Troubleshooting

The problems that come up most often, and what actually fixes them.

Sign-in never completes

Signing in hands off to your browser and waits for it to hand back. If it gives up, the browser step did not make it back to the app. Sign-in stops waiting after about three minutes.

• Run Niah: Cancel Sign In from the Command Palette, then start again — a stale attempt blocks a new one.
• Finish the browser step in the window Niah opened. Completing it in a different browser or profile leaves the app waiting.
• Approve the prompt asking to open Niah. That prompt is the niah:// handoff; dismissing it ends the flow.
• Check that niah.si and api.niah.si are reachable — a proxy or VPN that blocks either will stall sign-in.

No models in the picker

• Confirm you are signed in — Niah: Sign In with… if not.
• Set the provider to Niah Cloud. A provider with no credentials configured shows an empty list.
• If Niah Cloud is selected and still empty, your organization may not have models enabled for your account yet. Ask your workspace administrator.

Local model endpoint errors

Local providers need a server already running before Niah can list models. Verify it is up, then confirm the endpoint in Niah Settings matches — Ollama defaults to http://localhost:11434. If you changed the port or bound it to a different interface, update the endpoint to match.

Updates do not apply

On macOS this is nearly always the app running from the mounted disk image instead of Applications — an app cannot replace itself in place from a read-only image. Quit Niah, drag it into Applications, eject the image, and launch it from there.

Otherwise, confirm outbound HTTPS to api.niah.si is allowed, and install the current build manually from niah.si/download. See Updates.

An agent says a command was blocked

A message like Blocked command by .niahagent policy means the project restricts what agents may run in a terminal. That is the policy working. To change it, edit .niahagent in the workspace root — add the command to constraints.allowedCommands, or remove it from constraints.blockedCommands. See Agents.

Niah cannot see a file that exists

If chat or an agent insists a file is not there, it is almost certainly excluded. Check the workspace root for .niahignore or .cursorignore, and check files.exclude / search.exclude in your settings.

Remember that indexing follows .niahignore and .cursorignore but not .gitignore, so the two can disagree about what is visible. See Configuration.

Reporting a problem

Use Help › Report Issue from the menu bar, which collects your version and system details. Including the version from the About dialog, your platform and architecture, and whether you were on Niah Cloud or another provider makes a report much faster to act on.