Common Clash Verge Rev and mihomo Errors and How to Fix Them

Most Clash Verge Rev and mihomo errors fall into a handful of buckets: a port is taken, the config will not parse, the subscription will not download, the system proxy is stuck, or TUN refuses to start. Each has a distinctive symptom and a fast fix — the trick is identifying the bucket instead of reinstalling and hoping.

This is a field guide to those recurring failures. Work through the section that matches your symptom; if your problem is "everything runs but no site loads", that is a different investigation, covered in the connection troubleshooting guide.

First stop: the logs

Before changing anything, read what the software is telling you. GUI clients have a Logs page showing live core output; raise log-level to info or debug if it looks empty. When the core dies on startup, the last few lines almost always name the culprit — a file it could not read, a port it could not bind, a config line it could not parse. Ten seconds of reading regularly saves an hour of guessing.

Port already in use

Symptom: the core exits immediately, with a log line about failing to bind or listen on an address. Another program — often a second proxy client left running — owns the port. On Windows, find the occupant:

netstat -ano | findstr 7897

The final column is the PID; look it up in Task Manager and close that program. Check your actual port on the client's settings page first (the mixed port is commonly 7890 or 7897). The alternative fix is changing the port in your client, which suits cases where the occupant is something you want to keep.

Core fails to start: validate the config

If the log points at parsing — messages about YAML, unmarshal errors, or a line number — the configuration is at fault. Test it directly:

mihomo -t -f config.yaml

The output names the offending line; typical causes are tab characters, missing spaces after colons, and duplicate keys, all covered in the config file basics. Two non-config causes are worth ruling out on desktop: on Windows, antivirus software sometimes quarantines the core binary — see the Defender false-positive guide — and on macOS, a blocked first launch is usually the "app is damaged" Gatekeeper prompt, not an actual crash.

Subscription download fails

• Link expired or reset — re-copy it from the provider dashboard; links change after plan renewals more often than people expect.
• Subscription host unreachable — some networks block the provider's domain itself. If you have any working proxy, enable it and retry the import; otherwise try another network briefly.
• Provider outage — nothing on your side will fix it; confirm on another device and wait or contact support.

System proxy and TUN problems

System proxy stuck or not applying

If sites fail even after you quit the client, a proxy setting was probably left behind — clients that crash cannot restore it. Open the OS proxy settings (Windows: Settings → Network & internet → Proxy; macOS: Network settings, per interface) and disable any manual proxy pointing at 127.0.0.1, then restart the client and toggle its switch cleanly. The reverse case — the toggle is on but settings never change — is occasionally another management tool fighting for the same setting; as of current versions, a reboot plus re-toggle resolves most instances.

TUN will not start

Three usual suspects, in order: the privileged service is not installed (in Clash Verge Rev, install service mode from settings before enabling TUN), the client lacks permission (grant the prompt on macOS; run elevated on Windows if asked), or another VPN product owns the virtual interface. VPNs and TUN both want the routing table — run one at a time. If TUN starts but nothing resolves, the DNS block is the next suspect.

If you need to ask for help

1. Your OS and its version, and whether the machine is Intel/AMD or ARM.
2. Client and version (for example Clash Verge Rev 2.5.2, mihomo v1.19.29).
3. What changed right before the failure — update, new subscription, settings edit.
4. The relevant log lines, with your subscription URL and node names redacted.

A report with these four items usually gets a useful answer on the first reply — and assembling it forces the kind of systematic look that solves half of problems before anyone else reads them.