Troubleshooting¶

Fixes for the problems you are most likely to hit with Aider AI Pair Programmer. Each entry gives the symptom, the usual cause, and what to do.

The walkthrough says "Run this demo as ubuntu"¶

Cause: you ran demo.sh as root or as another user.

Fix: run it through sudo -iu ubuntu:

sudo -iu ubuntu bash /opt/sushi/docs/demo.sh

Cause: sushi-aider-firstboot.service has not finished or failed, so the workspace and defaults file may be missing.

Fix: wait for cloud-init, then check the service and its log:

cloud-init status --wait
systemctl status sushi-aider-firstboot --no-pager
sudo journalctl -b -u sushi-aider-firstboot --no-pager

Keep the instance as it is and email info@softwaresushi.com with the log. Do not include any keys.

Cause: no provider key is set in the shell where you started Aider. The image ships without keys.

Fix: export your key in the same shell, or pass an env file, as described in Provider keys. Name the model with --model.

Cause: the image's defaults set auto-commits: false.

Fix: review with git diff and commit yourself, or set auto-commits: true in /etc/aider/aider.conf.yml. See The default settings.

Cause: smoke.sh refuses to run while OPENAI_API_KEY, ANTHROPIC_API_KEY or OPENROUTER_API_KEY is set, so it never uses a real key.

Fix: run it from a fresh Session Manager shell, without exporting a key:

sudo /opt/sushi/bin/smoke.sh

Cause: the security group, network ACL or route table blocks outbound HTTPS.

Fix: allow outbound TCP 443 from the instance to your provider. No inbound rule is needed.

Last updated October 13, 2026 · Suggest an improvement