Troubleshooting

This page collects the most common issues people hit when running Vesper Orbit. If your situation isn't covered here, email support@vesperapps.com.

"Chrome Not Found" or Scan Won't Start

Vesper Orbit uses Google Chrome as its rendering engine via Puppeteer. If Chrome is not installed in /Applications/Google Chrome.app, Orbit cannot start a scan.

Fix: install Chrome from google.com/chrome (opens in a new tab), then quit and relaunch Vesper Orbit. Other Chromium-based browsers (Chromium, Brave, Edge) are not currently supported.

Scan Is Very Slow

Orbit is intentionally single-threaded - it visits one page at a time. This avoids tripping rate limits, anti-bot rules, or accidentally DOSing a small archival site. A slow scan is usually a slow site, not a slow Orbit.

If a scan is taking longer than expected:

Check exclusions. Open the Edit panel and confirm your exclusions are catching the dynamic-page traps on the site - event calendars, faceted filters, paginated archives. See Exclusions.
Reduce subdomain scope. If Subdomains is on and the site has many subdomains, the crawl will be much larger. Toggle it off unless you specifically need cross-subdomain capture.
Disable media types you don't need. Each captured asset adds a network request. If you only need PDFs, turn off Images, Audio, and Video.

Missing Files in the Output

If you expected a specific file to be captured but it's not in the output folder, check the manifest CSV first. The file is almost always there with a status that explains what happened.

Status	Meaning
`too_large`	File exceeded the 100 MB cap. Not downloaded.
`error`	HTTP error, redirect loop, or network failure.
`skipped_type`	The file's media type was disabled when you ran the scan.

If the file isn't in the manifest at all, Orbit never saw a link to it. Common causes:

The file is on a different host. Orbit only crawls pages on the target domain. If a file is linked from a page that's outside the domain, Orbit won't reach it.
The file is behind authentication. Orbit is not logged in. Members-only or paywalled assets won't be captured.
The page linking to the file was excluded. If the page lives under a path or query pattern in your exclusions list, it never got crawled.
The link is loaded only on user interaction. Orbit renders pages but doesn't click buttons or fill forms. Media revealed only by JavaScript-driven interaction is not captured.

"All Four Media Types Are Off" Warning

Orbit refuses to start a scan with all four pills disabled - there'd be nothing to capture. Re-enable at least one media type and click Start scan again.

Settings Panel Won't Scroll on Smaller Windows

If the exclusions panel content overflows a short window, scroll inside the panel itself rather than the main window. The panel has its own scroll region.

Auto-Updates Not Working

If the menu's Check for Updates... always reports you're on the latest version when you know a newer one exists, you may be behind a corporate proxy or firewall blocking vesperapps.com/releases/orbit/. Download the latest .dmg manually from the Vesper Orbit page and install over the existing app - your settings survive the manual upgrade.

A Single Page Scan Captured Far More Files Than the Page Shows

Orbit captures every media file the page's markup references, which is not always the same as what you can see. Archive pages in particular often hold years of documents inside collapsed sections or tabs that are present in the page whether or not they are expanded on screen. A board page showing a dozen visible links can genuinely reference several hundred PDFs.

Check _manifest.csv if a count surprises you: every captured file lists the page it came from and the text of the link that pointed at it, which usually makes the source obvious at a glance.

A Single Page Scan Says "0 Pages Scanned"

The page counter only advances when Orbit moves to the next page, and in Single Page mode there is no next page, so it stays at 0 until the scan finishes and the summary reports 1 page. The file counts and the total size next to it update normally throughout, and are the better indicator that work is happening.

Removing Vesper Orbit

Quit Vesper Orbit.
Drag Vesper Orbit from /Applications to the Trash.
Optional - to remove all settings and the per-app log: rm -rf ~/Library/Application\ Support/Vesper\ Orbit in Terminal.

Still Stuck?

Email support@vesperapps.com with:

Your Orbit version (Apple menu → About Vesper Orbit).
Your macOS version (Apple menu → About This Mac).
The URL you tried to scan (or a representative example).
The contents of the manifest CSV if relevant.