Troubleshooting

Changes do not restart the app

1. Run from the expected working directory.
2. Check startup output for missing watch directories.
3. Quote wildcard patterns and use --debug to inspect detected events.
4. Check ignore patterns and the first config file in the current directory.
5. Try --polling for mounted or network filesystems.

The app keeps restarting

Exclude logs, generated files, and caches. Native observers can emit several events per save; Pyreload does not debounce them. Watch only source directories.

Imports fail

Install Pyreload into the same virtual environment as your application. Script mode uses Pyreload's interpreter. Exec mode uses your shell's PATH.

The process exits in a container

Use --clean without stdin, or allocate an interactive terminal with Docker's -it. See Docker development.

An old child process remains

Exec mode controls only the immediate shell process, not detached descendants. Prefer direct script mode where possible and use a development command that cleans up its children.

Report an issue

Include your OS, Python and Pyreload versions, command, redacted config, and whether the files are local or mounted in a GitHub issue.