Troubleshooting

The short list of things that actually go wrong, and how to fix them.

The tuner or drill can't hear me

Microphone permission. The first time you use a microphone tool, your browser asks for mic access. If you dismissed or denied it, the tool gets silence. Look for the microphone icon in your browser's address bar and set it to Allow, then reload the page.

• Chrome / Edge: click the padlock or tune icon in the address bar → Site settings → Microphone → Allow.
• Safari (macOS): Safari menu → Settings for strumly.suedeai.ai → Microphone → Allow.
• iOS Safari: the permission prompt appears per-session; if audio input is dead, check Settings → Safari → Microphone, and make sure Silent Mode isn't interfering with audio playback tools.

Wrong input device. If you have an audio interface or external mic connected, the browser may be listening to the wrong one. Check your browser's site settings (or the OS sound input settings) and pick the mic that's actually near your guitar.

System-level permission (macOS). If the browser itself has never been granted microphone access, the site-level Allow does nothing. System Settings → Privacy & Security → Microphone → enable your browser, then restart it.

The tuner detects, but the reading jumps around

• Get closer to the mic and pick single notes cleanly. Let each note ring.
• Kill background noise — fans, TV, other music. Pitch detection locks onto the loudest periodic signal it hears.
• Old strings with dead intonation genuinely read unstable. If the tuner is stable on some strings and chaotic on one, the string may be the problem.

Chord drills score me wrong (or not at all)

The drill engine matches your audio against chord templates and checks timing against the beat. Things that hurt it:

• Distortion or heavy effects. Use a clean tone. Fuzz and high-gain smear the pitch content the detector matches on.
• Damped or partial strums. Strum the full shape and let it ring through the beat. Ghost strums and muted hits read as "no chord."
• Room noise and bleed. If the metronome click is playing loudly through speakers, it can bleed into the mic. Headphones for the click, guitar into the room, is the cleanest setup.
• Consistently "late" scores that feel wrong. A little real latency exists between string and score (mic buffering, analysis windows). The drill's timing window (±120 ms) absorbs normal latency; if every transition reads late by a similar large amount, check whether a Bluetooth mic or headset is adding delay — Bluetooth audio input routinely adds 100–300 ms. Use a wired mic or the built-in one.

I'm signed in on another Suede product but Strumly shows me signed out

Strumly shares one session across suedeai.ai domains. If it's out of sync: sign in via the Sign in button (it bounces through app.suedeai.ai and back), and make sure your browser isn't blocking cookies for suedeai.ai. Aggressive cookie-blocking extensions and "block all third-party cookies plus first-party isolation" setups can prevent the shared session from being read.

The coach says I've hit my session limit

The free tier is 3 sessions per calendar month, counted from your first real message in each conversation. The cap resets monthly, and your history and profile are untouched — the coach will remember everything when the new month starts (or immediately, on Pro). What counts as a session is spelled out in Practice sessions.

My streak / path progress / quiz history disappeared

Tool progress that works without an account lives in your browser's localStorage. It's per-browser and per-device, and it's deleted when you clear site data, browse privately, or switch browsers. That data isn't recoverable — it never left your machine. Coaching history is different: it's tied to your account and survives all of the above.

A page looks broken or something else is wrong

Hard-reload first (Cmd/Ctrl+Shift+R) — a stale cached script after a deploy is the most common cause of a half-broken page. If it persists, contact us with the page URL, your browser, and what you expected to happen. Reports go to a human who can actually fix it.