Performance and network

Dockli is fast when three things are healthy: Microsoft Graph (your cloud files), the Windows Search indexer (local file results), and network access to Dockli’s endpoints. Find your symptom below.

Dockli feels slow to load, especially in a large organization

Symptom: Sites, folders, or the dashboard take a while to appear.

Cause: Cloud responsiveness depends on Microsoft Graph, and in large tenants there can be a great many sites and Teams. To stay fast, Dockli loads content on demand — it doesn’t pull your entire file estate up front. The first load after a period of inactivity also has to warm up.

Fix

1. Give the first load a moment — subsequent navigation is quicker once things are warm.
2. Open a site or folder to load its contents rather than expecting everything at once; Dockli fetches on demand.
3. Use the search bar to jump straight to a file instead of browsing deep trees.
4. If loading is consistently slow, check your connection and rule out a proxy that’s throttling or inspecting traffic (see Firewall or proxy is blocking Dockli).

Local (This PC) search comes back empty

Symptom: Cloud results (OneDrive, SharePoint, Teams) appear in search, but the This PC section is always empty.

Cause: Dockli’s local results come from the Windows Search indexer — the same catalog File Explorer’s own search box uses. If the indexer service is stopped, disabled, or hasn’t indexed your files, Dockli degrades gracefully and simply shows no local results (it never errors out). Local search is also scoped to your user profile folder.

Fix

1. Confirm Windows Search is running: open Services (services.msc), find Windows Search, and make sure it’s Running with startup Automatic.
2. Check indexing status and locations in Settings → Privacy & security → Searching Windows (or Indexing Options in Control Panel). Make sure your profile folders are included.
3. If the index looks incomplete, rebuild it from Indexing Options → Advanced → Rebuild. Reindexing can take a while.
4. Test that File Explorer’s own search finds local files — if it can’t either, the fix is at the Windows level, not in Dockli.

Firewall or proxy is blocking Dockli

Symptom: Sign-in hangs, licensing shows “Couldn’t verify your license”, cloud files won’t load, or AI/dictation fail — often all at once on a managed network.

Cause: Dockli needs outbound HTTPS to Microsoft 365 (Graph, sign-in) and to Dockli’s own services (licensing, the AI gateway, speech, updates). A firewall, proxy, or TLS-inspecting gateway that blocks or breaks any of these will cause exactly these failures.

Fix

1. Ask your IT administrator to allow the Dockli and Microsoft 365 endpoints — the full list is in Endpoints to allowlist.
2. If your organization uses a proxy that inspects TLS, make sure the Dockli endpoints are excluded from inspection or trusted.
3. Re-test each affected feature: sign-in, opening a cloud site, the licensing gate’s Try again, and AI.

Sign-in or licensing is slow on the first try (cold start)

Symptom: The very first sign-in or license check after your PC has been idle takes several seconds, then works.

Cause: Some Dockli services scale to zero when idle and “cold start” on the first request. Dockli expects this — the license check waits up to 20 seconds and retries once, so a routine cold start shows Try again, not a hard denial, and rides out the warm-up.

Fix

1. Wait a few seconds and let the retry complete — a cold start usually clears on its own.
2. If a licensing screen appears, click Try again.
3. If it never clears, treat it as a network block (see above) and check Endpoints to allowlist.

Forcing an update

Symptom: You want the newest Dockli build now, or suspect an update didn’t apply.

Cause: Dockli updates silently in the background about every 4 hours while it’s running, and applies the update on the next launch. It never prompts and there’s nothing to download by hand.

Fix

1. Close every File Explorer window so Dockli fully quits.
2. Wait a few seconds, then reopen File Explorer and click Dockli — it picks up and applies the newest downloaded update immediately.
3. If updates never seem to arrive, the update endpoint may be blocked — see Endpoints to allowlist.

Still stuck?

If performance or connectivity problems persist, email support@dockli.io with which features are affected (files, search, licensing, AI), whether you’re on a managed/proxied network, and whether File Explorer’s own local search works. See also Endpoints to allowlist.