Troubleshooting¶

Launching (Linux)¶

`command not found`¶

You used Windows-style syntax. In a Linux shell, run it with a forward slash:

./Fathom-x86_64.AppImage

The AppImage will not open¶

An AppImage needs FUSE. On distributions that ship only fuse3 (Arch, for example), do one of:

sudo pacman -S fuse2                     # install the fuse2 compatibility library
./Fathom-x86_64.AppImage --appimage-extract-and-run   # or run without FUSE

Also make sure it is executable: chmod +x Fathom-x86_64.AppImage.

`cannot execute binary file: Exec format error`¶

The file is for a different CPU, or the download is incomplete.

Confirm you have the right one: Fathom-x86_64.AppImage for a normal PC, Fathom-aarch64.AppImage for ARM64. On an x86_64 machine the aarch64 build gives this exact error.
Check the size against the Releases page (ls -la Fathom-x86_64.AppImage). A much smaller file was truncated; download it again.

Updating¶

The update did not relaunch, or the app will not start afterward¶

Usually the download was grabbed while a release was still publishing (a partial file), or an older build fetched the wrong-architecture file. Newer builds guard against both automatically, but to recover now, download the correct build for your machine directly from Releases and run it:

cd ~/Downloads
rm -f Fathom-x86_64.AppImage
curl -L -o Fathom-x86_64.AppImage \
  https://github.com/Fathom-Media/fathom/releases/latest/download/Fathom-x86_64.AppImage
ls -la Fathom-x86_64.AppImage    # sanity-check the size
chmod +x Fathom-x86_64.AppImage
./Fathom-x86_64.AppImage

After you are on a current build, in-app updates check the download's size and architecture before installing, so a bad download can no longer replace a working app.

Playback¶

A video will not play, or plays with no picture¶

Fathom lets mpv direct-play the file and only falls back to a server transcode on failure. Open the settings gear in the player and choose Playback Info to see the play method, the codecs, and whether hardware decoding engaged. If direct play fails, the fallback transcode usually recovers it.

I want to see what is actually happening¶

The Playback Info overlay is the fastest way: it reports the real decode path (hardware vs software), dropped frames, resolution, and codecs, live from mpv.

Diagnostics¶

For anything harder to pin down, turn on Diagnostic Logging in Settings, reproduce the problem, and export the log. It captures app errors and playback details in one place, which is the best thing to attach to a bug report.

Still stuck?¶

Open an issue at github.com/Fathom-Media/fathom/issues with your platform, the build version (Settings → Updates shows it), and a diagnostics export if you have one.