Troubleshooting

Check your Dead Zones first. A Dead Zone tells the AI to ignore anything inside it. If a zone covers the area you are standing in, the AI will not see you at all — the crop simply stops moving and holds still. This is the most common cause of “tracking suddenly stopped working”.

Dead Zones are saved between sessions, so a zone you drew during setup weeks ago is still active today. Open Dead Zones from the framing controls and confirm no zone overlaps where you sit or stand. Clear any you don't need.

Then check the detection overlay. Turn on the Detection Overlay button to see exactly what the AI can see. If no box is drawn around you, the AI is not detecting you — check lighting, and make sure you are not partially out of frame.

Still stuck? Turn on Advanced in Settings and press Copy diagnostics, then paste the result into an email to support@ai-framer.com. It contains everything we need to see what your machine is doing.

Download the FFmpeg full build (not essentials) from gyan.dev/ffmpeg/builds/. Extract it, then add the bin folder to your Windows system PATH:

1. Search "environment variables" in Start → Edit System Environment Variables
2. Click "Environment Variables" → under System Variables, find "Path" → Edit
3. Click New and paste the path to your FFmpeg bin folder, e.g. C:\ffmpeg\bin
4. Click OK and restart AiFramer.

vMix users: vMix bundles its own copy of FFmpeg but it is not added to the system PATH. You still need a separate FFmpeg full build using the steps above.

Remote guests connect directly to your AiFramer session — no account needed for guests. The guest opens a link, clicks Allow Camera and Allow Microphone, and they're live.

Inviting a guest:

In the Create workspace (gaming), click Invite Guest in the toolbar. In the Produce workspace podcast panel, click Invite Guest in the Remote Guests section. AiFramer generates a unique link — click Copy Link and send it to your guest via Discord, email, or any chat app.

What the guest does:

They open the link in any browser (Chrome, Firefox, Edge, Safari). The page shows a device selector where they choose their camera and microphone. Once they click Start, they appear in your compositor automatically — their face shows up in the facecam zone on both your 9:16 and 16:9 outputs.

What the guest sees:

The guest sees your 16:9 AiFramer program output — the composited game/show with your overlays, exactly as the audience sees it. This lets them react to what's happening on stream in real time.

Link lifetime:

Each link is valid for that session only. If you click Invite Guest again, a new link is generated and the old one stops working. Send the new link to your guest if they need to rejoin.

Connection quality:

Use the Connection Quality dropdown above the guest slots to set Auto (default), High, Medium, or Low. Change this before inviting — changing it while a guest is connected requires them to rejoin with a new link.

Guest audio in the mixer:

Guest audio routes directly into AiFramer's mixer and through the full processing chain (Gate, EQ, Compressor, Limiter) in the guest's slot — no setup needed on your part. Select the guest's slot in the audio panel to adjust their levels and processing settings.

Mix minus — no echo:

Mix minus is handled automatically. Your guest hears everyone in the session except themselves — they never hear their own voice echoed back. No configuration needed.

Display Capture captures your entire monitor — everything you see on screen including your desktop, taskbar, notifications, and open browsers. Best for: variety streamers, IRL content, or anything where you want viewers to see exactly what you see.

Game Capture hooks directly into the game's render output. Only the game itself is captured. If you Alt-Tab, viewers see a frozen game frame — your desktop is never shown. Best for: competitive gaming, any time you want to keep your desktop private.

Window Capture captures one specific application window and ignores the rest of your screen. Useful for streaming a specific browser, a creative app like Photoshop, or any non-game application. AiFramer tracks the window position automatically.

A black screen in Game Capture is almost always caused by one of two things:

1. Anti-cheat software
Some games with kernel-level anti-cheat (Valorant, EasyAntiCheat titles) block all capture hooks. Use Display Capture instead — it captures the screen rather than hooking the game and is undetected by anti-cheat.

2. Running as administrator
If the game is running as administrator and AiFramer is not (or vice versa), the capture hook is blocked. Try running AiFramer as administrator — right-click the AiFramer shortcut → Run as administrator.

NDI discovery uses multicast on your local network. Check the following:

1. NDI Tools installed? Download from ndi.video — this installs the NDI runtime AiFramer requires.
2. Same network? AiFramer and the NDI source must be on the same subnet. VPNs and isolated VLANs block NDI discovery.
3. Firewall? Windows Defender may block NDI traffic. Add AiFramer and NDI Tools to the firewall allow-list.
4. Refresh: Click the refresh button in the source selector to re-scan.

