Hermes Not Working? Common Causes, Fixes, and Status Checks (2026)

Hermes not working is almost always one of four things: a platform outage, an expired or broken authentication session, a hit rate/usage limit, or a stale extension that needs a restart or reinstall. Developers and teams running Hermes for coding tasks should check the status page first, then re-authenticate, before assuming it's a bug on their end.

• Most "stuck" or unresponsive sessions clear up after a full restart of the IDE or editor, not just the Hermes panel.
• Rate limit errors look identical to generic failures in some clients - a 429-style error is often mislabeled as "not working."
• Auth token expiry is the single most common cause of silent failures where requests just hang or time out.

Why is Hermes not working?

Hermes stops responding for one of a few predictable reasons: the service itself is degraded or down, your session token expired, you've hit a usage or rate limit, or a local extension/cache issue is blocking requests. Network restrictions (corporate firewalls, VPNs) are the next most common cause.

Before digging into settings, rule out the simplest explanation first: is Hermes down for everyone right now, or is it just your machine?

Is Hermes down right now?

Check the official Hermes status page or support channel before troubleshooting locally - if there's a broad outage, nothing on your end will fix it. Community signals (Discord, X/Twitter, GitHub issues) are usually faster to update than an official status page during a short incident.

If other tools in your stack (browser, terminal, git) are working fine and only Hermes is failing, that points to an account or local-client issue rather than a platform-wide outage.

How do you fix Hermes login or authentication errors?

Sign out and sign back in to force a fresh token, then restart the editor or IDE completely rather than just reloading the window. Expired or corrupted auth tokens are the most common cause of requests that hang silently instead of returning a clear error.

• Log out, close the app fully, log back in
• Clear cached credentials if the tool stores them locally
• Check that your account/org hasn't been suspended or downgraded
• Regenerate an API key if you're using Hermes programmatically

Why does Hermes say rate limit exceeded?

Hermes enforces usage caps tied to your plan, and once you hit them requests get throttled or rejected until the window resets. This is distinct from an outage - the service is working, you've just used your allotted quota for the period.

If you're regularly running into caps, see the full breakdown in our Hermes rate limit exceeded guide, and check current plan tiers in the Hermes pricing and rate limits post before assuming something is broken.

How do you fix Hermes extension or plugin issues?

Update the extension to the latest version, then fully restart the editor - not just reload the window, since cached extension state often survives a simple reload. If that doesn't help, uninstall and reinstall the extension to clear any corrupted local state.

Symptom	Likely cause	Fix
Requests hang indefinitely	Expired auth token	Log out/in, restart editor
"Rate limit" or 429 error	Usage cap hit	Wait for reset or upgrade plan
Extension icon greyed out	Outdated or corrupted install	Update or reinstall extension
Nothing loads at all	Platform outage	Check status page, wait it out
Works on one network, not another	Firewall/VPN blocking requests	Switch network or whitelist domain

When should you contact Hermes support?

Contact support if the status page shows all systems operational, you've confirmed your auth and billing are fine, and the issue persists after a full restart and reinstall. Include your account email, timestamps of failed requests, and any error codes - vague "it's not working" reports take longer to resolve.

Key takeaways

• Check the status page or community channels first to rule out a broad outage.
• Re-authenticate before assuming it's a bug - expired tokens cause most silent hangs.
• Rate limit errors are not outages - they mean your plan's quota is exhausted for the window.
• Restart the full editor, not just the extension panel, before reinstalling anything.
• If you juggle multiple AI coding tools, usage caps and resets vary by tool - see how Hermes compares to Kiro, Codex, and Poke rate limits.