slate.tracker / docs

Desktop Agent Cannot Reach the Cloud

If the agent shows offline or unlicensed, follow this checklist top to bottom. Most cases are one of the first three steps.

1. Confirm the machine has internet

In a terminal, try:

curl -I https://api.slate-tracker.com/v1/health

You should see a 200 OK response. If you do not, the problem is your network, not Slate Tracker.

On a tight production network you may need to:

  • Allow outbound HTTPS (port 443) to api.slate-tracker.com.
  • Allow outbound HTTPS to downloads.slate-tracker.com.

2. Confirm the license key is valid

Open the agent, go to Settings, Account, and look at the license key.

  • If it says missing, paste your key. See Adding Your License Key.
  • If it says invalid, you may have copied a stray space. Remove all whitespace and try again.
  • If it says revoked, sign into the cloud dashboard and check Settings, License keys. Someone may have released the seat.

3. Check the time on your machine

Cloud auth uses signed tokens with a small clock skew tolerance. If your machine clock is more than five minutes off, every request will fail with unauthorized.

On Windows:

Settings > Time & language > Date & time > Sync now

On macOS:

System Settings > General > Date & Time > Set automatically

4. Look at the agent log

The most recent 500 lines of the agent log live at:

  • Windows: %APPDATA%\SlateTracker\logs\agent.log
  • macOS: ~/Library/Logs/SlateTracker/agent.log

Look near the bottom for the most recent error. Common patterns:

  • dial tcp i/o timeout: outbound HTTPS is blocked.
  • certificate is not trusted: a corporate MITM proxy is intercepting traffic; add the proxy CA to the OS trust store.
  • HTTP 401: license is invalid; see step 2.
  • HTTP 429: rate limited; the agent will recover on its own within a minute.

5. Behind a corporate proxy?

Set the proxy in config.yaml:

network:
  http_proxy: "http://proxy.example.com:3128"
  https_proxy: "http://proxy.example.com:3128"
  no_proxy: ["localhost", "127.0.0.1"]

Save the file. The agent picks up the change within a few seconds.

6. Reset network state

If the agent has been running for a long time and just got confused, a full restart often clears it. Quit the agent from the tray or menu bar, then start it again. The license check runs immediately on launch.

Still stuck

Open a support ticket from the cloud dashboard (Settings, Support) and attach the agent log. We will reply within one business day. If you are on a live show and need it now, write URGENT in the subject line and the on call engineer will pick it up.