Repository navigation
Troubleshooting
On Linux, phys-mem reads DMI memory tables and requires root:
sudo retchWithout root, the field is silently omitted rather than erroring — this is expected,
not a bug. On Windows neither needs anything: phys-mem reads the SMBIOS table and
phys-disk the storage IOCTLs natively, with no PowerShell and no administrator rights.
Running under sudo is not simply "retch with more fields" — it trades one set for
another, because sudo's default env_reset clears most of the environment. Diffing a
sudo retch --full run against a plain one is therefore not a fair before/after.
| Field | |
|---|---|
| Root only |
phys-mem (DMI tables, mode 0400 root); the snapshot count in btrfs (btrfs subvolume list -s) |
| User only |
editor ($VISUAL/$EDITOR), desktop and wm (XDG_CURRENT_DESKTOP and friends) |
The btrfs snapshot count is omitted, never shown as 0, when it can't be read, so
"couldn't check" is never mistaken for "no snapshots".
weather requires network access (one plain-HTTP request to wttr.in, which also locates
you by IP if weather_location isn't set) and has a ~4s timeout. It's
shown in --full mode only by default — it won't appear in standard, --short, or
--long output even with network access. An unknown weather_location makes wttr.in
return an error, and the field is then left out rather than shown wrong.
domain-search queries resolvectl status (systemd-resolved) for per-interface DNS
search domains. On systems without systemd-resolved (or where it isn't managing DNS),
this field will be empty. It's shown in --full mode only.
This is intentional, not a bug: the logo is automatically suppressed whenever stdout
is not a terminal (e.g. retch | bat, retch > file.txt, or when running inside a
script). This avoids dumping raw terminal graphics escape sequences into a file or
another program's input. Setting show_logo = true does not change this; the piping
check always wins.
That is the layout falling back deliberately: side by side needs at least 95 columns, and
enough room for the text column and the logo together. Widen the terminal, or use
--no-logo if you would rather have the width back.
On Windows Terminal the logo currently always prints above the text. That is a known
open bug, not the fallback. A related one: on Windows, --chafa-logo is ignored even when
requested.
Prebuilt macOS release binaries are not yet code-signed or notarized (tracked as future work). If macOS blocks the binary after downloading a release asset directly:
xattr -dr com.apple.quarantine /path/to/retchThis isn't needed when installing via cargo install retch-cli, nix run github:l1a/retch, or building from source — only for binaries downloaded directly
from a GitHub Release.
If you have FUSE-mounted volumes (e.g. cryfs, EncFS vaults), disk detection can
be skewed by slow statvfs calls on those mounts. Standard, --short, and --long
modes already skip fuse.* mounts to avoid this; only --full mode probes them.
Unmount FUSE volumes before benchmarking, or discount runs where they're mounted.
To see where the time actually goes, run it with RETCH_TIMING set:
RETCH_TIMING=1 retch --long >/dev/nullEach probe prints one line to stderr with its start offset and duration. Probes that start at about the same offset ran concurrently; one that starts after another has finished ran serially and added its full duration to the run. Capture this while it is slow — the same machine can be fast a few minutes later.