Troubleshooting

First, make sure you have the latest version of the app (available for download on our Home Page)

If Cherry crashes when you click the Test button, start a recording, or add a light

  • If you are using a third-party bulb (not Phillips Hue brand), try upgrading to version 1.8 or newer.

If you are stuck at “Connecting…” at the top of the Cherry window

  • Check that your lights are still controllable via the Hue app
  • Make sure that your Hue Bridge and bulb(s) are up to date using the Hue app
  • Restart your Hue Bridge (unplug and replug power), then restart Cherry
  • Restart any smart home devices (Google Home, Alexa, HomePod, etc.) that are in your house. These sometimes confuse Cherry. Afterwards, restart Cherry.
  • The Hue Bridge and your computer must be on the same wireless network for Cherry to work properly.
  • If you know your Philips Hue Bridge IP address, you can configure Cherry to connect to it directly. This is useful if you have multiple Hue Bridges or some other unique setup. It is only available in Cherry v2.0 and above. With the Cherry settings window open, In the Mac top bar, click CherryLiveLight, then Philips Hue settings. Follow the instructions in the window that appears to enter your Hue Bridge’s IP address. Note that if your bridge IP address is not static, you might have to change this again in the future. You can often set a static IP in your internet router settings.
  • Is your network setup special? Other configurations, such multiple subnets, proxies, etc. may confuse Cherry and make it unable to connect.

If the app crashes while attempting to purchase a license

  • Download the latest version of the app from the Setup Page.

If bulbs get “stuck” in the Cherry color, or don’t fully return to their original state after stopping recording

  • Ensure that you are not punching in and out too fast. Anything faster than once per second has a (small) chance to confuse Cherry.
  • Philips Hue has a “rate limiting” feature that will prevent lights from being changed too frequently. Philips does not advertise the limit, but it seems to be something like 50 changes per 30 seconds. Cherry will not be able to send more light control commands than this. If you have a lot of lights, you may hit this limit. For example, if you have 10 lights, and you try to switch Cherry on/off 5 times within 30 seconds, you will reach the limit, because 10×5=50. This is a hard limitation of the Hue system and we do not know of a workaround, other than waiting a few seconds before punching in/out again.

If Cherry is sending MIDI C-2 “Note On” events continuously

(un)fortunately, Cherry is working exactly as intended. C-2 Note On events are part of the HUI communication protocol. The HUI protocol requires a “ping” to be sent at least once per second. This is required for Cherry to be able to detect track arming, pause, playback, and quick punch events.

Unfortunately, it’s a known issue with any HUI-compatible device (most control surfaces) and is especially obvious when using Logic. Here are some other reports of similar issues with Logic and various control surfaces:

It happens with other DAWs as well:

There is no “magic bullet” solution, but you can try these workarounds:

  • Use the older version of the app (1.9) instead of 2.0+ (see Setup page). You won’t have Playback or Arming color features.
  • If using Logic, Set up Cherry as a “Recording Light” instead of a HUI. You won’t have Playback or Arming color features. In my tests, this also caused some other MIDI notes to appear, this time on the MIDI input instead of output.
  • In Logic, remap your midi listeners so that those notes don’t trigger anything (it only comes in on channel 1), and ignore the midi notes events that are displayed in Logic.

If your issue is still not resolved, or if your issue is not listed here

Please send us an email at hello@cherrylivelight.com. In your Documents directory in Finder, look for a file called “swift_log.txt”. Please attach this file to your email (or let us know if it is missing). It contains debug information from Cherry that may help us find the source of the issue.

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