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Troubleshooting

daemon not running

The refractions task pane shows Helper not running.

Check it from Terminal:

curl http://localhost:27832/api/status

If you get a connection error, restart it from the control panel: click the Refractions icon in your menu bar and use the Stop then Start buttons (or Restart). The control panel owns the daemon process and will spawn a fresh one.

If the menu bar icon isn't there at all, launch the app from /Applications/Refractions.app.

Logs:

  • stdout → ~/Library/Logs/Refractions/daemon.log
  • stderr → ~/Library/Logs/Refractions/daemon.err

Or open the Logs tab inside the Refractions window for a live tail with a filter.

If those say macOS blocked execution, allow the binary in System Settings → Privacy & Security.

Prism not found

refractions looks for GraphPad Prism.app in /Applications. If you installed Prism somewhere else, create a symlink:

ln -s "/path/to/GraphPad Prism.app" "/Applications/GraphPad Prism.app"

Or open the refractions daemon config at ~/.refractions/config.json and set "prismPath": "/path/to/GraphPad Prism.app".

File locked

Office holds a file lock on the open document. Refractions writes the updated file to <file>.<ext>.tmp and atomically renames it. If you see File locked errors, close the file in PowerPoint / Word / Excel, click Update again, then reopen.

OLE truncated

If you see Truncated OLE stream — open in Windows Office and Save As to repair, the file has a malformed OLE container that pre-dates Refractions (often the case for charts originally embedded in Office for Mac with an older Prism). Open the file once on Windows, run Save As, and Refractions will work on the saved copy.

Update succeeds but the chart preview doesn't change

If you've turned Auto-refresh after Update off in the task pane gear menu, the file on disk is updated but Office still shows its cached in-memory preview. Click the red Refresh document banner inside the task pane — it closes + reopens the file so the new preview appears. Turn auto-refresh back on if you'd rather skip the manual step.

License invalid

If refractions reports the license is invalid:

  1. Make sure the daemon can reach https://refractions.app/. Try curl -I https://refractions.app/.
  2. Confirm the key in the post-purchase email matches what you entered.
  3. Check whether you've used all your seats — see Activation → How seats work.

If the problem persists, email [email protected] with a diagnostics bundle — generate one from the Refractions menu bar app: Open Refractions → Support → Generate diagnostics. The zip lands on your Desktop and contains logs + version + permission state (no license key, no document contents).