Troubleshooting

The five situations that most often trip people up before or during a stream — work through the checklist for whichever one matches.

Can't connect to the stream

If the stream suddenly disconnects mid-broadcast: the console automatically detects it and reconnects. Scores freeze in place during the disconnect instead of jumping around, so there's nothing to do manually. The checklist below is for the case where you can't connect in the first place.

1. Check whether the bottom connection bar has turned into a warning color showing "Connect Backend First" — that means the console itself hasn't connected to TStar's scoring service yet, which is a separate issue from your TikTok account. The most common cause is antivirus software or a firewall blocking the connection — check that first.
2. Go to the Settings page → "Device Information" and confirm "License Status" shows "Valid". If it shows "Reactivation Required", fix your license key first (see the next section).
3. Confirm the TikTok account you're connecting to is actually live right now — a TikTok LIVE room only exists while the account is streaming, so you can't connect before it starts or after it ends.
4. Confirm your network connection itself is stable.
5. If all of the above check out and you still can't connect, it may be an occasional rate limit on the connection service — wait 1–2 minutes and try "Connect" again; it usually resolves on its own.

Still stuck? Contact support — that's the fastest way forward.

Overlays aren't showing in the stream

1. Go back to the console and re-copy the current game's overlay link (the "Copy Widget Links" button in the top nav opens the "🔗 Widget Link Manager" dialog — find the widget in the list and copy its link there), then go to TikTok LIVE Studio's Browser Source URL field and replace the whole thing — the link is long, so it's easy to miss a character or accidentally paste an old game's link.
2. Check whether the link you pasted has preview=1 in it: links with preview=1 are for the console's own preview only, and must never be pasted into TikTok LIVE Studio — otherwise the screen shows fake preview data instead of your actual stream.
3. A black background usually means the wrong link was pasted, or the console hasn't connected to a TikTok account yet (the overlay background is always transparent by design — no chroma key needed).
4. If the layout looks off, check Overlay Sizing & Layout Guide and re-set the Browser Source's width/height — overlays scale proportionally automatically, so it usually only looks wrong when the width/height ratio is set to something extreme.
5. For more TikTok LIVE Studio–specific troubleshooting, see TikTok LIVE Studio FAQ.

Still stuck? Contact support — that's the fastest way forward.

Activation failed / switching computers

1. "Serial key not found. Please verify and try again" → check for missing or mistyped characters; the format is LIC-XXXX-XXXX-XXXX.
2. "This serial key is bound to another computer. Please contact support to unbind" → this is a normal protection mechanism: one license key can only be bound to one computer (TikTok accounts on that same computer can be switched freely and aren't affected). If you need to move the same key to a new computer, you can't do that yourself in the console — contact support to unbind it. Include your serial key plus the Device Code shown on the Settings page's "Device Information" panel (the first 12 characters is enough).
3. "Unable to connect to license server. Please check your network and try again" → confirm your network is working, then retry.
4. If your license has expired or been suspended: there's usually a 3-day grace period where it still works — contact support as soon as possible within that window.
5. For the full purchase/activation flow, see Purchasing & Activating a License.

Still stuck? Contact support — that's the fastest way forward.

Update failed

1. Go to /download on our site and download the latest installer again.
2. You can just install over the old version — no need to uninstall first. If the installer wizard doesn't respond at all, try manually removing the old version first, then reinstall.
3. On first run, or after a big version jump, Windows may show its SmartScreen "Windows protected your PC" warning — this is the standard warning for unsigned installers and doesn't mean anything's wrong with the file. Click "More info" → "Run anyway" to continue.
4. After installation, go back to the Settings page and confirm "Current Version" shows the new version number.

Still stuck? Contact support — that's the fastest way forward.

Scores aren't moving

1. First confirm the round has actually started — picking a game on the "Scoring Games" page loads it straight into the live room; go back to the Home page and confirm it's showing the game you want. If you see a hint like "The live room's current game is X, this setting hasn't been applied yet. Press "Save" above to enable it," press that "Save" button as instructed, then click "Start" in the Home page's workbench to actually begin the round — gifts only count toward the score after the round has started.
2. The most common cause: out of the box, no representative gift is bound at all (the list is empty) — it isn't bound to fake IDs. That's deliberate: real gift IDs differ per room, so pre-baking them would either make copied settings score nothing, or worse, collide with a real gift and score for the wrong side. You must bind the "Representative Gift" in the workbench before going live — once you're connected to a TikTok account, the console automatically fetches that account's real, sendable gift catalog, so you just pick from the list. If the catalog doesn't load right away, click "Refresh" and try again, or use the "manually enter gift ID" field next to it as a fallback. Until you bind something, the console shows a yellow warning, and gifts land in the "Unclassified" bucket (still visible in the revenue report) without scoring for any side.
3. Was it a streak gift (rapid repeated sends)? A streak only settles once, when the whole streak ends — not once per animation — so it's normal for nothing to visibly happen in the middle; the score jumps the moment the streak finishes.
4. A gift icon showing "Unknown gift" doesn't affect scoring — as long as the ID is bound to the right team/slot, its diamonds still count correctly. That's purely a naming lookup that hasn't caught up with the latest gift catalog.

Still stuck? Contact support — that's the fastest way forward.