Troubleshooting

Find what you're seeing below and work through the fixes in order. If none of them help, email contact@evenings.email with your station name, what you were doing, and roughly when it happened, with your time zone. That's usually enough for us to find it in our logs.

Your account

Go Live, Upload Audio or Schedule Event opens "Your Membership has ended"

Those buttons need an active membership. New stations start on a one-month free trial, and if it ends before a card is added, the membership is cancelled. Click Restart Membership in that window, or Renew Membership in the membership panel on your Account page. While you're still on the trial, a yellow banner on your dashboard counts down the days left. Pricing has the details.

Sign-up won't go through

"Email or station name already exists" means that email already has an account, so log in instead. "Something went wrong" usually means another station already has the address your station name would create. Try a slightly different name. The setup guide explains how names become addresses.

Someone else may have my stream key

Anyone with your stream key can broadcast to your station. You can't reset it from the dashboard yet, so email us and we'll issue a new one. Then paste the new key into every streaming tool you use.

Going live from your browser

Your first broadcast explains every message the Go Live page can show. The ones we see most:

• "No audio was shared." Windows never carry audio, and on a Mac neither does your screen. Choose a tab in the picker and leave Also share tab audio on.
• Safari. Browser broadcasting isn't supported in Safari yet. Use Chrome or Edge, or Firefox for a mic only, or use streaming software.
• Your mic echoes or picks up your music. Wear headphones. We send your mic as it is, without echo cancellation.

Streaming software won't connect

Check your settings against this table. The RTMP server and your key are on the Go Live page as Stream Url and Stream Key.

Then go through these:

• The key has a space or line break on the end. We only accept the key exactly as issued. Use the copy button on the Go Live page rather than selecting the text by hand.
• The key is in the wrong field. In OBS it goes in Stream Key, not on the end of the server address. In BUTT it goes in the mountpoint. We ignore the Icecast username and password, so anything your tool accepts there is fine.
• Something else is already live on your key. RTMP tools are refused while your key is in use, so OBS or Audio Hijack won't connect while the Go Live page, BUTT or another copy of OBS is broadcasting. Stop the other broadcast and try again. If the other one was an encoder that crashed, we drop its connection after 60 seconds with no data, so wait a minute and reconnect.
• BUTT connects, then drops after a few seconds. We close an Icecast connection that sends no audio for 30 seconds, or that doesn't finish connecting within 10 seconds. Check that BUTT has an input selected and its meters are moving.
• Your network blocks the port. RTMP uses port 1935 and Icecast uses port 8001, and some office, school and public networks block both. Try another network, or go live from your browser, which uses the same port as ordinary secure web pages.

You're connected, but listeners hear silence

When an RTMP tool is connected but sends no usable audio, the connection stays open and your station still shows Live, but listeners hear nothing. In OBS, check that the audio source you want is in the Audio Mixer, isn't muted, and its meter moves. In Audio Hijack, check that your source is connected to the Broadcast block. If you're going live from your browser, check that a source is switched on and its meter is moving.

Your broadcast cut out

• "Another broadcast took over your stream key." A browser or Icecast connection on your key always takes over the current broadcast. If the Go Live page is open in two tabs, or BUTT and the Go Live page are both connected, they'll keep knocking each other off. Stop the one you're not using.
• A prerecorded show started. A prerecorded show scheduled during your broadcast starts on time and ends your live broadcast. Your recording up to that point is saved. Check your Calendar and move the show. If you go live again, you take the air back and the show stops for good.
• "Connection lost" or "Your connection couldn't keep up." Your internet dropped or slowed down. Reconnect once it's back. For long shows, a wired connection holds up better than wifi.
• You closed the tab. Leaving the Go Live page ends a browser broadcast. Keep that tab open while you're live.

Your recording isn't in your Library

• The broadcast hasn't finished. A recording appears after the broadcast ends and its upload completes. Give it a moment, then refresh your Library.
• The connection never sent audio. A connection that sent no audio at all isn't saved. A broadcast that sent silence is saved, as silence.
• The upload is still retrying. If a recording's upload fails, we keep the file on our server and retry every few minutes. If it hasn't appeared within an hour, email us with the time you broadcast and your time zone.
• You used Record and saving failed. The take was downloaded to your computer as a .webm or .ogg file, which Upload Audio doesn't accept yet. Convert it to MP3, WAV or FLAC, for example with Audacity, and upload that, or email it to us.

Your track isn't on Explore or your station page

New recordings and uploads start unpublished. Open the track in your Library and tick Publish to Explore. Your station page lists published tracks plus anything added in the last 24 hours, so an unpublished track drops off it after a day.

Your upload failed

Upload Audio and your Library accept MP3, WAV, AIF, M4A and FLAC, up to 12 GB per file, and we check the file extension rather than what's inside. An AIFF file named .aiff is the same format as .aif, so renaming it is enough. For .ogg, .webm or anything else, convert it to one of the accepted formats first. Cover images and your station photo can be JPG or PNG, up to 20 MB.

Always On isn't playing, or is playing the wrong thing

• Nothing plays. Check that Always On Streaming is switched on, on the Go Live page, and that at least one track matches your selection. If you chose tags, make sure some tracks have them, or switch to Shuffle All. After changing tags, click Save.
• A track you didn't want is playing. Always On picks from your whole Library, including unpublished tracks. Use tags to choose what plays, as the Always On guide explains.
• It stopped when you went live. That's expected. Live broadcasts and scheduled shows take over, and Always On comes back when they end.

Scheduled shows

• Your scheduled live show didn't start. Scheduling a live show doesn't start a broadcast for you. Go live yourself during the scheduled time and your broadcast takes the show's title and cover. See how to schedule a live show.
• You can't attach a track to your show. To schedule a prerecorded show, open the track in your Library and use its Schedule button. Schedule Event at the top of the dashboard is for live shows. See how to schedule a prerecorded show.
• You changed one date and the whole series changed. Edits and deletes on a repeating show apply to every date. You can't change a single date yet.
• Your event link goes to your station page. The event is Private. Open it, click Edit Details, and switch it to Public to give it its own page.

Listener texts

• Listeners didn't get a reminder for a repeating show. For now, reminders only go out before the first date of a repeating show. For later dates, a text blast from that show's event reaches the same listeners.
• Subscribers didn't get a text when you went live again. Each subscriber gets at most one go-live text a day, so a second show on the same day doesn't send another.
• You can't see the Text Blast button. It only appears on Public events. Open the event from your Calendar to send one. The event pages guide covers RSVPs and text blasts in full.
• A listener wants to stop getting texts. They can reply STOP to any event text.

If your problem isn't on this page, email contact@evenings.email and we'll work through it with you. If you're still setting up, how Evenings works explains what should happen at each step.