Support File and Privacy

Support File and Privacy

A support file is one .tar.gz archive with the logs and hardware details needed to diagnose a problem. Make it from Settings > GENERATE SUPPORT FILE, or SAVE SUPPORT FILE on an error screen. Steps are in Reporting a Bug.

Where it can be saved

Only to a second, external USB drive (not the CouchLiteOS boot stick and never an internal disk).

• FAT32 or exFAT is best. NTFS drives often come up read-only after a Windows fast shutdown; the screen then says THIS DRIVE IS NTFS; USE A FAT32 OR EXFAT DRIVE.
• Keep at least 64 MiB free.
• With only the boot stick attached, the screen asks you to insert a second USB drive. With several drives, pick one with the D-pad and A.
• CouchLiteOS never formats or repairs the drive. If it mounted the drive itself, it unmounts it when done; otherwise eject it before unplugging.

Errors such as USB DRIVE IS FULL, USB DRIVE IS READ-ONLY or USB DRIVE ERROR: TRY ANOTHER DRIVE say what to fix. The file is named couchliteos-support-YYYYMMDD-HHMMSSZ-<id>.tar.gz, and the screen shows where it was saved.

What it contains

• CouchLiteOS version, date, uptime, kernel
• CPU, memory, PCI and USB devices, loaded drivers
• Graphics and display state, Vulkan and video-decoding (VA-API) reports
• Audio (PipeWire, ALSA, HDMI/DisplayPort monitor data)
• Network: interfaces, IPv4 addresses, routes, DNS, Wi-Fi state
• Tailscale state (cleaned), USB/IP and firewall rules
• Package versions, service status, failed services
• The current boot's system log and the CouchLiteOS logs (/var/log/couchliteos; very large logs are cut to their last 8 MiB)
• A cleaned copy of /var/lib/couchliteos/config.ini
• Remote Desktop connections by host, port and options only

What it never contains

• Browser and app profiles (Firefox, Chrome, Moonlight, chiaki-ng data)
• Moonlight pairing and chiaki-ng registration
• Tailscale identity, Bluetooth pairing keys
• Remote Desktop usernames, domains and passwords

Passwords, private keys, cookies, tokens, Tailscale keys and login URLs are removed from the logs. Your LAN IP addresses and hardware details remain, because they are needed for diagnosis.

Logs on the box

Logs live in /var/log/couchliteos. Each is trimmed to its last 5 MiB when its app starts (one older copy is kept), and only the newest five saved System Diagnostics reports are kept.