SRT input lets you receive a live video stream pushed from any SRT-capable device — OBS, vMix, hardware encoders, PTZ cameras with SRT output — and use it as an AiFramer input source, just like NDI.

Setup in AiFramer:

1. Open a channel, set the Source Type to SRT Input.
2. AiFramer shows a connection URL like srt://192.168.1.50:9000 — that's the address your encoder needs to push to.
3. Click ⟳ to prepare the listener. AiFramer is now waiting for a connection on that port.
4. Configure your encoder and start streaming to AiFramer.
5. Once connected, frames start flowing and AI detection begins immediately.

OBS as the SRT sender:

Settings → Stream → Service: Custom → Server: srt://[AiFramer-IP]:9000 → Stream Key: (blank) → Start Streaming.

vMix as the SRT sender:

External Output → SRT → Destination: AiFramer's IP and port 9000 → Start.

Multiple SRT inputs: Channel 1 = port 9000, Channel 2 = port 9001, and so on.

Firewall: Allow inbound UDP on ports 9000–9003 in Windows Firewall → Advanced Settings → Inbound Rules → New Rule → Port → UDP → 9000-9003.

SRT not available? Requires FFmpeg with libsrt (included in the full build from gyan.dev). Verify with: ffmpeg -protocols in Command Prompt — look for "srt" in the output. Also requires Broadcast or Enterprise tier.

AiFramer auto-reconnects with a 5→10→20→30s backoff. The stream health widget in the stream bar shows the cause — look at the speed indicator:

Speed below 1.0× — your CPU/GPU can't encode fast enough. Lower the bitrate or resolution (try Medium or Low preset).
Speed is fine but stream drops — network issue. Reduce the target bitrate. You need roughly 1.5× your stream bitrate as upload headroom.
Using SRT? Increase the latency buffer (try 500ms or 1000ms) in SRT settings.

Use detection zones. Click the Zones button above the preview to draw an active zone around the area where your subject will be. The AI only tracks subjects inside that zone, ignoring crowd or movement at the edges of frame.

Raise the movement threshold — increase the Movement threshold value in framing controls. The crop only moves when the subject has moved further from centre, reducing jitter on slow-moving subjects.

Try a different preset — each preset is tuned for the typical motion speed and subject size of that content type. Toggle the Detection Overlay button to see exactly what the AI is detecting and use that to choose the right preset.

The AI Highlight Detector automatically identifies the most interesting moments from your stream — spikes in audio level, rapid subject movement, new subjects entering frame — and suggests clip timestamps for you to review and export.

How it works:

1. Start your stream normally. AiFramer logs frame data and audio levels in the background while you stream.
2. When you click Stop, the Highlight Detector panel opens automatically showing scored moments from your session.
3. Review the suggested clips — each shows a timestamp, a score, and the signals that triggered it (audio spike, movement, etc.).
4. Select the clips you want and choose Fast export (stream copy, no re-encode) or Quality export (re-encode, best compression).
5. Clips are saved as individual files ready to post to TikTok, YouTube Shorts, or Instagram Reels.

Use Clip Recording alongside it: Enable Clip Recording (⏺ button) during your stream to keep a rolling buffer of the last 15–60 seconds. You can export a clip instantly at any time — useful for capturing a great moment as it happens, before the Highlight Detector even runs.

Creator tier can stream two versions of your content at the same time:

Primary output (9:16): The AI-framed vertical stream — perfect for TikTok Live, YouTube Shorts, and Instagram Live.
Secondary output (16:9): The full-width composited frame with your facecam overlay — for Twitch, YouTube, or any platform that expects a horizontal stream.

How to enable: In the Create workspace stream bar, the bottom row shows the 16:9 dual output. Check the enable checkbox, pick your second destination (e.g. Twitch), enter the stream key, and click Go Live. Both streams start together and stop together.

Both outputs get: your facecam/guest overlay composited in, scenes (BRB, Starting Soon, etc.), and your browser source overlay. The content is identical — just different aspect ratios.

