Installation problems

nala is not recognised after installing

Symptom: the installer completed, but nala version reports that the command is not found.

Likely causes

1. The terminal was already open when PATH changed.
2. The installer did not complete despite appearing to.

Safe diagnostic

Get-Command nala -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue

Expected evidence: a resolved path to the shim. Nothing means the shell cannot see it.

Repair: open a new terminal. PATH changes never reach processes that were already running. If a fresh terminal still cannot find it, reinstall.

When not to retry: do not add directories to PATH by hand to work around this. If the shim is not where the installer put it, the install did not succeed and hand-patching hides that.

---

SmartScreen blocks the installer

Symptom: Windows shows "Windows protected your PC" and the installer does not run.

Likely cause: the preview build is not Authenticode signed, so SmartScreen has no publisher reputation to check.

Safe diagnostic: verify the file you downloaded matches the published digest:

Get-FileHash .\Harmony-*.Setup.exe -Algorithm SHA256

Expected evidence: a SHA-256 identical to the one shown on the download page.

Repair: once the hash matches, use More info → Run anyway for that file.

When not to retry: if the hash does not match, stop. Do not run the file. Re-download and check again; if it still differs, report it.

---

The installer reports a hash or size mismatch

Symptom: the install script refuses to run the downloaded file.

Likely causes

1. The download was interrupted or truncated.
2. A new release was published between the manifest read and the download.

Expected evidence: the script names which check failed — byte size or SHA-256.

Repair: re-run the installer. It re-reads the manifest, so a release published mid-download resolves on the second attempt.

When not to retry: if the mismatch repeats across several clean attempts on a good connection, do not bypass the check. That is the check working.

---

The install script will not run at all

Symptom: PowerShell refuses to execute the downloaded script.

Likely cause: execution policy.

Safe diagnostic

Get-ExecutionPolicy -List

Repair: use the piped form, which does not write a script file:

irm https://ideharmony.com/install.ps1 | iex

Or run the saved script in a single scoped process rather than changing the machine's policy:

powershell -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -File .\install-nala.ps1

---

No download is offered for my platform

Symptom: the download page offers nothing for macOS or Linux.

Cause: this is correct behaviour, not a bug. Only windows-x64 has a published artifact. The release manifest omits platforms with no verified build, and the site will not advertise a download it cannot serve.

Repair: none available. See platform support for what has to happen first.

---

Collecting a support bundle

If none of the above matches, collect diagnostics before asking for help:

nala doctor --json

Related

• Install on Windows
• Daemon problems
• Logs and diagnostics