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Chris H
Chris H
New Member
September 9, 2026
Question

Dev Mode MCP Server shows "connected" but isn't actually working

  • September 9, 2026
  • 1 reply
  • 81 views

The Dev Mode MCP Server shows as enabled/connected in the Figma desktop app (Inspect panel → MCP server section), and the Claude connector confirms it's paired. But it isn't actually working — the client-side error is always the generic "enable Dev Mode MCP Server" instructional message, as if it were never turned on at all.

On the technical side (checked by someone helping me): nothing is listening on the local port the server should be using (127.0.0.1:3845 — connection refused every time), and there are no crash logs for Figma around when I enable it.

This was working fine yesterday and I haven't changed any settings. So far I've tried, with no change:

  • Fully quitting and reopening Figma desktop
  • Fully quitting and reopening Claude desktop
  • Removing and re-adding the MCP connection in Figma's Dev Mode panel
  • Signing out of Figma and back in
  • Checking macOS Firewall (it's off, so not the cause)
  • Testing across multiple different Figma files, not just one

Figma desktop version: 126.8.18, macOS (Darwin 25.6.0).

Any help figuring out why the server isn't actually binding despite the UI showing it as connected would be appreciated.

1 reply

adamsmasher
Figmate
adamsmasher
Figmate
September 9, 2026

Hi, ​@Chris H - thanks for your post! This is a confusing situation given the conflicting feedback you are getting regarding the local MCP server.

 

I did some searching on our end and did find a bug ticket open with our engineering team with the same symptoms. Since you’ve already verified that it’s not mac OS’s firewall, can you check with your IT team to see if it might be an internal security block preventing the Figma Desktop app from binding to port 3845?  

 

Also, one temporary solution right now you can try is to use the remote MCP server instead. There’s an added benefit to that in that the remote server has the broadest feature set of the two. You can find setup steps here: Guide to the Figma MCP server. Just thought I’d mention it to help unblock you while we figure out what the cause is with the local server.

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