Troubleshooting

Here is a list of troubleshooting tips and known issues with MixEffect.

Frequently Asked Questions

1. Simulator not appearing. Go to Settings and toggle Enable ATEM Simulator off and on.

2. Connection drops when switching apps in iOS: MixEffect works best when it is the frontmost application. iOS is very aggressive at suspending applications when they are sent to the background. This causes the connection between MixEffect and the switcher to be interrupted. Simply reconnect MixEffect to the switcher to start over again. Alternatively, you can turn on Guided Access and run MixEffect in single app mode. This improves performance by devoting more computing resources to the app. And, if the app does crash, it is automatically relaunched from the Home Screen.

3. Choosing a server in the Live Stream tab of the Output palette ATEM Software Control on macOS and Windows does not pre-populate the stream key field if there is a matching server found in MixEffect with a set stream key. Shouldn't MixEffect detect this and update the stream key for me? This is by design. Because other controllers may be connected to the same switcher, this could result in multiple controllers trying to change the stream key settings at the same time. The solution is to set the server used by the switcher from MixEffect.

4. How many devices can be connected to an ATEM switcher? A single ATEM switcher has a limit of about five connected devices. This could be one copy of ATEM Software Control three copies of MixEffect, and one copy of Companion, for instance, or four copies of MixEffect and one copy of ATEM Software Control. If you find that MixEffect cannot connect to your switcher, verify that the number of connected controllers is below five.

5. I installed MixEffect, but I don't see any SuperSource presets. Go to the SuperSource, tap the View All Presets button (grid icon), tap the second grid icon in the View All Presets page, and choose Reset Presets. This will install the default presets back onto your device.

6. Where is the Video Follows Audio feature? Make sure that you have gone to MixEffect Settings > Automations and enabled the Enable Automations and Enable Video Follows Audio toggles. You must also have an ATEM switcher that supports Fairlight Audio (most modern ATEM switchers do). Then, you can return to the Audio section and the VFA toggle will be present.

Known Issues

1. Images uploaded to ATEM switcher causes the switcher to get into a state requiring restart. Images uploaded to ATEM must be formatted to the exact size of the switcher's video mode (e.g. 1920x1080 for 1080p). If the ATEM switcher cannot handle the uploaded image, it may reach a state where no button pushes are possible. Remedy is to restart the ATEM switcher.

2. Keyboard Shortcuts stop working. When navigating between views, such as the SuperSource section page and the View All Presets page, occasionally keyboard shortcuts stop working when you return to the SuperSource home. To resolve, go to a different switcher section and return to SuperSource.

3. Unable to set labels for sources. On certain ATEM switchers, such as the older 1 M/E Production Studio 4K, users have reported an inability for labels to be set and saved properly by the switcher. Workaround is to set the labels in the ATEM Software Control app on macOS or Windows.

4. Audio Meters are not showing up or updating. If this is happening for you, try going to the Audio section and tapping on the Audio Monitoring toggle in the upper-right. This will start or stop audio level monitoring from the ATEM switcher. If levels continue to not show up, please send a feedback request from the app in MixEffect Settings.

5. Off-screen SuperSource boxes and audio. If you make use of SuperSource boxes that are enabled but off-screen, note that if you have Audio Follow Video (AFV) turned on, the input's audio will be enabled. To prevent this, disable the box in SuperSource.

6. MixEffect Crashes when pressing the Sidebar Toggle button from the Switcher section. There's a bug in Apple's SwiftUI framework that occasionally causes a crash in the Switcher section when toggling the sidebar navigation toggle in the upper-left corner of the screen. This is caused by certain panels not being loaded properly by iOS. If you find yourself experiencing this crash, consider disabling the sidebar in MixEffect Settings > Advanced Settings > Disable Sidebar.

7. Remote Webview does not render VDO.ninja streams on macOS. macOS users should note that there's an incompatibility rendering VDO.ninja video streams when MixEffect is running on macOS. As a result, Remote Webview will not work until this bug has been fixed.

8. Recording macros with SuperSource transitions sometimes stops the macro record. Try to use the Extra Fast or Instant speeds. There's a problem with the ATEM switcher in that they cannot record too many actions at once during a record.

9. Changing the internal position of an input source in the Upstream Keyer DVE or Flying Key sometimes moves the position of the DVE or Flying Key itself. When using the Reposition in Box feature of MixEffect 1.8.0, note that the app has to calculate and instruct the ATEM to update multiple parameters at the same time when repositioning an input source. Sometimes the ATEM does not have enough time to process this information and returns data that causes MixEffect to become out of sync. When this happens, the DE or Flying Key position and/or size may change. Use the controls in MixEffect to adjust the position and crop values to fine-tune the final position.

Network Stability

Under the hood, Blackmagic ATEM switchers employ the UDP protocol for communicating with controllers such as ATEM Software Control or MixEffect. Here is a brief explanation of UDP from its Wikipedia page:

UDP uses a simple connectionless communication model with a minimum of protocol mechanisms.... It has no handshaking dialogues, and thus exposes the user's program to any unreliability of the underlying network; there is no guarantee of delivery, ordering, or duplicate protection.... UDP is suitable for purposes where error checking and correction are either not necessary or are performed in the application; UDP avoids the overhead of such processing in the protocol stack. Time-sensitive applications often use UDP because dropping packets is preferable to waiting for packets delayed due to retransmission, which may not be an option in a real-time system.

The connection between MixEffect and your ATEM Switcher may drop due to any number of factors, but one of them is too many unacknowledged packets. When this happens, MixEffect will disconnect. If you are viewing a switcher feature page such as a Switcher Page, Macros, Output, etc., the screen will go blank and say that you have been disconnected.

If you have Auto Reconnect enabled in MixEffect's settings, MixEffect will automatically try to reconnect every five seconds.

Alternatively, you can go to the MixEffect Home and reestablish a connection by tapping on the desired connection.

There's more tips on resolving connection problems on this page.

Reporting Bugs

If MixEffect is crashing consistently when performing a particular function, post a bug report in the MixEffect Community of your choice or send an email using the Feedback link in MixEffect's Settings page.