Troubleshooting

Most Courier problems are one of five things. Check in this order.

“Messages failed signature/decryption and were dropped”

This usually isn’t corruption — it’s replay suppression. If another consumer (dashboard push, a second device) already recorded the envelope, your inbox skips it as a duplicate. Run courier inbox --all: genuine failures are counted separately from silently skipped replays.

If a message genuinely won’t decrypt, the sender probably sealed it to a rotated key you no longer hold. Ask them to resend — or restore from a backup taken before the rotation.

Can't reach the relay

Check you’re pointed at the right relay: courier config get relay.
Corporate or school networks sometimes block non-standard ports — the client honors HTTPS_PROXY/HTTP_PROXY and tunnels through them with certificate pinning intact.
TLS pin mismatch? The relay’s certificate may have rotated. Compare the fingerprint in the error against the one published in the repo’s INSTALL.md, then courier init --repin if it checks out.

Messages aren't arriving

Confirm the sender used your current address (courier address). Addresses never change on rotation, but a typo seals the message to nobody.
Ask the sender whether the relay accepted the envelope — a send that never reached the relay isn’t a delivery problem.
Check message requests: mail from unknown senders lands in requests, not your inbox. courier requests to review.
Still nothing? The sender’s client may be sealing to a stale cached key — have them refresh with courier directory / key re-fetch.

Dashboard login or push problems

Temp password rejected: it’s one-time and single-use — if setup was run twice, only the latest password works.
Can’t log in after password change: passwords are bcrypt-hashed; there’s no recovery. The relay operator can reset your dashboard account — your Courier identity is unaffected.
Push shows nothing new: push only uploads messages the inbox hasn’t already marked seen. If another client read them first, there’s nothing to push.

“I lost my seed”

Without the seed or a backup, the address is unrecoverable — that’s the price of having no central authority. Make a new identity with courier init, tell your contacts the new address, and this time back it up immediately.

Still stuck?

File an issue on the Courier repository with your client version (courier version), the relay URL, and the exact error text. We read every one.

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