It’s a rite of passage for every new Sui developer: you set up your environment, run a few commands, and suddenly you’re hit with cryptic errors like “Failed to fetch” or “Faucet request limit reached”. It feels like you’ve done everything right, but Sui simply refuses to give you those sweet devnet tokens or even connect to the network. Don’t panic — these issues are more about environment setup and network endpoints than anything wrong with your code.

First, always make sure you’re running the latest version of the Sui CLI. Networks update, APIs change, and your CLI might be talking to an outdated endpoint without you realizing it. Run sui --version in your terminal and compare it to the latest release in the Sui GitHub repo. If you’re behind, update with:

cargo install --locked --git https://github.com/MystenLabs/sui sui

This single step fixes more connection issues than you might expect.

Next, check your active RPC endpoint with sui client active-envs. If you see an endpoint that’s no longer valid (or pointing to an old devnet), switch to a working one:

sui client switch --env devnet

Public RPCs sometimes rotate, and you can also set your own custom RPC URL if you run a local node or use a private provider.

For faucet limits, here’s the trick: they’re tied to your wallet address. If you’ve requested tokens too many times, generate a fresh key pair:

sui keytool generate ed25519
sui client switch --address <newAddress>

Request tokens again and you’re back in business. If the CLI faucet is down, try the web faucet instead.

The final step is confirming your funds: run sui client gas to see your balance. Once you’re connected and topped up, save your working config so you don’t have to troubleshoot this again in the middle of an important test.