Troubleshooting

Most problems in RENDERWAVE come down to a handful of causes. Work through the section below that matches what you’re seeing.

Audio isn’t reacting

Two things have to be true before anything moves with the music:

Reactivity is on. It’s a switch under Settings > Audio, and it does not turn itself on when you launch the app.
Audio is assigned to at least one parameter. A control with nothing assigned to it never moves, even with music playing.

If reactivity is on and still nothing moves:

Check the Levels meters (Bass, Mid, High) under Settings > Audio. If they sit flat while music plays, RENDERWAVE isn’t hearing the signal, usually because the wrong input device is selected.
If you declined the microphone permission prompt, RENDERWAVE shows a failure message that includes “Microphone access denied. Enable in System Settings > Privacy & Security > Microphone”. Grant access there, then turn reactivity on again.
If the selected input device gets disconnected, capture fails to start. RENDERWAVE shows the reason and offers Use System Default & Retry so you can get going again without hunting through the device menu.

For picking the right device and getting DJ or system audio in, see Audio input. For the bigger picture of how sound becomes movement, see How audio reactivity works.

License won’t activate

A few different problems show up here, and the fix depends on which one you’re seeing.

License already active on another machine. Most RENDERWAVE plans can be active on two machines at once. Try to activate a license that has used up its machine slots and RENDERWAVE keeps running with Free features rather than locking you out until you clear the conflict. Deactivate the license on the machine you’re no longer using (from RENDERWAVE’s settings on that machine, or from your renderwave.io account), then activate it here.

License shows expired. A lapsed subscription or an expired perpetual license stops granting paid features. Renew from your renderwave.io account, then activate the key again.

Key doesn’t get accepted. Check the format: license keys look like RW-, then a short tier code, then a 12-character block, then a 4-character block, for example RW-SUB-XXXXXXXXXXXX-XXXX or RW-PERP-XXXXXXXXXXXX-XXXX. A typo or a stray space is the most common cause.

Can’t enter a different key. While a license is already active on a machine, RENDERWAVE doesn’t offer a second key-entry field. Use Deactivate first, then activate the new key.

A trial just ended. If you were on a Studio trial, RENDERWAVE drops back to your underlying license (Free, unless you’ve purchased or activated something else) once the trial ends. That’s expected behavior rather than an error.

Controller isn’t lighting up

RENDERWAVE detects MIDI controllers on its own and reconnects them when you plug in or unplug a device. Most of the time there’s no manual “connect” step.

If a controller isn’t showing up:

Confirm macOS actually sees it. Open Audio MIDI Setup (in Applications > Utilities) and check it appears in the MIDI window there.
Make sure the controller is powered on and awake. RENDERWAVE only connects to devices macOS reports as online.
Try unplugging and reconnecting the controller, or quitting and reopening RENDERWAVE.

Once the controller is detected, mapping pads, knobs, and faders is covered in MIDI controllers and MIDI mapping.

Output display not appearing

If RENDERWAVE can’t find the screen you picked for output, it shows “Selected display is no longer available.” This usually means the display was disconnected or put to sleep between when you picked it and when RENDERWAVE tried to open the output window. Reconnect the display and try again.

If a display disconnects while output is already running, RENDERWAVE shows “External display disconnected” and closes the output window cleanly rather than leaving it in a broken state. Reconnect the display and reopen output.

A small performance HUD (FPS, frame time, render and output resolution) appears in the corner of the output display. It fades out after a few seconds of no mouse movement on that screen and reappears when you move the mouse there. That’s expected behavior, not a malfunction.

To exit fullscreen output, press Escape. On your Mac’s built-in display, one press closes it. On an external display, a single press isn’t enough on purpose, so a stray keypress at the booth can’t cut the visuals in front of a crowd: press Escape twice within about half a second to close it.

For picking and configuring the output screen, see Output window. For sending visuals into other apps instead of a physical display, see Syphon and mapping.

Choppy or low frame rate

Check the FPS readout on the output HUD first. It’s color-coded: green at 55 FPS and above, orange between 30 and 55, red below 30. The color tells you whether you have a real performance problem or only the feeling of one.

Common causes are rendering at a higher resolution than your Mac can sustain, stacking several demanding effects (heavy motion blur or feedback in particular), or driving an output display with a very high resolution and refresh rate combination. Lowering render resolution or removing one demanding effect is usually the fastest fix.

See Performance and resolution for the full tuning guide.

Still stuck?

Open RENDERWAVE’s About window (RENDERWAVE menu > About RENDERWAVE) and click Discord to ask in the community server, or Help to jump back to the help site.