Reference

Troubleshooting

The things that actually go wrong, and what to do about each.

Connection refused on port 8765

The listener only exists while the editor is open, and it binds to loopback only. Check, in order: the editor is running; the plugin is enabled under Edit → Plugins; no local firewall is filtering the loopback interface.

If another editor instance already claimed the port, give one of them its own:

powershell

$env:HS_MCP_PORT = "8766"

The approval panel is not visible

It is a dockable tab like any other: Window → Exaro Studio MCP. The chat panel is a separate tab, Window → Exaro Studio (Ctrl+Alt+A).

Changes apply without asking me

Auto-approve is on. Open Window → Exaro Studio MCP and check the Auto-approve everything (YOLO) toggle, or look for HS_MCP_AUTO_APPROVE=1 in the environment the editor was launched with.

CarefulThe toggle persists in EditorPerProjectUserSettings.ini across restarts. A batch run you did last week can still be leaving it on today.

I cannot find the settings page

It is under Edit → Editor Preferences → Plugins → Exaro Studio, not Project Settings. The settings are per-user and per-project, so they live with your editor preferences and are never committed to source control.

I used the CLI but got an API bill

The provider CLIs prefer an API key found in the environment (ANTHROPIC_API_KEY and friends) over their own OAuth login. Exaro Studio scrubs those variables from the environment it gives a CLI child process, but a wrapper script of your own can put them back.

Before you send, read the Send button: Send · CLI · free means the subscription route, Send · API · BILLED means your key.

Live Coding fails after a C++ tool ran

ex_cpp_edit_function_body hot-loads function-body edits and reverts them automatically if the compile fails. What Live Coding cannot hot-load, in any project:

New UCLASS, USTRUCT, or UENUM types, and layout changes to existing ones.
New source files, and any change to a *.Build.cs or the .uplugin.

Those need a closed-editor rebuild. Everything else hot-loads in seconds.

Activation fails

Check the key, that this machine has a free seat on your license, and that the editor can reach the network. Once a machine has activated successfully, owned features keep working offline within the grace period.

Still stuck

Mail support@exarostudio.com with the editor log (Saved/Logs/) and what you asked the agent to do. If the editor crashed, ex_crash_triage extracts the callstack and says whether Exaro Studio is implicated — paste that too.

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