Troubleshooting

Common issues and solutions.

App Won’t Start

“TUI error” on launch

TUI error: error connecting to relay

Cause: No network access or all configured relays are unreachable.

Fix: Check your internet connection, then try different relays:

wss://relay.damus.io
wss://nos.lol
wss://purplepag.es

Blank screen or rendering issues

Cause: Terminal doesn’t support the character rendering.

Fix: Try a different terminal (Windows Terminal, iTerm2, Alacritty) or resize the window.

Key and Profile Issues

“Password verification failed”

Cause: Wrong password entered for your profile.

Fix:

Use the password you created when adding the profile
Cannot be recovered — you’ll need to delete the profile and re-add it

Delete your profile:

# Manually remove the config directory (Linux/macOS)
rm -rf ~/.config/nostr-cli/

# Or on Windows
rd /s %APPDATA%\nostr-cli

“Invalid nsec”

Cause: Private key format is wrong.

Fix: Ensure the key starts with nsec1 (bech32 format). Hex-format keys (abcd123...) won’t work with Hoot.

Lost my password

Cause: Passwords cannot be recovered.

Fix: If you have your original nsec, delete the profile and re-add with a new password:

rm -rf ~/.config/nostr-cli/
hoot  # Create new profile with same nsec

Posting Issues

“Failed to publish to any relay”

Cause: All relays rejected your event (rate limiting, validation failure).

Fix:

Wait and retry — some relays rate limit
Remove unreliable relays from your list
Check your key is valid

Post appears nowhere

Cause: Relays may be slow to propagate, or you’re looking at the wrong relay’s view.

Fix:

Posts take a few seconds to appear
Query a specific relay directly to verify publication
Try hoot -l to see your recent posts

NWC / Tipping Issues

“No NWC URI configured”

Cause: Wallet connection not saved.

Fix: Save your NWC URI:

hoot -nwc "nostr+walletconnect://your-uri-here"

“Payment request timeout”

Cause: Wallet didn’t respond in time.

Fix:

Ensure your wallet (Alby, etc.) is connected and unlocked
Try again — payments can timeout under load

“Insufficient balance”

Cause: Your Lightning wallet doesn’t have enough sats.

Fix: Add funds to your wallet and retry.

Zap doesn’t work after NWC setup

Causes to check in order:

NWC URI saved correctly?
```
cat ~/.config/nostr-cli/nwc.txt
```
Should output a nostr+walletconnect://... URI.
Wallet connected and unlocked? Open Alby/Mutiny and verify connection status.
Recipient has Lightning address? Ask them to add one to their profile metadata.
Invoice expired? Retry — invoices expire quickly.
Relay connectivity? NWC communicates via relay; ensure your relay is working.

Build Errors

“go: cannot find main module”

Cause: Running go build outside the project directory.

Fix:

cd hoot
go build -o hoot

“package not found” for dependencies

Cause: Dependencies not downloaded.

Fix:

go mod download
go build -o hoot

Go version too old

Cause: Project requires Go 1.19+.

Fix: Update Go:

go version  # Check current version

Getting Help

If these don’t solve your issue:

Check existing GitHub issues
Ask in the Nostr community — use npub1hoot... to find Hoot developers