FAQ & Troubleshooting

When something doesn't work, start here. Each runbook below covers a specific failure mode: the symptom you're seeing, the likely root causes in order of probability, and how to confirm and fix each one. Where a problem has a deeper home elsewhere in the docs, the runbook links there rather than duplicating coverage.

Runbooks

• Composer fails to start — process exits within seconds of launch; Desktop never paints, or Runtime exits before printing the render-loop banner.
• Composer crashes during a show — was running normally, then exited or stopped rendering mid-stream.
• Video stutters or drops frames — output is running but visibly hitching, with audio out of sync or encoder errors in the log.
• Audio is silent or distorted — output has no audio, or audio is clipping, distorted, or out of sync with video.
• Streaming target won't connect — an RTMP / SRT / NDI / Decklink target fails to publish or drops out repeatedly.
• Project won't open — a .prj file fails to load with a parse error, missing media, or no clear reason.
• Licence or activation problems — activation is rejected, the licence has expired, or you can't find your licence key.

Reference

• What Composer is not — adjacent categories of tooling that Composer deliberately doesn't replace.
• Getting help — how to reach RealSprint when none of the runbooks match.