Tripod DevicesTroubleshooting
Error kinds that tools return, and fixes for the problems people hit first.
Error kinds
Every tool error carries a kind. Start there.
| Kind | Meaning |
|---|---|
notGranted | Nobody has said yes for this device yet. Look at the window and allow it. A real phone asks every time. |
unsupported | That device cannot do this, and the message says why. device_capabilities lists what each device can do. |
unavailable | The device, or a service it needs, is not there right now: unplugged, shut down, still booting, or its input is taken over by another tool. |
busy | Another session holds the lease, or a teardown could not be confirmed and the claim was kept. Never clear a claim yourself. |
notFound | No device, element or text matched. The label may still be moving. Try again once the screen settles. |
timedOut | The device did not answer in time. Check that it is awake, then retry. |
failed | The device tried and could not. The message has the reason. |
invalidParams | A parameter was missing or the wrong shape. |
The device list is empty
- No simulators. Install Xcode in
/Applicationsand open it once. Check that Developer Mode in Tripod is on, because simulators and emulators are hidden when it is off. - No emulators. The app looks in
~/Library/Android/sdk. If your SDK lives elsewhere, link it there. Emulator discovery runs separately, so simulators appear first. - No iPhone. Use a cable that carries data, wake the phone and tap Trust. If the row says "View only", the phone's Developer Mode is off. See Devices.
- No Android phone. Turn on USB debugging and accept the key prompt.
adb devicesshould list it.
The agent cannot reach the app
The MCP server starts the app with no window when it is not running. If that fails, open the app by hand once and try again. The socket is ~/Library/Application Support/Tripod/devices.sock. A request over 1 MiB, or one that is not JSON, closes that connection and no other. Send big files another way.
A tap did nothing
- Use
settle: true. It waits until the screen stops changing and returns what changed. - Read the screen again first if you use a ref, because a ref from an older tree is refused.
- If the simulator shows "Input was taken over", another tool such as Xcode is driving it. Choose Take Back, which restarts the simulator's input service and closes its running apps.
The stage says Reconnecting
If a stream ends by itself, the app reconnects with a bounded number of tries and pauses between them. After a Mac wake it tries again at once. If the device is gone, it waits up to 60 seconds, then shows "Connection lost" and reconnects when the device returns. Stop, Disconnect, or picking the device by hand cancels it.
A device stays claimed
If the app could not confirm a teardown, it keeps the claim instead of guessing, and the window says so. Use the Recover control in the window. Quitting the app also releases leases it can confirm.
The Network tab is empty
- Packet is not running. Packet Studio holds the hub that apps send traffic to. Open it from the pane.
- Packet is not on this Mac. Tripod shows traffic through Packet and has no capture of its own.
- Waiting for an app. The Packet SDK retries for up to 30 seconds. Relaunch the app to connect now.
- Not available on this device yet. The pane says why.
The pair will not start
A refusal that names gigabytes means both boots do not fit beside your memory reserve. Close something, or stop another virtual device, then start again. If only one half boots, the pair stays up with a warning, and one Stop undoes everything.
Still stuck
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