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Troubleshooting

Fixes for the most common problems with installing, signing in, downloading and making things.

Moonbox won’t open

  • Check that your Mac has Apple silicon (an M-series chip) and macOS 14 or later: Apple menu › About This Mac. Macs with Intel processors aren’t supported.
  • Make sure you opened Moonbox from the Applications folder, not from the downloaded disk image.
  • Open the link on the same Mac where Moonbox is installed.
  • Links expire after a short time and work once. In Moonbox, ask for a new link and use the newest email.
  • Sign-in emails come from [email protected]. If none arrives, look in your spam or junk folder.

“Moonbox is already on 3 Macs”

You can use Moonbox on up to three Macs at a time. Remove a Mac you no longer use in the list Moonbox shows, then try again. Removing a Mac doesn’t delete anything on it.

A download is stuck or slow

  • Check your internet connection. Downloads pause when you go offline and continue on their own when you’re back.
  • Check free disk space: Moonbox shows how much each tool needs. See Downloads and disk space.
  • Quitting and reopening Moonbox is safe; the download continues from where it stopped.

A tool says “Needs a Mac with 16 GB of memory or more”

That tool needs more memory than your Mac has, so it can’t be downloaded on this Mac. See memory tiers.

Making something is slow, or the Mac gets warm

Your Mac does all the work, so big jobs take time and use the whole chip. Quit apps you don’t need, keep a MacBook plugged in for long jobs, and try a smaller size or a faster quality setting. The first job after opening Moonbox takes longer while the tool loads.

Using Moonbox offline

Everything you’ve downloaded works without the internet. Downloads, updates and signing in need a connection: they wait until you’re back online. Moonbox checks in at least every 30 days; if it has been offline longer than that, it pauses downloads and updates until it can reconnect, and everything else keeps working.

Moonbox’s engine isn’t answering

Moonbox runs its tools in a separate engine on your Mac. If a window says the engine isn’t answering, wait a moment: it restarts on its own after a problem. If it doesn’t come back, quit Moonbox (Moonbox › Quit Moonbox) and open it again. What you’ve made is safe.

macOS didn’t allow something

Some things need your permission, such as the microphone for recording or a folder you want Moonbox to save to. Open System Settings › Privacy & Security, find the item (for example Microphone), turn Moonbox on, then try again.

Updating Moonbox

Moonbox checks for updates and tells you when one is ready; it installs only when you say so, and never while a job is running. To check yourself, choose Moonbox › Check for Updates. If a download says it needs a newer Moonbox, update first, then try again. What changed is in the changelog.

Moonbox quit unexpectedly

Open it again; your Assets are safe. To tell us about it, see reporting a problem. Unless you’ve turned crash reports off, Moonbox sends one, with no prompts, file names or keys in it, so we can fix the problem. If it keeps happening, check for an update in Settings.