bug: Ollama connection is checked only during the setup wizard — if Ollama stops running after setup, all LLM-dependent features (notes, quiz, flashcards) fail with unhandled Rust panics instead of a user-friendly error

[prince-pokharna]

🐛 Problem Statement

Knowte verifies Ollama is running during the initial setup wizard (curl http://localhost:11434/api/tags). However, after setup completes and the app is in normal use, if Ollama:

• Crashes or is killed by the OS (common on low-RAM machines processing large models)
• Is restarted on a different port
• Has its model unloaded

...the next LLM call from the Rust backend (src-tauri/) will fail with a low-level HTTP connection error. Without a graceful handler, this surfaces as either a frozen UI or an unhandled Rust panic.

💡 Proposed Fix

Add a pre-inference health check in the Tauri command handler:

// src-tauri/src/llm.rs

use reqwest::Client;

async fn check_ollama_health(ollama_url: &str) -> Result<(), String> {
    let client = Client::new();
    match client
        .get(format!("{}/api/tags", ollama_url))
        .timeout(std::time::Duration::from_secs(3))
        .send()
        .await
    {
        Ok(resp) if resp.status().is_success() => Ok(()),
        Ok(resp) => Err(format!("Ollama returned status {}", resp.status())),
        Err(e) => Err(format!(
            "Cannot reach Ollama at {}. Is it running? Error: {}",
            ollama_url, e
        )),
    }
}

#[tauri::command]
pub async fn generate_notes(transcript: String, model: String) -> Result<String, String> {
    check_ollama_health("http://localhost:11434").await?;
    // ... proceed with LLM call
}

Surface the error in the frontend as a dismissible banner:

// src/components/OllamaStatusBanner.tsx
{ollamaError && (
  <div className="bg-red-100 border border-red-400 text-red-700 px-4 py-3 rounded">
    ⚠️ Ollama is not running. Start it with <code>ollama serve</code> and retry.
  </div>
)}

📁 Files to Modify

File	Change
src-tauri/src/llm.rs	Add check_ollama_health before every LLM invocation
src/components/OllamaStatusBanner.tsx	New — user-visible connectivity error banner
src/	Propagate Tauri error string to UI state

Suggested labels: bug, reliability, tauri, ux

I would like to work on this. Could you please assign it to me?

[prince-pokharna]

Hey @maintainers,
Please assign it to me under GSSoC 2026
/claim /assign /claim-assignment