Troubleshooting & Errors

This guide provides solutions for common runtime errors encountered when using Tungsten. It covers generic UI errors, backend-specific issues, and instructions for enabling debug logging.

Common Issues

Backend Availability

Symptom: Tungsten[Executor] E_BACKEND_UNAVAILABLE

Cause: The plugin cannot locate the configured backend executable (e.g., wolframscript or python). This usually means the executable is not in your system's $PATH or the path specified in the configuration is incorrect.

Solution:

Verify that the backend is installed and accessible from your terminal.
Check your Tungsten configuration (backend_opts). Ensure wolfram_path (default: "wolframscript") points to a valid executable.

Timeouts

Symptom: Tungsten[Executor] E_TIMEOUT

Cause: The calculation or plotting job took longer than the configured time limit. The default timeout is 30,000ms (30 seconds).

Solution: Increase the process_timeout_ms option in your setup({}) configuration:

require("tungsten").setup({
    process_timeout_ms = 60000, -- Increase to 60 seconds
})

Plotting / LaTeX errors

Symptom: Tungsten[Plotting] E_TEX_ROOT_NOT_FOUND

Cause: Tungsten could not locate the root file of your project. Include a #!TEX ROOT = <main.tex> magic-comment in your file. (See Plotting)

Syntax & Backend Errors

Symptom: Specific error messages from the backend, such as Syntax::sntx (Wolfram) or Traceback (Python).

Cause: The code sent to the backend contained invalid syntax or triggered a runtime exception.

Solution: Check the syntax of the selected code. If you believe Tungsten should be able to understand your expression, but is not please file a Bug report.

You may also encounter E_BACKEND_CRASH, if the backend process exits unexpectedly.

Plotting-Specific Errors

The following error codes may only appear when plotting:

E_UNSUPPORTED_DIM: The requested plot dimension is not supported. This typically happens if you try to plot too many variables (i.e. 3 or more variables in a 2D plot or 4 or more in a 3D plot.)
E_NO_PLOTTABLE_SERIES: The expression did not result in data that can be plotted.
E_MIXED_COORD_SYS: Attempted to combine incompatible coordinate systems in one plot (e.g., polar and cartesian coordinates in the same plot).

Logging

If you encounter issues not listed above, you can enable debug logging to inspect the raw communications between Tungsten and the backend.

Enabling Debug Logs

Modify your configuration to lower the log level:

require("tungsten").setup({
    log_level = "DEBUG", -- Default is "INFO"
    debug = true,
})

Viewing Logs

Tungsten uses the standard Neovim notification system (vim.notify). You can view the log history using the :messages command in Neovim.