Setup troubleshooting: when the device, the app or the PIN misbehaves

Work through these in order. Most people stop at step two or three.

1. Use the cable from the box. Charge-only cables are the most common cause by a wide margin. If you must substitute one, use a known data cable.
2. Plug straight into the computer. Unpowered hubs, docks and monitor ports often fail to pass the connection through. Try a different port, including one on the other side of a laptop.
3. Try the desktop app. It talks to the device directly. If the device appears there but not in a browser page, the problem is browser USB support rather than the device.
4. Windows: wait for the driver prompt, then reopen the app. Close any software that claims to manage USB devices.
5. macOS: allow the USB access prompt when it appears, and check that a privacy tool or “cleaner” app is not blocking device access.
6. Linux: install the project's USB permission rules or add your user to the relevant group, then replug. Without those rules the device is present but unreadable to the app.
7. Still nothing? Try another computer. If a second machine sees it, the fault is in the first machine's setup — if neither does, and the cable is certain, contact official support about the device.

On a brand-new device, the app shows a prompt asking you to confirm on the device before firmware is written — sometimes described as double-tapping, on models with a touchscreen. A device sitting quietly with a blank or near-blank screen at this stage usually means the firmware has not been installed yet, not that the hardware has failed.

• Keep the device connected and leave the app open. Wait a full minute before deciding nothing is happening.
• If the prompt is on the device, follow it — press or tap as instructed, then watch the device screen for progress.
• If the app lost the device mid-way, close the app, replug the cable and start the firmware install again.
• If the device still shows nothing after a retry on a second cable and a second port, stop improvising and ask official support — with a new device there is no wallet at risk yet.

• Reconnect and retry. A failed install on a new device costs nothing: no wallet exists yet, so start the update again.
• Remove the usual suspects: a laptop running on battery that might sleep, a hub, an overly short or damaged cable, and background software that grabs USB devices.
• Do not unplug your own install. Once the write has started, let it finish. Interrupting is what creates the bootloader state you then have to fix.
• On a device that already holds a wallet, an interrupted update is still recoverable: reconnect, finish the install, then unlock with your PIN or restore from the seed if the device wiped.
• Read the device screen, not the progress bar. The version and confirmation appear on the device itself; the computer's display is not authoritative.

1. If you are in a browser page: browser USB support is the usual culprit. Switch to the desktop application, which needs no browser plumbing at all.
2. Disable interfering extensions if you insist on the web app — script and privacy blockers routinely break device communication.
3. If the desktop app itself is blank: quit it completely and reopen, then check whether a newer version is available from inside the app.
4. Reinstall only from the official source if the app will not start at all. Uninstall first, and get the installer the same careful way you did the first time — see install notes.
5. Rule out the machine: try a second computer before concluding the app is broken. Corporate machines with restrictive policies are a frequent cause.

• The device wiped after wrong entries. Expected behaviour, and not damage. Reconnect it, choose to recover a wallet, and enter your recovery seed on the device to restore access and set a new PIN.
• The PIN is not being accepted. Remember it is entered on the device, on a shuffled grid — a misplaced press is easy. Slow down and count the digits.
• You no longer know the PIN. Restore from the seed. There is no other route, and anyone offering one is either mistaken or malicious.
• Restoring asks for the seed on the device. That is correct. Seed words are only ever entered on the device itself, never in the app, the browser or a chat window.
• After restoring, check the balance appears. An unexpectedly empty wallet usually means the wrong seed or the wrong passphrase, not a lost wallet.

A passphrase produces a separate wallet from the same seed. There is no such thing as a “wrong passphrase” error — a passphrase that differs by one character simply opens a different, empty wallet, silently.

• Type it exactly as recorded: same case, same spacing, same punctuation.
• Watch for autocorrect and keyboard layout changes on phones and laptops.
• Disconnect and reconnect the device before re-entering, so the app is definitely asking which wallet to open.
• Do not start experimenting with variants on a wallet that holds funds until you have re-read your written record — random guesses waste time and can create wallets you will forget.
• If the record is genuinely lost, the passphrase-protected wallet is gone. This is the trade-off described in PIN versus passphrase, and it is worth reading before you enable one.

Stop. This is not a troubleshooting problem — it is a security problem.

• A wallet already on the device, a pre-written seed card, a PIN you did not choose: treat the device as compromised and arrange an exchange.
• Resealed packaging, glue marks or a device with obvious wear: same answer.
• Do not send funds to it “temporarily”, and do not accept a “factory reset” as reassurance — you cannot verify what was modified before it reached you.
• If you bought it second-hand believing it was new, contact the seller and the official support channel, and consider the purchase a loss rather than a risk worth taking.

• Go to support. Never let support come to you. Reach the official support channel from the official website you typed yourself.
• No real support agent asks for seed words, remote access or your screen. Not ever, for any reason, no matter how technical the story sounds.
• Ignore direct messages. Anyone who approaches you on a forum, in a group chat or by email about your wallet has one goal.
• Search first, install nothing. Many problems on this page have a one-line answer; the fixes that require a download from a stranger are precisely the ones to refuse.
• Never pay for “wallet recovery”. Recovery services that promise to restore a wallet without the seed are harvesting both your money and your hope.