Troubleshooting

What to check when Downstage and Live are not talking, the iPad cannot connect, or a jump does not do what you expected.

Start with the dot at the top left of the show screen. Green and "Live" means Downstage and Ableton are talking, and the problem is somewhere else on this page.

Downstage and Live

The dot is red and says "Waiting for Live"

Work down this list:

1. Is Ableton Live open?
2. Is the connector installed? Backstage › Live set says whether it is. If not, press Install the connector and restart Live.
3. Is it chosen in Live? Settings › Link, Tempo & MIDI › Control Surface should have a slot set to Downstage. If it is not in the menu, Live has not been restarted since it was installed.
4. Are two copies chosen? If you also have a script called AbletonOSC, only one of the two may be selected. Set the other slot to None.
5. Is another program using the same ports? Another app built on AbletonOSC, or a second copy of Downstage, will take the connection. Quit it.

To restart the connection without restarting Live, set the Control Surface slot to None and back to Downstage.

Downstage says it could not start

Almost always a second copy of Downstage is already running — look for its icon in the menu bar and quit it. Then open Downstage again.

No songs appear

Downstage lists the locators in the Arrangement View. If the list is empty:

• The set has no locators yet. Add one at the start of each song — see Songs from locators.
• Or they all start with >, which makes them sections rather than songs.
• If you added locators while Live was playing, stop Live. Downstage re-reads the set only while it is stopped.

A song is missing, or two have merged

• A locator named SONG END or STOP is an instruction, not a song.
• A locator that starts with > is a section of the song before it.
• Two locators with the same name both appear, but cause trouble in setlists. Rename one.

The song lengths look wrong

Downstage learns each song's tempo as the playhead passes through it. A song that has never been played or selected is estimated at the tempo of the song before it. Play through the set once, or tap each song once while stopped, and the lengths correct themselves and are remembered.

The iPad

downstage.local does not load

1. Same network? The iPad has to be on the same Wi-Fi as the laptop. Check for a guest network or mobile data taking over.
2. Try the number. Click the Downstage icon in the Mac's menu bar and type one of the numeric addresses listed there, such as http://192.168.0.102.
3. If the number works and the name does not, the network is blocking the .local name. That is common on venue, hotel and guest Wi-Fi, and on some Android devices. Use the number, or better, bring your own router.
4. If neither works, the network is stopping devices from seeing each other at all ("client isolation"). You need a different network.
5. http, not https. If the browser changed it, type the whole address again including http://.

If the address in the menu bar ends in :7070 or similar, include that part.

A red banner: "Lost the laptop. Live keeps playing."

The iPad has lost its connection to the Mac. It reconnects by itself. If it does not within a few seconds, check that the iPad is still on the right Wi-Fi and that Downstage is still running on the Mac.

The page asks for a passcode

Somebody set one. It is typed once per device. If nobody remembers it, turn it off or change it on the Mac in Backstage › Devices & passcode — the Mac is never asked.

The iPad went to sleep

A web page cannot keep it awake. Settings › Display & Brightness › Auto-Lock › Never.

Taps do nothing, and things look dimmed

The screen is locked. Hold the Lock button for half a second.

Jumps and transport

A jump happened instantly, mid-bar

Live's launch quantisation is set to None. Set it to 1 Bar in Live's control bar. Downstage shows a red warning while it is off.

A jump took longer than I expected

It waited for the next quantisation boundary. Check the header: Jumps: next bar is 1 Bar; if it names something longer, Live's launch quantisation is set to 2, 4 or 8 bars.

A section is dimmed and says "stopped only"

It exists only as a clip, and Live can only jump mid-song to a locator. Either stop first and then tap it, or add locators for that song.

Repeat or Skip is greyed out

The same reason: that section has no locator. The tile says Add a locator in Backstage. With Live stopped, both work.

I cannot cancel a jump

Correct — once a jump is armed, Live is holding it and cannot be asked to forget it. Tap a different song or section before the bar line and that one replaces it, or hold Stop.

A song ended a beat or two early

Its SONG END locator is not on a bar line. The jump out of the song happens at the bar line before the marker. Downstage warns about this and names the song; move the marker onto the bar.

The show did not stop at the end of a song

"Stops after" needs a locator named STOP in a few empty bars. Without it the option cannot be chosen and the last song plays on. See Song end and stop markers.

Play started from the wrong place

After stopping mid-song, the button reads Resume and carries on from where you stopped. If you wanted to start somewhere else, tap that song or section first — the button changes to Play.

The loop did not catch

You asked for it as the section was ending, and Live was already past the end. The button goes back to Loop. Try again in the next section, or jump back with Repeat and loop from there.

Setlists

"Choose your Live set first"

Setlists are saved beside your Live set, so Downstage needs to know which one it is. Do that in Backstage › Live set.

A song in my setlist is greyed out: "Locator renamed — not in this set"

The locator was renamed or deleted in Live. Rename it back, or add the song again under its new name and remove the old entry.

"Put on stage" is greyed out

Live is playing. A setlist can only be put on stage while stopped. It is also greyed out, and reads On stage, for the one that already is.

My setlists have gone

They are kept beside the Live set they belong to. Check that Backstage › Live set is pointing at the right set, and that the drive it lives on is connected.

License

"The trial has ended"

Without a license Downstage works for 15 minutes at a time. Quit and reopen it for another 15, or add a license.

"This license was issued to … for a different computer"

A license works on one Mac. If this is a new or repaired Mac, send us its new code from Backstage › License.

Still stuck?

Run the latency test and note the three rows, and note exactly what the screen said. Send that, with your version of Live and macOS, to support@downstageapp.com.