Troubleshooting: Event Day & Emergencies

Weak internet, multi-room management, the 10-minute emergency checklist, and exporting presentations after the event.

T15

Weak or unstable internet in the room

Symptom: Displays are flickering, reconnecting frequently, or uploads are failing. Venue Wi-Fi is unreliable.

Immediate actions

Use wired ethernet for the room presentation laptop (the one running the agent). This eliminates Wi-Fi instability for the most critical device.
Use a 4G/5G mobile hotspot as backup. Keep one dedicated to the StartSync laptop and switch to it if venue Wi-Fi fails.
Download presentations before the event starts — once the agent has downloaded all presentations, they're stored locally. Even if internet drops during a session, the files are already there. Only timer sync, Speaker Desk, and Door Display require live internet.
Reduce parallel downloads — if uploading many files at once, the connection may saturate. Upload in smaller batches.

Best practice: Always confirm all presentations are downloaded (check the agent's status window) before the first session starts. Then internet stability becomes less critical.

T16

Managing multiple rooms running simultaneously

Scenario: Your event has 3–5 rooms running in parallel and you need to control all of them efficiently.

Recommended setup

One technician per room (ideal) — each opens only their room's Timer Control. The main dashboard operator has an overview tab.
One technician for multiple rooms — open each room's Timer Control in a separate browser tab. Use Ctrl+Tab to switch quickly. Keep the main dashboard in a separate window.
Color-code your tabs — use a Chrome extension like "Tab Color" to color-code tabs by room (e.g. red = Room 1, blue = Room 2). Prevents controlling the wrong room.

Before event starts: Open the main dashboard and verify each room shows a green agent status dot. This confirms all room laptops are connected and ready.

Emergency coverage: If a technician in one room has a problem, the room can be temporarily controlled from the main dashboard by any other operator. All controls are available from any device logged into the same account.

T19

Emergency checklist — 10 minutes before start

Stay calm. Run through this checklist in order:

✓ Internet on all devices — try loading google.com on each. No internet? → switch to mobile hotspot.
✓ Agent status — check the dashboard. Is the room agent green? If not, open the agent app. It reconnects automatically.
✓ All presentations downloaded? — in the agent's status window, confirm all files show as downloaded. If not, wait — or manually download the first speaker's file from the dashboard.
✓ Timer Control open? — open Timer Control on your laptop. You can manually start the timer as a backup.
✓ Door Display loading? — reload the Door Display tab. Black screen? → check internet on that device.
✓ Speaker Desk loading? — reload the Speaker Desk tab. Verify it shows today's first speaker name.
✓ First presentation ready — open the first .pptx manually in PowerPoint as a backup, just in case.
✓ First session set as active — in the dashboard, advance to session 1 so all displays are in sync.

If you have 5 minutes, not 10: Skip Door Display and Speaker Desk. Focus only on: internet ✓, agent green ✓, first file open in PowerPoint ✓, Timer Control ready ✓. The event can start without display screens — fix them between sessions.

T20

End of conference: how to export all presentations

Scenario: The conference is over. Speakers and organizers want access to all presentations.

Option 1 — Generate a shared link (recommended)

In the dashboard → event → find "Share Presentations".
Set a password (optional but recommended).
Click Generate Link. You get a URL like startsync.app/share/your-event.
Send this link to participants. They can browse and download individual files.
You can set an expiry date (e.g. 30 days after the event).

Option 2 — Download as ZIP

Generate a share link (as above).
Open the share link and use the Download All (ZIP) button to save all presentations as a single archive.
Transfer the archive to the organizer via USB or cloud storage if needed.

After the event: Archive the event in the dashboard to free up active storage. Archived events are retained but don't count toward your active plan limits.