Both laptop and desktop are running Windows 10. ESET antivirus. Google Chrome browser. I can connect Sparrow wallet on the desktop if I open it right away upon starting up the computer. It runs as expected, but disconnects from the Start9 Server after about two minutes. No other services will connect. Everything is fine on the laptop.
Hey!
This kind of issues are usually related with bonjour, try uninstalling and reinstalling it again on the desktop
Thanks. The problem is on the desktop, and I did that with bonjour, again, today.
Can we go into more detail about the issues your desktop is having? Let’s leave Sparrow (and what I presume is a connection to Electrs or Bitcoin Core) and stick to web interfaces for a second, via the web browser.
I’d like you to do whatever it is that’s makes your desktop start working (a restart?)
Then open your unique adjective-noun.local and then launch the UI of any service you have installed that has a web UI. You’ll have two tabs in Chrome, one with the StartOS UI and one with any service UI.
The StartOS UI should show a green connected bar on the bottom left. The service web UI should work and things should be clickable.
What happens next?
It all started working, suddenly, and I have no idea why. The last thing that I tried was to copy and paste the username and password for Bitcoin Core into Sparrow, but I doubt that was the issue, because I was able to connect briefly before. The green “Connected” bar has always been on. Anyway, it’s working, for now. Really strange.
After several hours of all Start9 services working just fine on the desktop, I came back to the computer this morning, and everything is blocked, again. I can connect with the laptop, as usual, and even the Zeus mobile app on my phone has no problem connecting to my Start9 lightning node. The desktop will log in to the Server, and the green Connected is on, but none of the services are accessible on the desktop.
- Try to hard refresh the browser ctrl + shift + R
- Uninstall bonjour and then reinstall ( I know you already did this, but sometimes it takes more than once) Start9 | Connecting Locally
I did the hard refresh on the browser and the reinstalled bonjour. The one issue that did come up was that when I uninstalled bonjour, I had to ignore a suggestion that I shut down the NVIDIA overlay because I do not know how to do that. But reinstall went through without any errors shown. Anyway, I still cannot connect to any services with the desktop, despite the fact that the Start9 services page shows that I am connected. The laptop works without any problems. Thanks for the suggestion, though.
Sorry to hear that. I have never encountered the NVidia message. If you are determined, I would go over this guide a few times and just make sure you are not missing any small detail. Start9 | Trusting Your Root CA
Since it was working at one point, there has to be some minor issue blocking you and not a hardware or software incompatibility issue
Since only one of your Windows client devices is having issues accessing the server, we can at least narrow it down there.
The next place to narrow it down is to see if it’s the whole StartOS UI or just services. Just services means it’s and mDNS issue, which on Windows means its a Bonjour issue.
I’ve never seen anything outside of Bonjour blocking .locals, but there could be a firewall, VPN or anti-virus edge case where something is interfering.
Again, I’d consider a piecemeal comparison of the working laptop and the no-working desktop and looking for differences, taking special note of what I mention above.
My current theory is that ESET, my anti-virus software, is blocking the services, somehow, but even turning it off temporarily doesn’t make a difference. I have had that desktop for about three years, so I could have changed some settings somewhere that have only manifested a problem, now.
You’re facing an excruciating period of trial and error, I wish I could narrow it down for you. Of course, you could just switch to Linux. 
I finally found a solution. I uninstalled Surfshark VPN, and all Start9 services became available on the desktop. If I only turn off Surfshark, the Start9 services are still not available, but a complete uninstall solved the problem, whatever that problem was. That’s about the limit of my diagnostic skills, but perhaps it will help the next guy.
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