Troubleshooting
Startup and ports
Launch failures and local server conflicts.
The Electron app starts a local harness and serves the Desk from the same machine. The usual port is 8799. If another process already owns it, packaged builds may pick a fallback automatically.
App opens but never becomes ready
- Quit every OpenFolks window.
- Confirm no old OpenFolks process remains.
- Start the app once and wait for the harness.
- If it still fails, inspect the desktop log.
On macOS, packaged logs are under ~/Library/Logs/OpenFolks. On Windows they are under the OpenFolks log directory in %APPDATA%.
Development port
Use OPENFOLKS_PORT for a source-run harness. A packaged desktop build owns its server lifecycle and may choose a fallback if the preferred port is unavailable.
Isolate a test profile
Set OPENFOLKS_DATA_DIR to run against a clean data directory. Useful for reproduction without touching a real workspace.