On slow computers the MCP server will fail to launch when ran with npx on Claude Desktop

[olegbilovus]

The README suggest to use npx as the cmd but on slow computers it will fail to launch because it takes too much time. The solution is to install mcp-remote as a global pkg with npm install -g mcp-remote and then set the servers as:

"obsidian": {
      "command": "mcp-remote",
      "args": [
        "http://127.0.0.1:27123/mcp/",
        "--header",
        "Authorization: Bearer <your-api-key>"
      ]
    }

This is the error it will show if you use npx on a slow computer:

2026-05-25T11:44:26.890Z [obsidian] [info] Server started and connected successfully { metadata: undefined }
2026-05-25T11:44:29.761Z [obsidian] [info] Server transport closed { metadata: undefined }
2026-05-25T11:44:29.761Z [obsidian] [info] Server transport closed unexpectedly, this is likely due to the process exiting early. If you are developing this MCP server you can add output to stderr (i.e. `console.error('...')` in JavaScript, `print('...', file=sys.stderr)` in python) and it will appear in this log. { metadata: undefined }
2026-05-25T11:44:29.761Z [obsidian] [error] Server disconnected. For troubleshooting guidance, please visit our [debugging documentation](https://modelcontextprotocol.io/docs/tools/debugging) { metadata: { context: 'connection', stack: undefined } }
2026-05-25T11:44:29.762Z [obsidian] [info] Client transport closed { metadata: undefined }
2026-05-25T11:44:29.762Z [obsidian] [info] Client transport closed { metadata: undefined }
2026-05-25T11:46:28.142Z [obsidian] [info] Client transport closed { metadata: undefined }
2026-05-25T11:46:28.142Z [obsidian] [info] Shutting down server... { metadata: undefined }

[coddingtonbear]

Thanks for the heads-up! I wonder if you could add that to the Wiki here: https://github.com/coddingtonbear/obsidian-local-rest-api/wiki -- I think that'll be helpful for other folks who might be in a similar position.

That all being said -- I wonder if there's just a way to configure Claude Desktop to allow more time for the service to start up? It wouldn't surprise me if there were a way of configuring the timeout you encountered.