Backend Will Not Start

If the app shows a splash screen forever, or run-all.sh exits with an error, the bundled backend failed to launch. Most causes are diagnosable from the logs.

Quick checks

1. Open server.log — the backend log inside the app’s data folder:
2. macOS — ~/Library/Application Support/greenlight-dashboard/logs/server.log
3. Windows — %AppData%\greenlight-dashboard\logs\server.log (press Win+R, paste the path, Enter)
4. Linux — ~/.config/greenlight-dashboard/logs/server.log

The last few lines almost always say what went wrong.

1. Check the port — the desktop app starts on 18000 by default. If that port is taken, the app picks the next free one. If every port in the search range is taken, the backend exits.
2. Check disk space — the backend writes to the data folder. If the disk is full, SQLite write fails on startup.

Common errors

Address already in use

Another process is holding the port the backend tries to bind. Quit other GreenLight DashBoard instances, kill any stray Python process:

“bash lsof -iTCP:18000 -sTCP:LISTEN “

Kill the process, relaunch the app.

version 'GLIBC_2.38' not found (Linux)

The full message looks like this:

“ Failed to load Python shared library '/opt/GreenLight DashBoard/resources/backend/moodboard-backend/_internal/libpython3.13.so.1.0': /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libm.so.6: version GLIBC_2.38′ not found “`

Your distribution’s glibc is older than the version the backend was built against. The app needs glibc 2.35 or newer — Ubuntu 22.04, Debian 12, Mint 21, Fedora 36 and up. Check yours with ldd --version.

Nothing on the machine can be fixed by reinstalling: upgrade the distribution, or run the app on a newer one.

Builds from 8.1.31 and earlier were compiled against glibc 2.38 by mistake and only ran on Ubuntu 24.04-era systems. If you are on a supported distribution and still see this, update to 8.1.32 or newer.

Database is locked

A previous instance of the backend did not release the SQLite lock. Quit the app fully, wait 5 seconds, relaunch.

If the lock persists, the lock file is moodboard.db-journal next to moodboard.db. Quit the app, delete the journal file, relaunch.

ModuleNotFoundError (self-hosted)

A Python dependency is missing from the venv. Re-run ./setup.sh or pip install -r requirements.txt inside backend/venv.

FFmpeg not found

The backend shells out to FFmpeg for video operations. The desktop app bundles its own FFmpeg, so this only happens in self-hosted setups. Install FFmpeg system-wide:

• macOS — brew install ffmpeg
• Ubuntu — sudo apt install ffmpeg
• Windows — download from <https://ffmpeg.org/download.html> and add to PATH.

Permission denied writing to data folder

The user running the backend cannot write to the data folder. On macOS this can happen if the folder was created by another user (sudo, for example). Fix permissions:

“bash chown -R $USER "$HOME/Library/Application Support/greenlight-dashboard" “

Reset the backend

If nothing helps, you can reset the backend by deleting the data folder. This deletes every board. Back up first if you need to keep them.

“ mv "$HOME/Library/Application Support/greenlight-dashboard" /tmp/gldash-broken “

Relaunch the app. A fresh data folder is created.

Where to go next

• Common Issues