Common FileFortress Issues and Solutions

"filefortress" is not recognized

The CLI is not in your system PATH.

Solution

• Windows: Run the installer again or add the install directory to PATH
• macOS: Run export PATH="$PATH:/usr/local/bin"
• Linux: Ensure /usr/local/bin is in PATH

"Device not authenticated"

Your device needs to be registered with your FileFortress account.

Solution

# Run setup to authenticate
filefortress setup

"Invalid password"

Wrong password provided for encrypted database.

Solution

• Check for typos in your password
• If using key file, verify file contents: cat ~/filefortress.key
• If password is lost, you'll need to reinitialize (data cannot be recovered)

"Failed to connect to remote"

Cannot connect to cloud storage provider.

Solution

• Check your internet connection
• Verify remote credentials are valid
• Re-authenticate the remote: filefortress remotes auth "Remote Name"
• Check if the provider is experiencing outages

"Token expired"

OAuth token for cloud provider has expired.

Solution

# Re-authenticate the remote
filefortress remotes auth "My Google Drive"

Slow scans

Scanning takes a long time.

Solutions

• Use incremental scans after initial full scan
• Scan specific folders instead of entire remote
• Check for rate limiting from the cloud provider
• Run scans during off-peak hours

Slow searches

Search queries take too long.

Solutions

• Use more specific filters to narrow results
• Search within a specific remote instead of all
• Database may need optimization - contact support for large databases

"Database corrupted"

Local database file is corrupted.

Solution

• Restore from backup if available
• Reinitialize and re-scan: filefortress reinit
• Data can be rebuilt by scanning remotes again