Troubleshooting
MCP server not responding
Symptom: Your AI tool can’t connect to BaseLayer, or tool calls fail.
Fix:
- Make sure the BaseLayer desktop app is running (check for the menu bar icon)
- Restart the desktop app
- If using remote MCP (Claude.ai, ChatGPT): check your internet connection
- If using local MCP (Claude Code, Gemini CLI): verify the server is on port 44044
# Check if the local MCP server is running
curl http://localhost:44044/health
Chrome extension not capturing
Symptom: Conversations aren’t appearing in your vault.
Fix:
- Click the BaseLayer extension icon and check for the green status dot
- If the dot is gray: you’re not on a supported site
- If the dot is red: try signing out and back in
- Refresh the AI page and try again
- Make sure the desktop app is running
”0 entities” in vault
Symptom: You’ve been using BaseLayer but your vault shows zero entities.
Fix: This usually means an encryption key issue.
- Restart the desktop app
- You might need to re-enter your passphrase
- If it still doesn’t work, check Settings → Vault for error messages
If you’ve forgotten your passphrase, we can’t decrypt your vault. We don’t have access to your passphrase.
Dream engine not processing
Symptom: Conversations are captured but no entities are being extracted.
Fix:
- Open the desktop app → Settings → Dream Engine
- Check the queue; there may be a backlog
- Click Trigger Dream to manually start processing
- If the queue is stuck, restart the desktop app
Symptom: You connected BaseLayer but Claude doesn’t use the tools.
Fix:
- Go to Settings → Integrations and verify BaseLayer is listed
- Try removing and re-adding the integration
- Start a new conversation (tools may not appear in existing ones)
Slow search results
Symptom: recall takes a long time to return results.
Fix: Large vaults (10,000+ entities) may take longer to search.
- Use
entity_type to narrow your search
- Use
depth: "shallow" for faster results
- Reduce the
limit parameter
