When something looks wrong

Most gauge surprises come from the same two facts: silence counts as 5, and presence uses a recent check-in window rather than a permanent connection count.

It is stuck near 5

People are on the page but not voting. A listener who has not touched the slider counts as a 5, so a room of watchers sits in the middle by design. Ask them to drag it — the first time is the hard one.

It barely moved when I switched segments

Switching a segment clears the votes, so the new segment starts from everyone-counts-as-5 again and climbs as people re-vote. Give it thirty seconds before reading anything into it.

The audience count dropped suddenly

Foreground listeners stop counting about 30 seconds after their last check-in. A tab that has moved into the background can remain active for up to an hour. A drop therefore means one or more presence windows expired together; it does not necessarily identify the exact second people left.

An old vote is dragging the score

Turn on Vote expiry so each vote returns to 5 after a fixed time, or use Reset voting on this segment to clear the current segment immediately.

“You already have a live show”

A previous show was never stopped — usually a closed tab. Open it from your shows list and stop it. HeatCheck also ends abandoned shows automatically once they pass 24 hours, next time you open the app.

My scheduled show did not start

Scheduled shows go live when someone loads the page or you open the app after the scheduled time. If nobody has been near it, it starts the moment the first person arrives. You can always press Go live now.

It is completely blank

• Off air, most widgets have nothing to draw. Only the join call-to-action and your logo always render.
• Check the full-size builder preview, which uses sample data off air. A public overlay URL can be blank off air even when it is valid.
• Copy the URL again from Settings → Stream overlays. A deleted overlay or invalid code also goes quiet by design, so it never puts an error page on air.
• An overlay with every widget switched off is invisible, correctly.

Part of it is missing

Widgets drop out when the feature behind them is off. Roll call, suggestions, and their data need the matching feature on for that show; the poll widget needs an open poll; the logo widget needs a logo uploaded in Custom Branding.

The text is soft or the layout is cramped

The width and height in your browser source do not match the preset. The layout is chosen from the page size, so wrong numbers produce a genuinely different design that is then scaled. Fix the numbers.

It froze

In OBS, right-click the source and choose Refresh. In Streamyard, the window was minimised — restore it. It catches up on its own.

I edited it and nothing changed

Give it a minute. Overlays pick up edits on their own within about sixty seconds while live — you never need to re-copy a URL.

“I voted but nothing happened”

One person’s vote among many barely moves an average. It counted.

“I cannot check in”

Checking in needs a listener account, and roll call has to be switched on for the show. A host ban also blocks future check-ins for that host, while leaving voting available. Banned listeners are removed from the live roster, so they will not appear there as a failed check-in.

“My points did not appear”

Points settle when the host ends the show, not during it. They show up after the host confirms Stop show. Participation points also require that listener to have checked in during the same show.

Someone is counted twice

They should not be — a browser remembers its own identity, so extra tabs do not double-count. A genuinely different device or browser is a different anonymous listener, which is the intended behaviour.

• Is the creative active in Settings → Ads? Active is account-wide, and nothing expires on its own.
• Are ads switched on for this show? That is a separate, per-show setting.
• With several active creatives, it may simply be another one’s turn. Rotation runs on a timer you set.
• The placement may be quieter than you remember — a byline is one small credit line near the footer.

If something here does not match what you are seeing, the fastest diagnostic is usually the same one: open your own public page in a normal browser tab, as a listener would, and compare it to what your dashboard says. Most confusion lives in the gap between those two screens, and looking at both at once closes it.