Troubleshooting Empty LibreChat Sidebar | Generated by AI
A few common reasons the sidebar history in LibreChat can appear empty intermittently, even though chatting/models/providers work:
Quick checks in the UI
- Filters: Make sure you’re on “All conversations,” no folder is selected, “Pinned only”/“Archived” isn’t toggled, and the history search box is empty.
- Account/session: Confirm you’re still logged in (avatar/menu shows your account). If your session silently expired, the app may show a fresh, empty history until you refresh or re-login.
- Hard refresh: Try a hard reload (Ctrl/Cmd+Shift+R). Browser cache or a stale service worker can block the history list from updating after an upgrade.
Session/cookie issues
- Incognito/strict privacy settings or third‑party cookie blocking can cause new “anonymous” sessions, so your history looks empty “sometimes.”
- If your frontend and API are on different subdomains, ensure cookies are set correctly (SameSite, Secure, Domain=.example.com) and you’re using HTTPS with a properly configured reverse proxy. Otherwise, the app can intermittently fail to send session cookies and return an empty history.
Networking/backend issues
- Open DevTools → Network and look for the request that loads conversations (e.g., /api/conversations or /api/history). Check:
- Status code 401/403: session or auth problem.
- 500: server error (check server logs).
- 200 with []: server returned no conversations (could be filters, wrong user/context, or DB issue).
- Check server logs for conversation fetch queries or auth middleware errors.
- If using Docker, make sure your MongoDB volume is persistent; otherwise container restarts can wipe history.
Database/migration
- If you recently upgraded to rc3 from an older build, ensure any required DB migrations completed and that the Conversations collection contains documents for your user.
- Slow DB or missing indexes can cause timeouts; the UI may render as empty if the request fails.
Known RC instability
- There were fixes around history/sidebar loading across rc builds. If you’re on v0.8.0-rc3, consider upgrading to the latest stable 0.8.0+ to rule out a resolved bug.
If you want help narrowing it down, please share:
- How you deploy (Docker/non-Docker), version, and whether auth is enabled
- Browser and whether it happens after being idle or on refresh
- The Network tab result for the conversations/history request (URL, status code, short response)
- Any server log snippets around the time the sidebar appears empty
With that info, I can point you to the exact cause and fix.