My miner started but is not finding any shares - what should I check?

Work through this list in order. First, confirm the miner connected to the pool - look for a line like "connected to" or "logged in" in the output. If you see "connection refused" or "host not found" the pool URL or port is wrong. Second, verify your wallet address is correct in the config; a typo means the pool rejects every share. Third, give it time - on a slow CPU it can take several minutes to find your first share at default pool difficulty. Fourth, check your firewall is not blocking the outbound connection. Fifth, look for "no jobs" or "stale" messages, which usually mean network instability. If you have done all of that and still see nothing after 15 minutes, switch to a different pool to rule the pool out.