A clean, simple, repeatable troubleshooting guide tailored specifically to your home lab setup — Proxmox, UniFi, Pi-hole, NPM, Cloudflare, HA, FPP, and all the issues you've commonly faced.

Use this as your first-stop workflow when something breaks.

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Symptoms: VMs unreachable, dashboards offline, services not resolving.

* Check UniFi for offline clients or adopted-but-disconnected devices. * Verify correct NICs are active on Proxmox nodes. * Confirm VLAN assignments match expected networks.

* If a VM loses network unexpectedly:

• Reseat the cable or switch ports (common with dual-NIC setups)
• Renew DHCP or verify static mapping
• Confirm Proxmox bridges (`vmbr0`, `vmbr1`) are mapped to correct NIC

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Symptoms: Hostnames like `pve1`, `nextcloud.in.torresvault.com` not resolving.

* Pi-hole → Local DNS → Records * Ensure no typos in hostnames * Ensure A records point to new fixed IPs * If using wildcard entries, verify they don’t conflict

* Reload DNS:

  pihole restartdns 

* Add missing A records for internal access * Make sure DHCP-provided domain suffix = `in.torresvault.com`

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Symptoms: Service loads internally but not externally, SSL failures.

* NPM → Proxy Hosts → ensure entry exists * Confirm Forward IP matches the VM’s fixed IP * Check that “Force SSL” isn’t breaking internal-only apps

* Re-request SSL using DNS challenge * Make sure Cloudflare DNS proxied (orange) is enabled * Ensure firewall/port forwarding on UCG Max routes 80/443 correctly

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Symptoms: Public URIs not working, SSL challenge failures.

* Confirm A records:

• `app.torresvault.com` → Public IP

* Ensure Cloudflare API token used by NPM is valid * Check if record is Proxied vs DNS-only

* Recreate DNS record * Rotate Cloudflare API token and update NPM * Purge cached DNS

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Symptoms: Container won’t start, port conflicts, permissions errors.

* Check logs:

  docker logs -f <container> 

* Validate docker-compose.yml:

  docker compose config 

* Confirm folders exist under ~/apps/<app>/

* Rebuild:

  docker compose down && docker compose up -d 

* Fix wrong port exposures * Ensure user belongs to docker group

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Symptoms: VM traffic lost, backups failing, cluster partial.

* Check storage health: Datacenter → Storage * Check logs for `log_vg-log` filling up * Ensure corosync links (10.10.10.0/30) are up

* Restart Proxmox Backup services:

  systemctl restart proxmox-backup
  systemctl restart proxmox-backup-proxy 

* Clean old logs only after reviewing them * Verify correct NIC mappings after reboots

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Symptoms: Automations failing, sensors offline, dashboards broken.

* Developer Tools → States * Check whether entities are `unavailable` * Validate YAML with Check Configuration

* Reload automations * Restart HA Core * Fix entity renames after device migrations

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Symptoms: Player offline, playlist not starting, show not responding.

* Verify FPP is reachable at: `http://192.168.60.55` * Check output status logs * Confirm GPIO or Kulp port fuses (10A) aren't tripped

* Restart FPP service * Reset playlist * Re-sync with HA if using ha-fpp integration

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If something breaks, follow this order:

1. Is the device reachable? (Ping → UniFi → Physical layer) 2. Is DNS resolving? (Pi-hole A records → Cloudflare) 3. Is the reverse proxy routing correctly? (NPM logs) 4. Are containers healthy? (Docker logs) 5. Are Proxmox services running? (pveproxy, pvedaemon, pvescheduler) 6. Is this an automation/device-specific issue? (Home Assistant)

This top‑down approach solves 95% of the issues you’ve encountered.

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Document any new fix you discover here so your wiki becomes the single source of truth for TorresVault.