The first launch is an empty app
A fresh install starts with no subscription and no nodes. Turning on the system proxy at that moment does exactly one thing: it cuts you off, because traffic is handed to a local port with nowhere to send it.
The order that works is short. Import a subscription and activate it, pick a node, then switch on the system proxy. Those three steps in that sequence remove most of what gets reported as an install that does not work.
Leave these switches alone today
TUN, LAN access and DNS overrides each depend on something else being in place first. None of them are needed on day one.
Three steps from empty to working
- 1
Import the subscription, then activate it
Open the profiles page, paste the subscription link into the field at the top and import it. Importing is not enough on its own: click the card that appears so it becomes the active profile. If the card never takes the selected state, the core is still reading the previous profile or nothing.
- 2
What each page in the sidebar does
Proxies is where you choose a line. Profiles manages configurations. Connections shows which application is going through the proxy right now. Rules tells you which rule a domain falls under. Logs is for troubleshooting. Settings splits in two: options for the Clash core, options for the client itself.
- 3
Pick a node, then turn the proxy on
On the proxies page select a node in your main exit group, then enable the system proxy from the home page or settings. On Windows this points the system proxy setting at 127.0.0.1:7897. Older configurations may still use 7890, so check the number against mixed-port in your own profile.
The shortest proof that it works
Three things in order. Run a latency test on the proxies page: millisecond values mean the profile parsed and the core is alive. Switch the system proxy on and open a site that normally fails. Then watch connections for new rows, the only real sign that traffic goes through the proxy rather than around it.
- Latency test returns millisecond values, not timeouts
- A site that used to fail now loads with the system proxy on
- The connections page fills with new rows while you browse
Common questions
The proxy is on but pages still fail. Where do I start?
Start at the connections page. No new rows means traffic never reaches the app, so the problem is on the system proxy side. Rows appearing while pages still fail points at the node or the rule that matched: try another node and keep the log page open.
Should I turn on TUN right away?
No. TUN exists for programs that ignore the system proxy setting, and on Windows it needs Service Mode installed first. While your browser works it adds nothing, and it gives you one more layer to rule out when something breaks later.