Support

Support

Astronomical is actively developed and used daily. If something does not work, we want to hear about it — most issues are answered or fixed quickly.

Before you report

  • System requirements. Astronomical needs an Apple silicon Mac (M1 or later) running macOS 14 (Sonoma) or later. Support across that spectrum is declared best-effort: hardware features the GPU cannot prove fall back to public MLX paths with no loss of declared model precision. Memory needs depend on the model you load; the app shows a recommended ceiling before a model is admitted.
  • Check your version. The menu-bar popover shows the app version and build number. Mention both when reporting.
  • Try the obvious fix. A stuck model download recovers by retrying the download; a wedged server responds to "Restart server" in the popover.

What to include in a report

  1. The app version and build number from the popover.
  2. Your Mac model and installed memory.
  3. What you did, what you expected, and what happened.
  4. For serving problems: the response you received and the relevant lines from the app's log file, stored in the app's data location under logs/.
  5. For crashes on Mac App Store builds: whether you have diagnostics sharing enabled, and the crash report time if Apple showed you one.

Please do not paste model outputs, documents, or images you meant to keep private — a description of the behavior is enough, and logs can be reviewed locally before you attach anything.

Common questions

  • A model will not download. Model files come from public model repositories. Check your connection, then retry the download from the model library. Corporate and school networks sometimes block these repositories.
  • The app says there is not enough memory. The memory ceiling is a safety boundary, not a bug. Pick a smaller quantization of the same model, or free wired memory and retry. The recommendation in the popover accounts for your installed memory.
  • How do I use the local API? The app serves an OpenAI-compatible interface on this Mac at a loopback address; the popover shows the port. Point any local client at it. Requests never leave this machine.
  • Where are my models stored? In the app's designated application-support location. App Store builds keep everything inside their sandbox container; you can remove all of it by deleting the app's data.

Contact

The fastest route is a GitHub issue — it reaches the developer directly and keeps the answer searchable for everyone.

Astronomical is open source under its repository license. Privacy policy: privacy.html.