FAQ and troubleshooting

Keys and terminal

F1 does not open the help

The help is on Ctrl-G, not F1: many terminal emulators take F1 for their own help. Ctrl-G works everywhere in envite, also while typing in a field.

Typing ? or g does not open anything

They are ordinary characters, so you can type them in fields and passwords. Use Ctrl-G for the help.

The colors look wrong, or I want no colors

Envite uses only the 16 ANSI colors, so it follows the palette of your terminal, light or dark. Set NO_COLOR to any non-empty value to turn colors off: styles then use bold, reversed and underlined text, and what is selected or focused is also marked with >.

NO_COLOR=1 envite

The key hints are cut off

The hints of every screen fit in 80 columns. Widen the terminal to at least 80 columns.

envite exits right away with status 1

Standard output must be a terminal: envite cannot run with its output piped or redirected. If a message mentions config.json, see A file that cannot be read.

SSH

The terminal suddenly shows an ssh prompt

That is expected. When a host needs a password, a key passphrase, a second factor or confirming its key while you wait for something, envite hands the terminal over to ssh, printing Connecting to <host>; ssh may ask for credentials. Answer ssh; envite takes the terminal back and retries.

The status bar says “SSH authentication required — press Ctrl-R”

A background save or check needs to authenticate. Envite never takes the terminal from you on its own, so it waits: press Ctrl-R to connect in the foreground. Loading your key into ssh-agent avoids the question altogether.

“The host key of … has changed; the connection was refused”

The server presents a different host key than the one in known_hosts. Envite never lets you accept it from the interface. Verify the server’s identity, then fix ~/.ssh/known_hosts yourself, for example with ssh-keygen -R <host>.

Does envite use my ~/.ssh/config?

Yes. It runs the system ssh, so host aliases, ProxyJump, identity files and the agent all apply. A host alias can be used as the Server of an environment.

Vaults

I forgot my password

There is no recovery. Ask another member to remove you and add you again with a new password. If no member remembers their password, the vault cannot be opened.

“Invalid credentials” although the password is right

Check the username: a wrong username and a wrong password give the same message on purpose. Usernames are lowercase.

“The file at this location is a different vault than the one registered under this name”

Another vault file was put at the location of a known vault. Remove the entry from Vaults (d) and add the file again with Open existing.

“This vault is already known at another location”

The same vault, for example a copy of the file, is already in your list under another path. Use the existing entry, or remove it first.

The status bar says conflict · c resolve

Your save and another member’s save changed the same thing. Press c; see Resolve conflicts.

A warning says a file is readable by other users

Run the chmod command the warning shows. Envite creates its files owner-only and never changes permissions itself.

Links and browser

GitHub or Open issue does not open a browser

Envite opens links with xdg-open. When it cannot be started, a warning shows the address so you can open it yourself. Install xdg-utils or the equivalent package of your distribution.

Updates

Does envite connect to the internet by itself?

Only to check for a new version: at most once a day, when it starts, it asks GitHub which release is the latest. Without network the check fails silently. Turn it off with Check for updates at startup in Options. See Installation.

Platforms

Does envite run on macOS or Windows?

Not yet. Envite is published as a static Linux x86_64 binary only.