FAQ and troubleshooting
General
Do I need to deploy a contract to run a free service? No. Identity, the manifest and the delegation all use TapeOut's deployed contracts (DeWebHub, SiteRegistry, the processor factory). Only paid services need the escrow, and on-chain channels need ChannelBus.
Does TapeAPI take a fee? No. There is no protocol fee and no operator fee switch. Each provider may choose a voluntary contribution to a maintenance treasury (default 0); calls work the same either way. See docs/FEES.md.
What happens if I sell or transfer the circuit? The service goes with it: the container, its site and the right to sign delegations. The old holder's delegation stops being accepted, because clients check it against the current holder.
Which chain? BNB Smart Chain (chainId 56), where TapeOut lives.
Calling services
ERR_MODULE_NOT_FOUND: Cannot find package '@tapeapi/sdk' — the packages are not on npm yet and resolve through the repository's workspace. Clone the repository, run npm install in it, and save your script inside the tapeapi directory (Call a service).
MANIFEST_INVALID: ... does not match — the file in the container's site differs from its on-chain hash, or there is no manifest. The service is not correctly published.
DELEGATION_INVALID — the delegation expired, or the circuit changed hands since it was signed. The provider has to sign a new one and publish the manifest again.
RPC_UNAVAILABLE: only 1/2 nodes answered — use at least three RPC URLs with quorum: 2, so one node down still leaves a quorum. allowSingleNode: true exists for local development only.
RPC_DISAGREE — nodes returned different bytes for the same read. The SDK retries once; if it persists, one node is behind or misbehaving.
The answer's ts is rejected — your clock, or the service's, is more than 300 s off. Fix the clock; the window (maxSkewS) protects against replayed answers.
Running services
The console says the service reports a different key than the one generated here. The service's SIGNER_KEY is not the key generated on that page (pasted twice, an old key, or the wrong service URL). Paste the key from step 5 again and wait for the redeploy.
The console refuses to publish: "unexpected field" / "expected ...". The manifest the service serves differs from what you read and signed. Usually a variable has not taken effect yet; wait a minute and retry.
putFile reverts with NotOwner. The container is not opened, or the wallet is not the circuit's holder. Open the container on the circuit's page (0.012 BNB).
My wallet swaps BNB into WBNB. Gas is paid only in native BNB. Keep a little native BNB in the holder's wallet.
On-chain channels
The reader fails with no node serves logs. It started further back than the nodes keep history (publicnode: about 10,000 blocks). Frames in that range cannot be read from those nodes; start from a newer block or add an archive node. The BNB Chain dataseed nodes (the example default) do not serve eth_getLogs at all: read ChannelBus with the SDK's BUS_RPC_URLS (48 Club and 1RPC keep at least 500,000 blocks of logs). The relay transport does not depend on this.
The reader holds for a long time. A node is failing on the blocks the cursor is at. Holding is deliberate: a frame is never skipped while some node may still have it. After SERVED_DECAY (20) polls without an answer, the node is no longer waited for and you are told.
Are my messages private on ChannelBus? The content is end-to-end encrypted. The room, the size and the time of each message are public for ever.
Getting help
Open an issue on GitHub for bugs and questions. For security problems, follow SECURITY.md and do not open a public issue.