Troubleshooting

First, the status line and the log

Problems with a file (a failed save, a merge, a hold) show in the status line at the bottom of the window, in red, with what to do. Note what it says.

Problems with n0te itself (a crash, a GTK warning, the service failing to start or listen) go to the service’s log:

less "$XDG_RUNTIME_DIR/n0te-service.log"

To start fresh, n0 --quit, then open any note: that starts a new service.

super n does nothing

• Open Settings (n0 --settings) and check super n opens n0te. If the row is greyed out, there’s no ~/.config/hypr/hyprland.lua: you’re not on Omarchy’s Lua config, and you’ll need to bind the key yourself (see Install).
• Check that ~/.config/hypr/hyprland.lua still has the require("hypr.n0te") line. Running n0te --setup again puts it back.
• Hyprland runs n0te from its own PATH. If you installed from source into ~/.local/bin, make sure that’s on the PATH your session starts with.

Every open is slow

The service isn’t staying up. Check whether it’s running:

pgrep -a n0te-app

If nothing shows --service, look at the log: a crash leaves its last words there. A first open of about 350 ms per session is normal without Start at login; every open taking 200 ms or more is not.

n0te still behaves like the old version

After an update or a rebuild, the old service is still running. n0 --quit, then open a note.

The wrong vault opens

n0te follows the vault Obsidian has open (or opened last). To pin one, pick it under Vault in Settings, or set vault = "…" in ~/.config/n0te/config.toml. N0TE_VAULT overrides both, but only in the environment the service started in (your session’s, or the shell of the first n0); check it isn’t set somewhere you forgot, and n0 --quit after changing it.

The colors don’t match my theme

• Right after n0te --setup, the theme template hasn’t been rendered yet. Switch theme once (or switch away and back).
• If the theme ships its own n0te.css, that one wins; check ~/.local/state/omarchy/current/theme/n0te.css.
• Off Omarchy, n0te uses its own dark palette. See Themes.

The status line is red

It’s either a failed save (NOT SAVED · …) or a hold. Both say what happened and what to do. Your text is still in the window either way.

For NOT SAVED, check that you can write the file and its folder (ls -l), and that the disk isn’t full.

A file opens as a short page saying it’s binary

The file has NUL bytes or isn’t valid UTF-8. n0te opens text and won’t edit such a file, so it can’t damage it. Open it with a tool made for its format.

“isn’t a private folder of yours”

Without XDG_RUNTIME_DIR, n0te keeps its socket in n0te-UID in your temp folder, and refuses to use that folder if someone else owns it or others can read it. Someone (or something) created it with the wrong owner or permissions. Remove it, or make sure XDG_RUNTIME_DIR is set, as it is in any normal login session.

Tab completion doesn’t work

It needs bash with bash-completion 2.12 or newer, and takes effect in new shells. n0te --setup installs it, unless a package already did.

Markdown files open in another app

Switch on Open markdown files in n0te in Settings, or run n0te --setup default. If another app takes them back later (some do when they update), switch it on again.

Still stuck

n0te doesn’t have a public issue tracker yet; it comes with the public repository. When you report a problem, include what you did, what happened, what the status line said, n0te --version, your GTK version (pacman -Q gtk4) and anything in the log.