Troubleshooting

The fixes for the issues people actually hit, roughly in the order they happen. If none of these solve it, ask your AI to run a diagnosis — it can report the problem for you.

Tools don’t appear in my AI client

  • Restart the AI app once after installing — MCP clients read their config on launch.
  • Cursor / VS Code: tools only show in Agent mode (Chat and Edit modes don’t expose MCP tools).
  • Check the LMCP menu bar icon is present and its status dot is green.

The menu bar icon is missing

Open Local MCP from Applications. If it still doesn’t appear, follow the tray-not-running guide (LaunchAgent reset).

“Permission denied” or empty results

A macOS permission is missing. Check System Settings → Privacy & Security against the permission map — Mail/iMessage/Teams need Full Disk Access, acting in apps needs Automation. Then retry the request.

ChatGPT / Claude.ai can’t reach my Mac

  • Enable Cloud Data Forwarding in the menu bar app (Settings → Connect) — it’s off by default.
  • Make sure your Mac is awake and online; the relay reconnects automatically.
  • Re-copy the connection URL/token from the menu bar if the connector shows an auth error — see Connect your AI.

A tool failed or returned something odd

Ask your AI to “report this problem” — LMCP has a built-in reporter that captures the full diagnostic snapshot (versions, permission states, recent errors) and sends it to the team in one step. You’ll get a case id back.

Where the logs are

~/Library/Application Support/Local MCP/server.log

Still stuck?

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