05 · Troubleshooting
Troubleshooting.
Find what you’re seeing. Each answer starts with the quickest fix.
The phone can’t connect
The link opens a blank page and never loads
Turn the phone’s Wi‑Fi off, wait a moment, and turn it back on. Reloading doesn’t help: the phone is reaching your computer and the replies aren’t getting back to it, and only rejoining the network clears that.
The network keeps devices apart
Office, hotel, campus and guest Wi‑Fi often stop devices on the same network from seeing each other. Nothing on your computer can change that. Use a hotspot, a cable or Tailscale instead.
The firewall said no
If you chose Don’t Allow when the Mac asked about Tethery Helper, open System Settings›Network›Firewall›Options and set Tethery Helper to allow incoming connections. On a PC, the installer lets Tethery through Windows Defender Firewall for you.
The phone connects but shows no picture
- Tethery isn’t checked in the app. The phone says Waiting for Premiere Pro. Turn on Tethery in your app.
- The playhead is stopped. Tethery sends what the Program Monitor renders. Press play or scrub.
- The app isn’t in front. Uncheck Disable video output when in the background in the app’s Playback or Video settings.
- The phone says Tap to start the picture. Some phones won’t start video until you touch the screen, and an iPhone in Low Power Mode never will. Tap the button and the picture starts. To skip the tap, turn off Low Power Mode in Settings›Battery.
No sound on the phone
- Sound is off on the phone. Every time the page opens, sound starts off until you tap the speaker in the phone’s panel. The phone won’t play sound before a tap.
- Audio Stream isn’t checked. In Premiere Pro’s Playback settings, check Audio Stream on the Tethery row.
- The session just started. Press play: Premiere Pro sends sound once playback starts.
- The free version and After Effects. The free version sends silence, and After Effects gives Tethery no sound at all.
The phone is behind Premiere Pro
Run Detect offset under Sync offset in the panel, then press Apply. Premiere Pro then holds its own picture back to play in step with the phone. Delay differs by device and by network, so measure on the device you’re watching, and again after switching to or from Native.
Premiere Pro feels behind when nothing is watching
It shouldn’t. Tethery asks Premiere Pro to wait only while a session is running; ending the session hands playback back, which takes a few seconds and a play or a scrub. If it still feels late, check that Video Offset is 0 in Playback settings, and that no other playback device is checked there.
The picture stutters
Lower the Resolution in the panel. Fewer pixels need less of the network, and the change takes effect on the next frame.
Worse since a second device joined? Each device gets its own copy of the stream over the same Wi‑Fi, so two cost twice as much as one. Tethery shares the rate between them unless Share bandwidth under Viewers is off. Connecting your computer to the router by Ethernet keeps its copies off the air.
The picture is frozen
Premiere Pro sends only what the Program Monitor renders. A stopped playhead sends nothing, so the last frame stays on screen until playback resumes. A phone that went to another app and came back shows that last frame too, until you press play.
Frozen on one phone only? It may be holding a frame with Freeze: tap Unfreeze in Settings. See Freeze and save a frame.
Color doesn’t look right
Tethery sends your picture as the timeline renders it. When it looks warm, dim or oversaturated on the phone, the phone’s screen is adjusting it, and each of those adjustments can be switched off.
The color space: Rec. 709
The stream is labeled Rec. 709, the standard for HD video, and phone browsers honor the label. In our tests the frames reached the phone within a couple of levels of what the timeline rendered, as close as 8-bit video gets, with no tint of Tethery’s own.
Turn off the phone’s color changes
Switch these off while you judge color. Turn them back on whenever you like; Tethery doesn’t need them off to work.
| Turn off | Where | Why |
|---|---|---|
| True Tone | Settings›Display & Brightness | It warms the whole screen to match the room. |
| Night Shift | Settings›Display & Brightness›Night Shift | It shifts everything toward amber on a schedule. |
| Auto-Brightness | Settings›Accessibility›Display & Text Size | Brightness that moves while you watch makes judgment impossible. |
| Low Power Mode | Settings›Battery | It caps the refresh rate and can drop frames, and the picture waits for a tap to start. |
| Set | Where | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Screen mode: Natural or sRGB | Settings›Display›Screen mode | Vivid modes stretch saturation well beyond Rec. 709. |
| Adaptive brightness off | Settings›Display›Adaptive brightness | Brightness that moves while you watch makes judgment impossible. |
| Eye Comfort Shield or blue-light filter off | Settings›Display | It shifts everything toward amber. |
| Battery saver off | Settings›Battery | It caps the refresh rate and can drop frames. |
Names vary from phone to phone: a Pixel calls its color modes Natural, Boosted and Adaptive, and a Samsung puts Natural under Screen mode. If a name doesn’t match, search Settings for it.
A laptop or a tablet that isn’t an iPad watches in its browser too, and its screen has the same kinds of settings.
| Set | Where | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Night mode or blue-light filter off | Display settings | It shifts everything toward amber. |
| Automatic brightness off | Display settings | Brightness that moves while you watch makes judgment impossible. |
| Display profile: sRGB or Rec. 709 | Display settings | Wide-gamut profiles oversaturate the picture. |
The same list is in the viewer: tap the picture, then Settings›Color doesn’t look right. It lists the settings for the device you’re holding, with where to find each one.
Brightness
With automatic brightness off, set the brightness by hand and leave it there while you work. A picture judged at full brightness and then watched at half looks like a different grade.
A preview, not a reference
A phone set up this way shows your picture the way phones show video, which is how most of your audience will see it. Use it to judge the cut, framing and how the grade travels to a phone. Final grading decisions belong on a calibrated reference monitor.
Both send the same Rec. 709 picture, so everything here applies to either.
Still stuck? Send a report
Send us a report straight from the panel, and we’ll see exactly what Tethery sees on your computer.
In the Tethery panel, press the question mark, open the Problems tab and scroll to Still not working?
Say what happened, add your email so we can reply, and press Send a report.
The panel shows your report’s code, like R-7K2PQ, and we’ll reply by email. Leave the email out and you can write to support@tethery.app with the code instead.
A report holds your versions, what each device reports and the end of Tethery’s log. It never includes your session code or license key. If your computer can’t reach tethery.app, the panel copies the report instead, so you can paste it into the email. Reports are kept for 90 days. Privacy
Still stuck? A person reads every message: support@tethery.app