MCP servers show zero tools despite connecting? Common config errors explained

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Developers using MCP servers frequently encounter a silent failure where clients report a successful connection but display no tools, with no error messages. Common causes include server key names containing parentheses, which some clients silently reject, and Windows GUI apps failing to spawn npx due to missing shell environment paths. Unescaped backslashes in Windows file paths can also cause entire config files to fail JSON parsing without any clear warning. A developer has released an open-source CLI tool called mcp-why that reads MCP client config files and identifies these specific failure classes, suggesting fixes for each. The tool complements the official MCP Inspector by focusing on configuration diagnostics rather than server-side issues.

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