1. Enable NDI output — in the channel panel, toggle NDI output on. The status chip in the channel strip should turn green.
2. Same network? AiFramer and vMix on the same machine find each other immediately. On different machines, ensure both are on the same subnet with no firewall blocking NDI (TCP port 5960 and UDP multicast).
3. In vMix: Add Input → NDI / Desktop Capture → find "AiFramer Channel 1". The stream is named automatically.
4. NDI Video Monitor: Open it from NDI Tools to verify the feed is being sent — if you can see it there, vMix should see it too.

What Companion does: Lets you control AiFramer from a Stream Deck, touchscreen, or any phone or tablet on your network. No Stream Deck required — Companion includes a browser-based interface.

Part 1 — Install and start Companion

1. Download Bitfocus Companion (free) from bitfocus.io/companion and install it.
2. Launch Companion. It runs in your system tray and opens a browser at http://127.0.0.1:8000.
3. Leave Companion running whenever you want to use it.

Part 2 — Connect to AiFramer

1. In AiFramer, open the Companion panel and confirm the server shows green on port 9999.
2. In Companion → Connections → Add Connection → search Generic HTTP → Add → Save.

Part 3 — Create a button

1. Buttons tab → click an empty slot → give it a label (e.g. Start Ch 1).
2. Add Action → Generic HTTP: Make GET Request → URL: http://127.0.0.1:9999/aiframer/channel/1/start → Save.

Part 4 — Control from your phone

1. Phone on same WiFi → find your PC's IP via ipconfig.
2. Open http://[your-PC-IP]:8000 on your phone → tap any button.

Useful AiFramer routes:

/aiframer/channel/1/start — Start channel 1
/aiframer/channel/1/stop — Stop channel 1
/aiframer/scene/live — Switch to Live
/aiframer/scene/brb — Switch to BRB
/aiframer/scene/chatting — Switch to Just Chatting
/aiframer/scene/starting — Switch to Starting Soon
/aiframer/stream/start — Start streaming
/aiframer/stream/stop — Stop streaming
/aiframer/clip/30 — Export last 30s as a clip (Creator tier)
/aiframer/channel/1/preset/soccer — Load soccer preset on channel 1
/aiframer/channel/1/audio/mute — Mute channel 1 audio
/aiframer/status — Get full JSON status of all channels

1. Companion server running? In AiFramer, open the Companion panel and confirm the server shows a green dot on port 9999.
2. URL format: Full URL should be http://127.0.0.1:9999/aiframer/channel/1/start.
3. Action type: Use "Generic HTTP: Make GET Request" — not POST.
4. Test in browser: Paste the URL into a browser on the AiFramer machine — you should get a JSON response.
5. Firewall: Windows Defender may block port 9999. Add an inbound rule for TCP port 9999 in Windows Security → Firewall → Advanced Settings.

H.265 requires libx265 in your FFmpeg build. The full build from gyan.dev includes it — the essentials build does not.

Platform compatibility: H.265 is not supported by Twitch, YouTube, TikTok, or Facebook for RTMP ingest — they only accept H.264. Use H.265 for SRT streams to vMix or broadcast infrastructure that supports HEVC. Keep H.264 selected for all consumer platforms.

1. Check IP and port: PTZOptics and BirdDog cameras default to port 5678. Sony cameras use 52381. Confirm the camera's IP from its web interface or OSD menu.
2. Same network: AiFramer and the PTZ camera must be on the same subnet.
3. VISCA over IP enabled: Must be explicitly enabled in the camera's web interface under Network → VISCA or Control → Remote.
4. Firewall: Allow AiFramer through Windows Defender or temporarily disable it to test.
5. Test first: Use the Test Connection button in the PTZ panel — it sends a VISCA inquiry and confirms the camera responds before AI tracking begins.
6. Invert pan: If the camera moves the wrong direction, enable "Invert pan direction" in PTZ settings.

Dynamic zoom not working? Ensure "Enable AI zoom control" is checked and the camera doesn't have a zoom lock in its menu.

1. Using latest AiFramer? WebRTC support is bundled in AiFramer 1.0 and later — no separate install needed. If you're on an older version, update the app.
2. Correct WHIP URL? Each provider has a specific WHIP endpoint format. Check setup notes in the protocol settings dialog.
3. Bearer token? Most WHIP providers require an auth token — paste it in the stream key field.
4. Firewall / NAT? WebRTC uses ICE candidates. Strict NAT or corporate firewalls may block ICE. Try the TURN server option in your provider's dashboard.

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