# 0.4.0 — onion service never publishes descriptor; "Found secret key but not .../hs\_0//hs\_ed25519\_public\_key. Regenerating." **URL:** \ **Category:** Services Support\ **Tags:** services\ **Created:** [September 12, 2026, 9:41pm UTC](https://community.start9.com/t/0-4-0-onion-service-never-publishes-descriptor-found-secret-key-but-not-hs-0-hs-ed25519-public-key-regenerating/5731 "2026-09-12T21:41:03Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 3\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![wingmens](https://community.start9.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/w/dbc845/32.png) [@wingmens](https://community.start9.com/u/wingmens)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2026, 9:41pm UTC](https://community.start9.com/t/0-4-0-onion-service-never-publishes-descriptor-found-secret-key-but-not-hs-0-hs-ed25519-public-key-regenerating/5731/1 "2026-09-12T21:41:03Z")
Hope everyone is well, I am running into a wall here. I have generated a StartOSUI Tor URL and I’d like to access the server from anywhere in the world or any other wifi / data. When I go to tor on different devices I put the url in and it just loads forever until it times out. **Setup:** StartOS 0.4.0 on an x86 mini PC (Beelink). Tor 0.4.9.12 installed from the marketplace. **Goal:** reach the StartOS admin UI over Tor from outside my LAN. **What I did** - Installed the Tor service from the marketplace, started it, confirmed healthy. - Added an onion service to `start-os` / `admin` / `admin-ui`, SSL off, no vanity private key. - Tested the .onion in Tor Browser from off-LAN (phone on cell data, and desktop). **Result:** times out every time. Tor Browser parses and resolves the address fine — the error is “The connection has timed out”, not a DNS or malformed-address failure — so nothing is answering on it. **Already ruled out** - Tor bootstraps to 100% within seconds on every restart. Consensus healthy, exit nodes present. - Other onion sites (the DuckDuckGo onion) load fine from the same client, so my Tor client and network are not the problem. - Ran Reset Tor Connection. No change. - Relay mode had been enabled at one point; turned it off and confirmed the “configured as a relay and a hidden service” warning no longer appears. - Fully uninstalled Tor, reinstalled clean, created a single fresh onion and nothing else. Same result. - Tested off-LAN, not from the same network as the server. **What the logs show** 1. Every time an onion is created or the config reloads: ```auto Sep 12 20:50:18.000 [notice] Found secret key but not /var/lib/tor/hidden_services/start-os/admin/hs_0//hs_ed25519_public_key. Regenerating. ``` Note the doubled slash in `hs_0//hs_ed25519_public_key`. The same line appeared for an Ollama onion at `/var/lib/tor/hidden_services/ollama/api-multi/hs_0//hs_ed25519_public_key`. 1. No descriptor upload or HSDir publish entries anywhere in ~10,000 lines of logs spanning about three weeks. 2. Heartbeat lines read: `Our onion services received 0 v3 INTRODUCE2 cells and attempted to launch 0 rendezvous circuits.` **Question:** is that path with the doubled slash expected? It looks like the public key file never lands where Tor expects it and the service is never published. Anything else I should check, or is this a bug? If anyone has any ideas on how I can access my server I’d greatly appreciate it. -Andrew ---
**Author:** ![h0mer](https://community.start9.com/user_avatar/community.start9.com/h0mer/32/20_2.png) [@h0mer](https://community.start9.com/u/h0mer)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2026, 12:20pm UTC](https://community.start9.com/t/0-4-0-onion-service-never-publishes-descriptor-found-secret-key-but-not-hs-0-hs-ed25519-public-key-regenerating/5731/2 "2026-09-13T12:20:46Z")
Hi Andrew, Good news — this is a known issue and nothing is wrong with your setup or your Tor install. On 0.4.0 and 0.4.0.1, the **http://**.onion for the StartOS interface itself never answers — it just hangs, exactly as you describe. The **https://**.onion for that same interface works normally. Go to the same Interfaces page and use the https:// address instead. Onion addresses for installed services are unaffected. Details here: [The StartOS UI's http:// .onion address times out on 0.4.0 and 0.4.0.1 — use the https:// one · Issue #5 · Start9Labs/advisories · GitHub](https://github.com/Start9Labs/advisories/issues/5) Please don’t delete the onion address — removing the last port on a .onion destroys its key material and the address is gone for good. No need to create a new one either; a fresh address fails the same way. 0.4.0.2 fixes this. When you update, Tor re-points your existing addresses on its own — nothing to re-add and no address lost. Let me know if the https:// one also fails, because then we’re looking at something different. -h0mer ---
**Author:** ![ricardo252](https://community.start9.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/r/45deac/32.png) [@ricardo252](https://community.start9.com/u/ricardo252)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2026, 2:02pm UTC](https://community.start9.com/t/0-4-0-onion-service-never-publishes-descriptor-found-secret-key-but-not-hs-0-hs-ed25519-public-key-regenerating/5731/3 "2026-10-06T14:02:13Z")
just downloaded 0.4.0.2 looks like its the answer to my 2 weeks of head banging trying to connect , hopefully this is problem solved , cheers guys