme in my themes folder is not showing up

Settings lists it under **Not loaded from the themes folder**, with the reason.
Usually a missing required key: `background`, `foreground`, `accent`, and `ansi`
(with eight `normal` and eight `bright` entries) are all mandatory.

## My `config.json` edits did nothing

If the file cannot be parsed, tty7 starts on defaults and keeps your original at
`config.json.corrupt` — check for that file. Otherwise:

- An out-of-range number is **clamped**, not applied literally.
- An unrecognised enum value falls back to the default with a log line.
- `scrollback_limit` applies to **new** panes only.
- An unknown action name in `keybindings` is skipped with a warning.

## Selecting text inside vim / less selects the app's own thing

Hold <kbd>⇧</kbd> while dragging to keep the gesture local, or turn off
**Settings → Keyboard & Mouse → Mouse → Report mouse to apps**.

## `tty7 capture … | head -1` printed a Rust panic

An old build's behaviour when the reader hangs up. The data you asked for still
arrived. On such a build, redirect to a file and slice the file instead of
piping into `head`. Current builds exit `141` on Unix, which is exactly what
`cat` does.

## Still stuck

<CardGroup cols={2}>
  <Card title="Discord" icon="discord" href="https://discord.gg/s3dethqz2V">
    Ask — someone has probably hit it.
  </Card>
  <Card title="Report an issue" icon="github" href="https://github.com/l0ng-ai/tty7/issues/new">
    Include `tty7 doctor` output and your platform.
  </Card>
</CardGroup>