Troubleshooting & FAQ

Start with the daemon log — it records OAuth failures, switch errors, proxy problems, and IPC events:

tail -f ~/.sentinel/daemon.log

“No credentials stored for this account” when switching

The daemon stores credentials per account UUID the first time you sync. Open the app and click Sync while each account is active in Claude Code (one at a time) to capture its token. After syncing every account, switching works without re-login.

Add Account says “Claude Code (the `claude` CLI) was not found”

Adding an account signs in through the Claude Code CLI (free — no separate subscription). The panel shows the official one-line installer with a copy button: run it in a terminal, then click Retry. On Windows, Sentinel looks in %USERPROFILE%\.local\bin (native installer), %APPDATA%\npm (npm global), and %USERPROFILE%\.bun\bin even when those directories aren’t on PATH, so a standard install is found without any PATH surgery.

The claude setup-token flow exited before printing a token — usually a cancelled or failed browser sign-in. Close the panel and try again, completing the authorization page in the browser. If it keeps failing, the in-app terminal output shows the CLI’s own error message.

I deleted an account and re-adding it created a duplicate

Setup tokens carry no identity, so Sentinel can’t recognize a re-added account by itself. If the old account is under Deleted Accounts (removed with Keep Data), remove the duplicate and run Add Account again — on the name step, pick the Restore option for the old account instead of typing a name. Its name, organization, and usage history come back. See Restoring a deleted account.

Proxy not intercepting Claude Code requests

Verify ~/.claude/settings.json contains ANTHROPIC_BASE_URL=http://127.0.0.1:47284. If it’s missing, click Activate Sentinel in the app, then restart Claude Code.

Claude Desktop app not routing through Sentinel

The desktop app reads its own gateway config, not ~/.claude/settings.json. Click Enable on the Claude Desktop card in Sentinel, then fully quit and reopen the desktop app (a reopen from the dock won’t reload the config; on Windows, end lingering claude.exe processes in Task Manager). If the card doesn’t appear, either the app wasn’t detected yet — give the detector a few seconds — or routing is already active (the card hides once enabled; check or toggle it from Settings → General). Confirm traffic with tail -f ~/.sentinel/daemon.log. Note that Cowork runs in a separate VM and may not route through the host gateway.

Claude Desktop says “The provider rejected your credentials”

The desktop app never holds a real credential — the proxy injects a pooled account token per request — so this error means the account Sentinel is serving has an expired or revoked token (the daemon log shows [Proxy] GET /v1/models → 401 with the account id). Fix it in Sentinel: Re-authenticate that account, or add/restore one. Don’t re-enter credentials in the desktop app’s Setup — there’s nothing to fix there.

Claude Desktop is stuck on “Models are still loading”

This is leftover state from launching the desktop app while the gateway was failing (for example, during the expired-token 401s above). The desktop app re-checks in the background and its log will even report recovery, but already-open windows don’t refresh the model picker. Fully quit the desktop app — on Windows, end all claude.exe processes in Task Manager (the window closing is not enough) — and relaunch. To confirm what the desktop app itself sees, check its log:

macOS ~/Library/Logs/Claude-3p/main.log
Windows %LOCALAPPDATA%\Claude-3p\logs\main.log

Healthy looks like [custom-3p] Model discovery: 10 found … picker = 10 (discovery); a credential problem shows credential rejected by server { channel: 'discovery', httpStatus: 401 }.

”Continue with Google” doesn’t work in the Connect claude.ai window

Google blocks sign-in inside embedded webviews. Use email / magic-link / Apple login in the Connect window instead.

macOS hides menu bar icons when the bar is full. Drag to reveal, or hold ⌘ and drag the icon to reorder/uncover it.

The daemon isn’t running

The health endpoint is the quickest check:

curl http://localhost:47284/health
# {"status":"ok","pid":12345}

If it errors or times out, relaunch the app and check the log for a startup crash.