linuxcncrsh error: can't connect to LinuxCNC

Hello all,
I am unable to launch linuxcncrsh.  Each time I try to launch linuxcncrsh from terminal, I get this error:
emc/usr_intf/emcrsh.cc 2969: can't connect to LinuxCNC
I am running Debian 12 with the Xfce desktop environment, but was also getting the same error on Debian 10.  
I've been working off of this  linuxcnc.org/docs/html/man/man1/linuxcncrsh.1.html wiki page.  Meaning I've tried starting linuxcncrsh from HAL and from terminal with no luck and just the same error.
What am I missing?  Why can't linuxcncrsh connect?  
Cheers,
 

Hard to tell without your ini & hal files and the commands you are using. Could be something as simple as a syntax error.

This turned out to be a network problem where my wifi would be killed when linuxcnc started.  I had to install wpasupplicant and create wpa_supplicant.conf file.  Not sure why it wasn't there, but did the trick.