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Troubleshooting

Fix it in order

When something breaks, people reinstall everything, try random fixes, and make it worse. This order works for almost any computer problem — AI-related or not.

The universal order

  1. Read the actual error. Copy the exact message. Don't summarize it as "it's broken" — the message usually names the problem.
  2. Change nothing; try again once. Lots of failures are one-time hiccups.
  3. Ask: what changed? It worked before. What's different — an update, a new file, a rename, a different folder?
  4. Shrink the problem. Does it fail with a tiny test file? In a fresh folder? Finding where it works tells you where it breaks.
  5. Search the exact message. Paste the error, in quotes, into a search engine or an AI.
  6. Then, and only then, reinstall.

Ask AI the right way

Copy this
Something failed. Here's the exact error message: [paste it].
Here's what I was doing: [one sentence]. Here's what changed
recently: [anything you know]. Walk me through fixing it one
step at a time — one step per message, and tell me what each
step does before I run it.

The "one step per message" part matters — it stops the AI from dumping ten commands you can't judge.

By system

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