Sign-In Troubleshooting
What each sign-in error message means, and what to do about it.
Sign-in error messages
Every sign-in failure now says what went wrong. Match the message you saw to the row below.
The same messages, and the same rules below, apply on every page that talks to Cosmo while you're signing in or managing your account — not just Sign In. That includes Sign Up (including accepting a teammate's invitation), Reset password, the subscription/billing setup page you land on after signing in, the desktop handoff page, and the Team/Settings tabs under Org → Manage. A dropped connection reads as "you appear to be offline" on all of them, never a raw technical error or an internal status name.
| Message | What happened | What to do |
|---|---|---|
| You appear to be offline. | Your device reported that it has no network connection at all. | Reconnect to Wi-Fi or your mobile network, then Try again. |
| Unable to connect to the server. | The request never reached Cosmo — DNS failure, a refused connection, a captive portal, or a firewall. | Check your connection. If you're on a corporate or hotel network, see Network restrictions. |
| The sign-in request timed out. | Cosmo waited 20 seconds and stopped. Usually a very slow or intermittently dropping connection. | Try again. If it repeats, switch networks. |
| Sign-in is temporarily unavailable. | Cosmo's API is up but not serving requests right now (a deploy, a restart, or an upstream outage). | Wait a minute or two, then Try again. |
| We're unable to complete your sign-in right now. | Cosmo's API returned an error. This is a problem on our side, not with your credentials. | Try again shortly. If it persists, contact support with the time it happened. |
| Too many sign-in attempts. | You've been rate limited after repeated attempts. | Wait a minute before trying again. |
| Password is incorrect (or another specific message) | Your credentials or verification code were rejected. | Correct what you typed. There's no Try again button here — repeating the same input would just be refused again. |
The failure messages for server problems are deliberately generic. Cosmo never renders the API's own error text for a server-side failure, because that text can contain internal detail that shouldn't appear on a public sign-in page.
Sign-in appears to hang
Every authentication request is bounded — the button reverts from Please wait… within 20 seconds whatever happens, and you'll get one of the messages above. If the form genuinely sits on Please wait… longer than that:
- Reload the page. No sign-in attempt is left half-finished; reloading is always safe.
- Check for a browser extension blocking requests. Privacy and ad-blocking extensions sometimes block the authentication provider's domain, which looks identical to being offline.
- Try a private window, which runs without extensions.
Retrying safely
Clicking Try again repeats the attempt that failed, using what you already typed — you don't need to re-enter your email, password, or verification code.
Submitting the form repeatedly (double-clicking Sign in, or holding Return) sends exactly one authentication request. You cannot accidentally create duplicate sign-in attempts.
If a request timed out, Cosmo stopped waiting for it, but the attempt may still have completed on the server. Retrying after a timeout is safe: if the first attempt did succeed, you'll simply be signed in.
Network restrictions
Cosmo's sign-in needs outbound HTTPS access to:
- Cosmo's API (the
NEXT_PUBLIC_SERVER_URLyour deployment uses —api.cosmo.devon the hosted service) - Clerk, the authentication provider (
*.clerk.accounts.devandclerk.com)
If any of these are blocked, sign-in reports Unable to connect to the server. Ask your network administrator to allow them.
Opening the desktop app after signing in
If sign-in succeeds in the browser but the handoff to the desktop app fails, the
/launch page shows the reason with a Try again button rather than the
download screen. A retry here re-runs only the handoff — you stay signed in.
If the desktop app never opens after Open Cosmo, see Desktop Troubleshooting.
Still stuck?
Contact support with:
- The exact message shown, and which page it appeared on
- The approximate time (and your timezone)
- Whether you were on the web app or the desktop app
Your browser console also carries a line beginning [auth] for each failure,
with the failure category and HTTP status. It contains no credentials or
personal data, so it's safe to copy into a support ticket.