"fetch failed" when launching cobolt for the first time on MacOS (ARM64) if Ollama is not already running

[infinitejones]

Bug Description

After the initial message advising about downloading Python, Ollama etc, I see a pop-up with a very inscrutable error message. On dismissing the pop-up, the app shuts down.

Steps To Reproduce

• Download ARM64 dmg
• Drag cobolt to /Applications folder via shortcut
• Launch cobolt
• Error appears after initial setup message

Expected Behavior

Cobolt should launch without problems; or, at the very least, an informative error message should tell me what's wrong.

Actual Behavior

Pop-up with this content:

TypeError: fetch failed
at node:internal/deps/undici/undici:13502:13
at process.response (node:internal/process/task_queues:105:5)
at response (/Applications/Cobolt.app/Contents/Resources/app.asar/dist/main/webpack:/cobolt/release/app/node_modules/ollama/dist/browser.mjs:120:9)
at J.existingModelNames [as list] (/Applications/Cobolt.app/Contents/Resources/app.asar/dist/main/webpack:/cobolt/release/app/node_modules/ollama/dist/browser.mjs:394:11)
at /Applications/Cobolt.app/Contents/Resources/app.asar/dist/main/webpack:/cobolt/src/cobolt-backend/ollama_client.ts:93:9
at memoryEnabled (/Applications/Cobolt.app/Contents/Resources/app.asar/dist/main/webpack:/cobolt/src/cobolt-backend/ollama_client.ts:71:3)
at runFirstTimeSetup (/Applications/Cobolt.app/Contents/Resources/app.asar/dist/main/webpack:/cobolt/src/cobolt-backend/init.ts:12:23)
at async (/Applications/Cobolt.app/Contents/Resources/app.asar/dist/main/webpack:/cobolt/src/main/main.ts:167:9)
at /Applications/Cobolt.app/Contents/Resources/app.asar/dist/main/webpack:/cobolt/src/main/main.ts:684:9

Environment

• MacOS Sequoia 15.5
• Cobolt Version: 0.0.3
• Device: MacBook Air M4

[infinitejones]

Additional info - I found that if I launch Ollama manually before launching cobolt, this error does not occur.

I can tell from the ~/Library/Logs/cobolt/main.log (attached) that it's now downloading some models for Ollama.

But after the download of nomic-embed-text, I get another inscrutable error message.

In that respect, some more end-user-friendly progress details and error messages about what cobolt is doing would probably be useful!

main.log

[Rishabh4275]

@infinitejones , could you please try the latest version (v0.0.5)?

This commit should now provide a clearer error message:
7900d83

Really appreciate you taking the time to test this out—thank you!

[infinitejones]

No worries, happy to help!

So now if I start Cobalt without Ollama running, I see this error message:

...which is definitely an improvement but maaaybe could be a little clearer? I knew the problem was that Ollama wasn't running but for someone trying Cobolt for the first time, that message might not help them work out that Ollama not running is the cause of it.

[Rishabh4275]

The commit updates the error message to something like:

Not the best but it should give the required information.