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Troubleshooting

daemon not running

The refractions task pane shows Helper not running.

Check it from Terminal:

curl http://localhost:27832/api/status

If you get a connection error, restart it from the control panel: click the Refractions icon in your menu bar and use the Stop then Start buttons (or Restart). The control panel owns the daemon process and will spawn a fresh one.

If the menu bar icon isn't there at all, launch the app from /Applications/Refractions.app.

Logs:

  • stdout → ~/Library/Logs/Refractions/daemon.log
  • stderr → ~/Library/Logs/Refractions/daemon.err

Or open the Logs tab inside the Refractions window for a live tail with a filter.

If those say macOS blocked execution, allow the binary in System Settings → Privacy & Security.

Prism not found

refractions looks for GraphPad Prism.app in /Applications. If you installed Prism somewhere else, create a symlink:

ln -s "/path/to/GraphPad Prism.app" "/Applications/GraphPad Prism.app"

Or open the refractions daemon config at ~/.refractions/config.json and set "prismPath": "/path/to/GraphPad Prism.app".

File locked

Office holds a file lock on the open document. Refractions writes the updated file to <file>.<ext>.tmp and atomically renames it. If you see File locked errors, close the file in PowerPoint / Word / Excel, click Update again, then reopen.

Document is on OneDrive or SharePoint

The pane shows This document lives in the cloud when the document was opened from OneDrive or SharePoint (cloud picker, Teams or Outlook link). Click Continue on this Mac to work on a local copy, then Put back when you're done. See OneDrive & SharePoint.

If the pane instead asks you to use File → Save a Copy…, this Office version can't hand the document to Refractions. Save a copy to your Mac, edit it, and upload it yourself. Do the same for macro-enabled and older formats (.pptm, .docm, .xlsm, .ppt, .doc, .xls), which the round trip doesn't support yet.

Put back doesn't work

  • "SharePoint didn't let Refractions write this file", or Need admin approval when you sign in: your Microsoft 365 administrator hasn't approved Refractions yet, or you don't have edit rights to the file. Check that you can edit the file in the browser, then send your admin For IT admins: approve Refractions.
  • The file is locked: someone has it checked out or open. Your work is safe in the copy. Click Try again when they're done.
  • A teammate changed the original: see If a colleague changed the original.
  • "The upload didn't go through" after an update: quit Refractions from the menu bar, reopen it, and try again. If it still fails, send a diagnostics bundle (see below).

OLE truncated

If you see Truncated OLE stream — open in Windows Office and Save As to repair, the file has a malformed OLE container that pre-dates Refractions (often the case for charts originally embedded in Office for Mac with an older Prism). Open the file once on Windows, run Save As, and Refractions will work on the saved copy.

Update succeeds but the chart preview doesn't change

If you've turned Auto-refresh after Update off in the task pane gear menu, the file on disk is updated but Office still shows its cached in-memory preview. Click the red Refresh document banner inside the task pane — it closes + reopens the file so the new preview appears. Turn auto-refresh back on if you'd rather skip the manual step.

License invalid

If refractions reports the license is invalid:

  1. Make sure the daemon can reach https://refractions.app/. Try curl -I https://refractions.app/.
  2. Confirm the key in the post-purchase email matches what you entered.
  3. Check whether you've used all your seats — see Activation → How seats work.

If the problem persists, raise a ticket in the support portal or email [email protected] with a diagnostics bundle — generate one from the Refractions menu bar app: Open Refractions → Support → Generate diagnostics. The zip lands on your Desktop and contains logs + version + permission state (no license key, no document contents).