release: v0.4.5

Author: jacob-bd

CHANGELOG.md

@@ -4,6 +4,12 @@ All notable changes to this project will be documented in this file.
 
 The format is based on [Keep a Changelog](https://keepachangelog.com/en/1.1.0/),
 and this project adheres to [Semantic Versioning](https://semver.org/spec/v2.0.0.html).
+## [0.4.5] - 2026-03-10
+
+### Fixed
+- **`nlm doctor` crash on Windows (Issue #87)** — Fixed `UnicodeDecodeError` when running `claude mcp list` on Windows systems with non-UTF-8 default encodings (e.g., `cp936`, `cp1252`). Added explicit `encoding="utf-8"` and `errors="replace"` to the subprocess call. Also added a null check for `result.stdout` to prevent `AttributeError` when the subprocess returns no output.
+- **Silent Chrome launch failures on Windows (Issue #86)** — `launch_chrome_process` was silently swallowing all `subprocess.Popen` exceptions, causing `nlm login` to report the cryptic "Cannot connect to browser on port XXXX" with no indication of what went wrong. Now logs the browser path, port, and exception details so users get actionable error messages. Added debug logging for successful launches as well.
+
 ## [0.4.4] - 2026-03-08
 
 ### Fixed

pyproject.toml

@@ -4,7 +4,7 @@ build-backend = "hatchling.build"
 
 [project]
 name = "notebooklm-mcp-cli"
-version = "0.4.4"
+version = "0.4.5"
 description = "Unified CLI and MCP server for Google NotebookLM"
 readme = "README.md"
 license = "MIT"

src/notebooklm_tools/__init__.py

@@ -1,6 +1,6 @@
 """NotebookLM Tools - Unified CLI and MCP server for Google NotebookLM."""
 
-__version__ = "0.4.4"
+__version__ = "0.4.5"
 
 from notebooklm_tools.core.client import NotebookLMClient
 

src/notebooklm_tools/cli/commands/doctor.py

@@ -233,8 +233,9 @@ def _check_clients(verbose: bool) -> bool:
                     result = subprocess.run(
                         [claude_cmd, "mcp", "list"],
                         capture_output=True, text=True, timeout=5,
+                        encoding="utf-8", errors="replace",
                     )
-                    if "notebooklm" in result.stdout.lower():
+                    if result.stdout and "notebooklm" in result.stdout.lower():
                         status = True
                 except (subprocess.TimeoutExpired, OSError):
                     pass

src/notebooklm_tools/utils/cdp.py

@@ -436,13 +436,18 @@ def launch_chrome_process(
         args.append("--headless=new")
 
     try:
+        _logger.debug("Launching browser: %s on port %d", chrome_path, port)
         process = subprocess.Popen(
             args,
             stdout=subprocess.PIPE,
             stderr=subprocess.PIPE,
         )
         return process
-    except Exception:
+    except Exception as e:
+        _logger.error(
+            "Failed to launch browser at '%s' on port %d: %s",
+            chrome_path, port, e,
+        )
         return None