Overlay is blank

The source shows a message instead of the overlay

Two refusals say outright what happened. Both are meant for another computer: the PC running strAImer recognises its own overlays and lets them in, so on the streaming machine neither message should appear.

There was one exception before strAImer 0.25.0: after a short network drop, "Access from the local network is off" could appear on the streaming PC itself and stay there until the source was refreshed by hand. From 0.25.0 the app recognises its own computer even while the network comes back. If you see that page on the streaming PC on an older version, update strAImer and refresh the source once.

"Access from the local network is off": the application is not letting other machines in at all. Switch it on where the guide "Core" describes it. You do not have to touch OBS afterwards: from strAImer 0.25.0 this page tries again every 5 seconds and brings the overlay back by itself once access is on. On an older version, refresh the browser source in OBS.

The message also asks you to copy the link again. You do not have to: a link the copy button gave you already carries this machine's address and the key, whether the switch was on at the time or not. Copying it again does no harm, it is simply not what fixes this one.

"This link no longer works": the access key inside the link is not the one the application expects now. This page does not try again by itself, because the old key will never start working. Three ways to end up there:

1. The application was reinstalled, or settings were restored onto a fresh install. The key is deliberately not part of a backup, so the new installation invented one of its own while the sources in OBS still carry the old. This is the common one.
2. The key was reissued with the Change the key button — the guide "Core" says what that button costs. This is the one nobody connects to anything they did: the sources on the other computer were working until then, and they all stop together the next time OBS loads them.
3. The link never had a key in it, because it was read off the page or taken from the browser's address bar instead of being copied with the button. Before the Auction add-on update released with strAImer 0.23.0, the button itself had the same fault in one place: Copy link on a row of the widget list on Board overlay, Wheel overlay and Bracket overlay left the key out. A source pasted from there keeps being refused after the update until you copy that link again. The guide "Overlays in OBS" explains which address is which.

The cure is the same in all three cases: copy each overlay link again with the button on its widget page and paste it into its Browser Source. Every source on that computer needs it, not only the one you noticed — they all carried the same key.

Check in order

1. Is the module on? A module that is off disappears from the sidebar entirely, so the page looks deleted. Turn it back on with the switch on its card in Module Catalog. Alerts, chat, goals and lists came with the app and sit in Module Catalog → Built-in. The mascot, the input overlay, timers and the auction and carousel overlays are add-ons: their switch is in Module Catalog → Add-ons, on the card of the bundle for timers, the auction and the carousel. The guide "Module Catalog" shows both screens. A source whose module is off still loads the page and looks fine, but nothing arrives: alerts show nothing at all and the fundraising bar freezes. Chat is the exception — it keeps showing messages, because it reads them directly.
2. Is the overlay switched on in its list? The switch at the start of each row on the overlay's page turns that one overlay off in every scene that holds its link; a row switched off turns grey or is marked off. Switch it on and the source comes back by itself. An overlay deleted from the list while its link stayed in OBS is empty in the same way: copy the link of an overlay that is in the list instead. Which switch it is on each page, and what else it stops, is in the guide "Overlays in OBS", section "Switching one overlay off".
3. Auction and carousel overlays: is the auction or the carousel running? Board overlay, Wheel overlay, Bracket overlay and Pool bar overlay wait for their add-on to report where things stand and show nothing until it does, without a message. They stay empty while the auction or the carousel is switched off with the power button on its Auction: Control or Carousel: Control tile (the guides "Auction" and "Carousel", section "Turning the module off for a day"), and while that add-on is off in Module Catalog → Add-ons. The carousel ribbon also leaves the frame whenever the carousel is switched off.
4. Does the URL still contain ?overlay? Without that parameter the same address renders the settings editor instead of the overlay. The source will not be blank — it will show an interface. Copy the link again with the button on the widget page.
5. Alerts: is the link pointing at a group that still exists? The group id sits in ?overlay=<id>. A link copied from an old group, or edited by hand, is ignored in silence. The module's own log says which group was asked for.
6. Alerts: is "Shutdown source when not visible" ticked in OBS? A hidden or shut-down source stops answering, so alerts stop being sent to it. Untick that option and keep the scene visible.
7. Alerts: did the overlay reach the app at all? When an alert group's source checks in, the log console shows [Alerts] Overlay "main" is online., with the group's id in place of main. A source carrying the link of a group that no longer exists shows [Alerts] OBS source asks for group "…", which is not in the settings instead. Other overlays do not announce themselves in the log console at all, so a quiet console proves nothing about them: try them from their own page instead, for example Test Mode on Widgets → Chat Overlay.
8. Is the source big enough? A source too small for the content shows less than expected — see the guide "Overlays in OBS", section "Sizing the source".
9. Has anything actually happened? Some overlays are empty by design until an event arrives — see the guide "Overlays in OBS", section "Nothing is shown until something happens".

If an overlay shows, but looks or behaves as it did before an update (a new Material is missing, a switch seems to do nothing), the source in OBS is still running the page it loaded earlier. The guide "Overlays in OBS", section "Changing things while the stream runs", says which overlays reload by themselves and which need a refresh.

The sound plays but nothing is drawn

A case of its own, and it tells you where to look. If an alert plays its sound but the card never appears, the event reached the application and stopped short of the page in OBS: the sound is played by the application, the card is drawn by the page itself.

Before version 0.5.0 this happened after every restart of the application: the page lost its connection and never restored it on its own, and only refreshing the browser source helped. From 0.5.0 the connection comes back by itself — if you see this on 0.5.0 or later, refresh the source and write to support.

The application log names the cause outright in such a case, with a line like Overlay "main" is open but has no live connection to the core.

OBS on a second PC

Works from version 0.5.0. Before it, overlay pages looked for the application on the same computer they were opened on, so on a second PC they could not work at all. What has to be set up there is in the guide "Overlays in OBS", section "OBS on a second PC".