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How-to

Troubleshooting

Jump to: Filesystem & Windows MCP · Email/IMAP MCP

First, check connection status directly (the fastest way)

Before digging through specific error messages below, this is the quickest way to see what's actually happening — the way most connection problems actually get diagnosed in practice:

  1. Restart Claude Desktop fully (Step 6 above, if you haven't already)
  2. Open Settings, then click Developer
  3. Find the MCP entry you're checking and watch it for about a minute. If it's going to fail, it fails within roughly that first minute and then stops running — if it's still showing as running after a minute, it worked
  4. If it did fail: click on that specific MCP entry, then click View Logs
  5. Copy the log contents and paste them into a Claude conversation, along with what you were trying to do — a fresh conversation can read the log and walk you through the specific fix

This is usually faster than manually opening the log folder (covered further down, for anyone who prefers that route or whose version of Claude Desktop doesn't show a View Logs button in the same place).

If something didn't work, find the message that matches yours below.

PowerShell shows: The server certificate did not match any of the expected values

Ignore this — the install command already routes around it. If you still get stuck, you probably typed a different command by hand. Copy the entire Step 2 block again and paste it in exactly.

PowerShell shows: spawn uvx ENOENT or 'uv' is not recognized

The system doesn't see the new install yet. Close PowerShell entirely, open a fresh PowerShell window, and re-run just the last line of Step 2:

uv python install 3.13

PowerShell shows: Missing expected target directory for Python...

Python's download got interrupted. Run this to clear it and try again:

Remove-Item -Recurse -Force "$env:APPDATA\uv\python"
uv python install 3.13

PowerShell shows: Failed to install: pywin32... The process cannot access the file...

Windows Defender interfered while files were being copied. Run:

uv cache clean
uvx windows-mcp==0.7.4 --help

If it fails again the same way, open PowerShell as Administrator (right-click Windows PowerShell → Run as administrator) and run:

Add-MpPreference -ExclusionPath "$env:LOCALAPPDATA\uv"

Then retry the two lines above.

Already added the exclusion (see the callout in Prerequisite 2) and it's still happening? A second possible cause: Windows Storage Sense (Settings → System → Storage) sometimes flags %LOCALAPPDATA%\uv\cache\ as "temporary files" and cleans it on its own schedule, which can invalidate the cache independently of Defender — even after a previously successful install. If this keeps recurring, check whether Storage Sense is running aggressively and either turn it off or exclude the uv path from it too.

Claude Desktop shows Windows MCP but marked "disconnected"

Fully quit Claude Desktop from the system tray (not just closing the window) and relaunch. Configuration changes only take effect after a full quit-and-relaunch.

Nothing above matches — I need to see the actual error

Open the log folder: press Windows+R on your keyboard, paste this into the box, hit Enter:

%APPDATA%\Claude\logs

Look for a file named mcp-server-windows-mcp-1.log (or -2, or -3). Open it in Notepad, scroll to the bottom, copy the last 20–30 lines, and paste them into a Claude conversation asking for help diagnosing the error.

Email/IMAP MCP issues

The setup wizard's Desktop-integration prompt was used and Claude Desktop won't start

This is the one real risk Prerequisite 4 warns about: that prompt does a blind, destructive full-file overwrite of claude_desktop_config.json, not a merge. If you backed the file up first (as instructed), restore that backup and re-do Step 1 by hand instead. If you didn't back it up, the file now only has whatever that wizard wrote — you'll need to manually rebuild your mcpServers block, including any entries you had before, using the npx -y form from Step 1 rather than the wizard's hardcoded, non-portable path.

Config edits don't seem to take effect (Microsoft Store / MSIX installs)

See the Windows-specific MSIX section in Prerequisite 4 above — a Store-installed Claude Desktop keeps its real config in a sandboxed path, and anything editing the textbook %APPDATA%\Claude\ location directly is silently editing a disconnected file. The junction fix there makes the conventional path transparently the real one.

"List all my email accounts" returns nothing

Confirm the account actually completed Test & Save in the setup wizard (Step 2) — a connection that fails the test isn't saved. If you're not sure it saved, re-run npx -p imap-mcp-server imap-setup and check View Accounts.

A rename, delete, or signature action doesn't work

Not a bug — this server genuinely doesn't implement folder rename, folder delete, or any signature handling. Folder cleanup needs a different IMAP client or webmail; signature handling is what FTR-42 exists to add on top of this connector.

What this got you