Troubleshooting

Something not working right? Here's how to fix common problems and get help.

Common Issues

My notes disappeared

Don't panic. BetterStickies keeps automatic backups. Try closing and reopening the app. If your notes reappear, the backup recovery worked.

If they don't come back, your notes file may be damaged. You can find your notes data here:

Back up the data folder before making any changes.

A note shows in the hub but I can't see it

This usually means the note is parked off-screen, most often after a monitor change. If you unplug a second monitor, close a laptop lid, or rearrange your displays, a note that was sitting on the now-missing screen can end up drawn outside your visible desktop. It's still there (that's why it's listed in the hub), just nowhere you can reach it.

BetterStickies fixes this for you automatically:

• It checks every note when the app starts.
• It re-checks whenever you add, remove, or switch monitors: any note (and the hub itself) that ended up off-screen, or with only an ungrabbable sliver still showing at a screen edge, is brought back onto a screen you can see, usually within a second of the change.
• If a note is hidden, it's repositioned the moment you bring it back with Locate, search, or a reminder.

So in most cases the note will simply reappear on its own. If it doesn't, try clicking the note in the hub or in search results to locate it, or quit and reopen the app. Both re-run the position check and pull it back into view. Notes that still show a comfortably grabbable portion, or that sit on a monitor that's still connected, are left exactly where you put them.

The hub never appears when I start the app

If you turned on Start with the hub hidden (Settings → Appearance), this is working as intended: the app launches straight to the system tray. Click the tray icon to bring the hub up, or double-click it, or simply start the app again from its usual icon, which brings the hub up too. Then untick the setting if you'd rather go back to the hub appearing at launch.

If you can't find the tray icon at all, some desktops tuck new icons into an overflow or "show hidden icons" area, and a few need an extension for a tray to exist. BetterStickies normally detects that and shows the hub anyway. If it somehow doesn't, on Linux you can ask the running app to show the hub directly: run ~/.config/BetterStickies/betterstickies-cmd.sh show-hub in a terminal (this also makes a good desktop keyboard shortcut; see Global Shortcuts on Linux). This works on native and AppImage installs; it isn't supported in the Snap and Flathub builds (the Snap has no helper script, and the Flathub build's copy lives inside its sandbox), so use the state.json step below there. As a last resort you can turn the setting off by hand: quit the app, open state.json in your configuration folder (see The app won't start for the path per platform) in a text editor, change "start_hub_hidden": true to false, and start the app again.

Starting the app again while it's already running brings the hub back: the new launch hands off to the copy that's already running, that copy shows its hub, and the new one closes itself quietly. Only when it can't reach the running copy does it show a message saying the app is already running. That happens while the running copy is still starting up (give it a moment and try again), if it has stopped responding, or sometimes when the two copies came from different package formats (a Snap and an AppImage, say), which may not be able to reach each other. If the message keeps appearing and the hub never comes back, the running copy is stuck: quit it from your system's task manager and start it again.

I closed a tab and want it back

Closed pages go to the trash, just like deleted notes. Open Menu > View Trash from the hub, select it, and click Restore. It comes back as its own note rather than as a tab in the note it came from.

One exception: a page that was completely empty and unnamed closes without going to the trash, since there was nothing in it to keep. If you'd given the tab a name, it goes to the trash like any other page.

Notes stay on top of every other window (Linux)

In version 1.2.0, on Linux desktops outside KDE (GNOME, Cinnamon/Linux Mint and others), opening the hub could leave every note floating above all your other applications (browsers, editors, terminals) no matter what each note's own Always on Top setting said. This is fixed in the release after 1.2.0: update the app and windows stack normally again.

If you are still on 1.2.0, the workaround is to hide the hub. Notes stack normally while it's hidden, and you can bring it back from the tray icon (on 1.2.0, starting the app again only shows an "already running" message; bringing the hub back that way arrived in a later version). KDE was never affected.

Global shortcuts not working (Linux)

On Linux, global shortcuts need to be set up in your desktop environment's settings. See Global Shortcuts on Linux for a step-by-step guide, or open BetterStickies and go to Settings > Global Shortcuts for a quick start.

The app won't start

Try resetting your settings by deleting the configuration folder. Back up your data subfolder first if you want to keep your notes.

Reporting a Bug

If you've found a bug, please open an issue at github.com/HimaSphere/BetterStickies/issues.

What to include

1. What happened and what you expected instead
2. The log file (see below). This helps us diagnose the problem quickly
3. Your system: OS name and version (e.g., "Ubuntu 24.04", "Windows 11")
4. Steps to reproduce: what were you doing when it happened?

Finding the log file

BetterStickies automatically saves a log file with diagnostic information. Please attach it when reporting bugs.

The log file stays small (under 1 MB) and rotates automatically. It's safe to attach the whole file.

Getting extra detail

If we ask for more detail on a tricky bug, you can launch BetterStickies in verbose mode:

betterstickies --verbose

This prints additional diagnostic messages to the terminal. Share that terminal output along with the log file.

See Also

• Backing Up Your Notes: where your notes are stored and how to back them up
• Note Tabs: how pages inside a note work
• Search Notes: find and jump to any note
• Reminders: set reminders so you don't forget what's on your notes