Troubleshooting

Common issues and how to fix them.

Domain not resolving

Symptom: Browser shows "This site can't be reached" when visiting your domain.

Fix:

Check that the domain is enabled (toggle is on) in LocalDomain
Check the status bar — both Daemon and Caddy should show "Running"
Make sure your dev server is actually running on the target port
Try restarting services from the system tray menu

HTTPS certificate warnings

Symptom: Browser shows "Your connection is not private" or certificate errors.

Fix:

Check the status bar for CA Trusted — if it doesn't show, go to Settings and click "Install CA"
On Linux, Firefox and Chrome use their own certificate stores. You may need to import the CA certificate manually into your browser
Try regenerating the certificate: delete the domain and re-add it

Daemon not starting

macOS

# Check daemon status
sudo launchctl list | grep localdomain
 
# View daemon logs
sudo log show --predicate 'process == "localdomain-daemon"' --last 5m
 
# Restart daemon
sudo launchctl kickstart -k system/com.localdomain.daemon

Windows

# Check service status
sc query localdomain-daemon
 
# View logs
Get-EventLog -LogName Application -Source localdomain-daemon -Newest 20
 
# Run daemon in foreground for debugging
target\release\localdomain-daemon.exe --console

Linux

# Check service status
sudo systemctl status localdomain-daemon
 
# View logs
sudo journalctl -u localdomain-daemon -f
 
# Restart daemon
sudo systemctl restart localdomain-daemon

Port conflict

Symptom: Caddy fails to start or a domain doesn't work.

Fix: Make sure nothing else is using port 80 or 443:

# macOS / Linux
sudo lsof -i :80
sudo lsof -i :443
 
# Windows
netstat -ano | findstr :80
netstat -ano | findstr :443

If another process (like Apache, Nginx, or IIS) is using those ports, stop it or change its configuration.

XAMPP Apache not starting (port 80 conflict)

Symptom: XAMPP Apache fails to start after enabling LocalDomain, or LocalDomain Caddy fails to start while Apache is running.

Why it happens: both services are trying to bind to port 80.

LocalDomain HTTP listener defaults to 80
XAMPP Apache also often defaults to Listen 80

Only one process can own port 80, so one of them fails.

Recommended fix:

Change Apache Listen to another port (for example 8080) in XAMPP config
Restart Apache
Re-scan or refresh XAMPP settings in LocalDomain (it auto-detects Apache port from config)

After this, LocalDomain keeps serving your friendly domains on 80/443 and reverse proxies to Apache on the new port.

For full details, see XAMPP Service.

Windows SmartScreen warning

The app is not code-signed for Windows. On first launch you'll see a SmartScreen warning. Click More info then Run anyway.

Linux CA trust limitations

update-ca-certificates covers system tools (curl, wget) but not Firefox or Chrome. These browsers use their own certificate stores (NSS). You may need to manually import the CA certificate:

Find the CA cert at /var/lib/localdomain/certs/ca.pem
In Firefox: Settings → Privacy & Security → Certificates → Import
In Chrome: Settings → Privacy and Security → Security → Manage certificates → Import

Still stuck?

Tunnels Contributing