Troubleshooting

Symptom → likely cause → fix, for the problems people actually hit. For memory-specific issues see Debugging Memory Issues; for signal pathologies see Control Signals: Deep Dive.

Startup

Symptom	Likely cause	Fix
UI window doesn't open	pywebview unavailable	Orrin falls back to a browser tab and prints the URL; or use ORRIN_UI_DEV=1, or ORRIN_UI=0 for headless
Heavy/slow first launch	Embedding + NLP deps (PyTorch/spaCy) loading	Expected once; steady-state is light. Consider Docker
Restart wedges / won't come back	The Vite frontend process group holds a pipe	Kill the Vite process group as well as the loop when restarting the dev path
Import error mentioning paths before conftest	A module imported brain.paths before env overrides were set	Only relevant in tests — resolve state via brain/paths.py, never __file__-relative

LLM / tools

Symptom	Likely cause	Fix
LLM calls do nothing	No provider key, or caller not allow-listed	Expected in symbolic-only mode. Set a key in Settings; only allow-listed callers may use the LLM (ORRIN_LLM_TOOL_ONLY)
LLM "stops working" mid-run	Circuit breaker opened after repeated errors	Check llm_failure_counts.json; fix the provider/key — it degrades to symbolic-only by design
Web search errors	No SERPER_API_KEY	Expected — "looking outward" falls back to local file search
Fabricated-looking output on error	—	Shouldn't happen: the gate fails closed. File a bug with the trace

Behavior

Symptom	Likely cause	Fix
Same function picked over and over	A rut / reward collapse	The rut-breaker and Reward Auditor peer should intervene; check the Cognition room's per-function EMAs
"Makes nothing" for a long time	Reward was churning on intake	Grounded by the effect ledger; confirm artifacts are being recorded under brain/data/effect_artifacts/
Thought stream flickers randomly	Hysteresis/binding not engaging	Check ORRIN_IGNITION_GATE/ORRIN_WORKSPACE_PRIOR aren't disabled
Control signals thrash	Velocity budget too loose, or two writers	See Tuning Control Signals; ensure writes go through the arbiter

State & disk

Symptom	Likely cause	Fix
Data files growing unbounded	—	Shouldn't happen: logs are capped, history windowed, memory decays. If not, check docs/CONFIGURATION.md "How state stays bounded"
Want a clean slate	—	python reset_orrin.py (snapshots first; --dry-run to preview). See Existence and Lifecycle
Corrupted / weird state after a crash	Interrupted write	Daemons recover from WAL + snapshot; a reset restores from the pre-reset snapshot

Remote / UI access

Symptom	Likely cause	Fix
Can't reach UI from another device	Backend bound to loopback	Set ORRIN_BACKEND_HOST=0.0.0.0, pin the port, or use expose_orrin.command. See Remote Access & Tunneling
Anyone with the URL can control it	No control token set	Set ORRIN_CONTROL_TOKEN before exposing. See Security Model

Still stuck?

Grab evidence — relevant lines from brain/logs/, a run report, or a life capsule — and open an issue (no secrets/tokens, please). See Contributing.