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Network

Check the quality of the link between the device you are sitting at and the show machine, and know what to do when that link goes quiet.

What the Network panel shows

The Network panel sits next to the performance panel on the Monitor tab, or below it when the window is too narrow for two columns.

Reading What it is
WS Latency The large number, in milliseconds: the round-trip time of the most recent heartbeat between this browser and the show machine.
Latency The sparkline beside it. It holds the last 60 samples, one per heartbeat — roughly the last ten minutes. It scales to the values it is showing, so read its shape, not its height.
Status A badge reading connected, connecting, reconnecting, disconnected or stale.
Uptime How long this browser session has been running, as 45s, 12m 30s or 2h 5m.

Before the first heartbeat comes back the panel reads Waiting for heartbeat... with the current status badge beside it.

These figures describe this device

Latency is measured from the browser you are looking at. A tablet on Wi-Fi and a laptop on a cable will show different numbers against the same show machine, and that difference is the point — it tells you which device has the shaky link.

Uptime counts from the moment this browser session started. It does not reset when the connection drops and comes back, so a long uptime is not by itself proof of an unbroken link — read it together with the Status badge, which reports the link as it stands right now.

Reading the latency

Latency Color What it means in practice
Under 50 ms Green Normal for a wired network. Dragging warp points, scrubbing and cue buttons feel immediate.
50–149 ms Amber Usable, but you will feel it. Expect a lag between releasing a control and other users seeing the change.
150 ms and above Red Interactive work becomes unpleasant and collaborative editing gets confusing. Move to a wired connection or a better access point before continuing.

A single red spike is not a problem — the sparkline exists so you can tell one spike from a trend. A line that is drifting upward through a rehearsal is worth solving before the show, not during it.

Status values

Badge Meaning
connecting The browser is opening a connection and has not received any data yet.
connected Data is flowing. This state is only entered once real data arrives, so it is never shown for a machine that has accepted the connection but gone unresponsive.
stale The connection is still open, but nothing has arrived for 15 seconds.
reconnecting The connection was lost and the browser is waiting out the delay before its next retry.
disconnected Nothing is connected and nothing is retrying — the state before the first connection is made, or after one is closed deliberately (for example, the page is closing).

stale is usually brief: once the show machine has gone quiet, the browser gives up on the open connection within a few seconds and moves to reconnecting on its own. Seeing it sit there is unusual and worth a look.

The status bar along the bottom of the window carries the same information on every tab, so you do not have to sit on the Monitor tab to watch it: a colored dot, then WS: and the state — Connected, Connecting…, Reconnecting…, Disconnected, or Unresponsive for the stale state. The dot pulses while connecting, reconnecting or unresponsive. When the connection is open but more than five seconds have passed since anything arrived, the bar also shows how long it has been — (12s ago), (3m ago) — and shows (awaiting data...) when nothing has arrived yet on a fresh connection.

The same bar carries Users: and Locks: counts, so a glance tells you both whether you are connected and how many other people are.

You do not have to reconnect by hand. When the connection fails:

  1. The browser notices on its own. It sends a heartbeat every ten seconds, and if one goes unanswered for about eight seconds it drops the connection itself rather than sitting on a dead link.
  2. It then retries, waiting about a second before the first attempt and doubling the wait after each failure up to a 30-second ceiling. There is no attempt limit — it keeps trying for as long as the page is open.
  3. When the connection is re-established, your session is restored automatically and the browser receives a fresh copy of the current project state, so what you see catches up with what the show machine actually has.
  4. While you are away, any locks you were holding are released — unless you have the project open on another device — so a colleague is never stranded behind a lock held by a browser that vanished. Selecting the resource again after reconnecting takes the lock back if it is free.

The show itself keeps running. Playback, output and warp all live on the show machine, so a browser losing its connection does not black the outputs; it costs you control, not the show.

When the connection drops or goes unresponsive

Work down this list — it is ordered by how often each one is the answer.

  1. Wait ten seconds. The retry is automatic and a brief network hiccup usually clears on its own. Watch the status bar: Reconnecting… turning back to Connected means it healed itself.
  2. Check the device you are on. A laptop that went to sleep, dropped off Wi-Fi or switched to another access point is the usual culprit — especially if the show machine's outputs are still running correctly on the wall.
  3. Reload the page. This forces a fresh connection and a fresh copy of the project state.
  4. Check you are still on the right network and address. If you joined from another device, the address must still be the show machine's — see Join from another device.
  5. Check the show machine. If every device shows Unresponsive or Reconnecting… at the same time, the problem is at the machine, not at your end: confirm it is awake, powered and still running Moonshine.

Unresponsive is not the same as disconnected

Unresponsive means the connection is still open but nothing is arriving. That can be a network that has gone silent — or a show machine that is too busy to answer. If the performance panel was already red before the connection went quiet, treat it as a machine problem first.

Before a show

  • Watch the latency sparkline for a couple of minutes with the rig live. Flat and green is what you want.
  • If you will run the show from a tablet or a second laptop, check its latency from that device, not from the show machine's own browser.
  • Prefer a cable for the device you will actually run cues from, and keep Wi-Fi for the ones that only watch.
  • Check Users and sessions so you know who else is connected and holding locks when the run starts.