1. I get errors like "`color01' is not a valid color"

Numbers that start with zero are treated as octal; starting with Newsboat 2.10, these are not allowed since they only add confusion.

Convert octal numbers to decimal, and drop the leading zero. For example, color01 should be replaced with color1, color016 with color14 etc.

2. I want to have a feed that contains all unread articles of all feeds

This is supported since Newsbeuter 0.7. All you need to do is add the following line to your urls file:

"query:Unread Articles:unread = \"yes\""

For details, refer to the documentation on query feeds.

3. After I open a link in the browser, Newsboat stays unresponsive until the browser is closed

Newsboat has to behave like that in order to accommodate users of text-based browsers like lynx and w3m. It has to relinquish the terminal and stay out of the way, otherwise people won’t be able to see their browsers.

If you’re using a GUI browser like Firefox, you can do one of two things:

  1. Start your browser beforehand. This way, Newsboat will only wait a fraction of a second (while a new tab is being opened).

  2. Wrap your browser in a script and use the script as Newsboat’s browser.

    Put this in ~/bin/newsboat-browser.sh:

    #/bin/sh
/usr/bin/firefox "$@" &

    Make it executable:

    $ chmod +x ~/bin/newsboat-browser.sh

    Then add the following line to your Newsboat’s config:

    browser "~/bin/newsboat-browser.sh"

4. I can’t connect to TT-RSS, Newsboat says: "Loading URLs from Tiny Tiny RSS…​Authentication failed."

There are multiple reasons for this:

  1. wrong URL in ttrss-url setting, or wrong credentials. Typos happen. Copy-and-paste the URL into the browser, then copy-and-paste the login and the password, and verify that they work;

  2. ttrss-url redirects somewhere. Please use a URL that points directly at your TT-RSS instance, without any kind of HTTP redirects;

  3. double quotes not escaped in login and/or password. Use \" instead of ";

  4. external API is disabled in TT-RSS. You can enable it in user preferences;

  5. self-signed (or otherwise un-verifiable) SSL certificate. If your TT-RSS instance is accessible from the Internet, consider Let’s Encrypt. It’s a free and completely automated way to get a valid SSL certificate.

    If you want to be your own CA, put your root certificate into a bundle understood by cURL, save it somewhere, and set the CURL_CA_BUNDLE environment variable with the path to the bundle.

    Finally, if you understand what a "MITM attack" is, and are certain that it can’t happen in your setup, check out a list of Newsboat’s configuration options for ways to entirely disable SSL verification.

5. Newsboat 2.18 complains that "Browser returned error code <some number>"

That Newsboat version misinterprets the browser’s exit code. Please upgrade to Newsboat 2.19 or newer.

If upgrading is not an option, wrap the browser in a script to hide its exit code from Newsboat:

  1. Put this in ~/bin/newsboat-browser.sh:

    #/bin/sh
/usr/bin/firefox "$@"
exit 0

    Replace /usr/bin/firefox with the path to your browser. The last line is the important bit.

  2. Make it executable:

    $ chmod +x ~/bin/newsboat-browser.sh

  3. Add the following to your Newsboat’s config:

    browser "~/bin/newsboat-browser.sh"

6. Regarding Newsboat snap installations

The Newsboat snap will also issue error messages related to browser error codes, because it is being prevented from accessing resources outside its strict confinement. Add the following to your Newsboat’s config so that it can open your default browser:

browser "xdg-open %u"