bottom/docs/content/troubleshooting.md

Troubleshooting

The graph points look broken/strange

It's possible that your graphs won't look great out of the box due to the reliance on braille fonts.

One example of this is seeing a bunch of missing font characters, caused when the terminal isn't configured properly to render braille fonts.

Powershell shown missing braille fonts

Another example is when braille is rendered as a block of dots, with the non-coloured dots also appearing. This may look strange for some users, and it is also caused by misconfiguration or missing fonts.

Braille fonts rendering as a block of dots

One alternative is to use the --dot_marker option to render graph charts using dots instead of the braille characters, which generally seems better supported out of the box, at the expense of looking less intricate:

Example using btm --dot_marker

Another (better) alternative is to install a font that supports braille fonts, and configure your terminal to use it. For example, installing something like UBraille or Iosevka and ensuring your terminal uses it should work.

Installing fonts for Windows Command Prompt/PowerShell

Note: I would advise backing up your registry beforehand if you aren't sure what you are doing!

Let's say you're installing Iosevka. The steps you can take are:

1. Install the font itself.

2. Open the registry editor, which you can do either by Win+R and opening regedit, or just opening it from the Start Menu.

3. In the registry editor, go to

   HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Console\TrueTypeFont
   

4. Here, add a new String value, and set the Name to a bunch of 0's (e.g. 000 - make sure the name isn't already used), then set the Data to the font name (e.g. Iosevka).

   

   The last entry is the new entry for Iosevka

5. Then, open the Command Prompt/PowerShell, and right click on the top bar, and open Properties:

   

6. From here, go to Font, and set the font to your new font (e.g. Iosevka):

   

Why can't I see all my temperature sensors on Windows?

This is a known issue, and some sensors may require admin privileges to get sensor data.

Why don't I see dual batteries on Windows reported separately? (e.g. Thinkpads)

This seems to be some issue with how batteries are being detected on Windows.

Why can't I see all my temperature sensors on WSL?

Due to how WSL works, hosts may not expose their temperature sensors and therefore, temperature sensors might be missing.

Why does WSL2 not match Task Manager?

Due to how WSL2 works, the two might not match up in terms of reported data.

Why can't I see all my processes/process usage on macOS?

You may have to run the program with elevated privileges - for example:

sudo btm

Please note that you should be certain that you trust any software you grant root privileges.

There are measures taken to try to maximize the amount of information obtained without elevated privileges, but there may still be some limitations.

My configuration file isn't working

If your configuration files aren't working, here are a few things to try:

Check the formatting

It may be handy to refer to the automatically generated config files or the sample configuration files. The config files also follow the TOML format.

Also make sure your config options are under the right table - for example, to set your temperature type, you must set it under the [flags] table:

[flags]
temperature_type = "f"

Meanwhile, if you want to set a custom color scheme, it would be under the [colors] table:

[colors]
table_header_color="LightBlue"

Check the configuration file location

Make sure bottom is reading the right configuration file. By default, bottom looks for config files at these locations:

OS	Default Config Location
macOS	$HOME/Library/Application Support/bottom/bottom.toml ~/.config/bottom/bottom.toml $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/bottom/bottom.toml
Linux	~/.config/bottom/bottom.toml $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/bottom/bottom.toml
Windows	C:\Users\<USER>\AppData\Roaming\bottom\bottom.toml

If you want to use a config file in another location, use the --config or -C flags along with the path to the configuration file, like so:

btm -C path_to_config

My installation through snap has some widgets that are blank/show no data

Make sure bottom is given the correct permissions. Snapcraft explains how to do so.