Troubleshooting

The common snags, and how to clear them.

The Apple TV can't find the Mac

Both devices must be on the same network (and the same Wi-Fi band/VLAN).
Aardy must be running — look for its icon in the menu bar. The Mac appears on the Apple TV under the Mac's own name.
The server needs UDP 5353 (Bonjour/mDNS) and TCP 8737 allowed through the firewall. (On Windows — coming with the public release — allow the app on private networks.)
As a fallback that always works: on the Can't find your Mac automatically screen (or the app's Settings → Mac), enter the Mac's address with port 8737 and choose Connect. The address is shown in the web admin under Settings → How TVs reach this Mac.
While the Mac is unreachable, the TV keeps playing the photos it has cached.

The screensaver doesn't start on its own

The TV must be paired from the Aardy menu-bar icon (Pair a new Apple TV…) — installing the app on the TV isn't enough.
Aardy starts the screensaver after the TV has been idle (10 minutes by default), and never while an app on that TV's Never interrupt these apps list is open (see Apple TVs → Configure).

Photos on my NAS don't appear

The share must be mounted on the server computer (see Add photo sources). If a source folder shows an Unreachable badge on Source Folders, the server couldn't see it at its last scan and imports from it are paused — photos already imported keep playing. Mount the drive and it resumes on the next scan.

If Aardy is shared with all users on the Mac, network drives and folder permissions belong to whoever is logged in, and only one user's session serves the TVs at a time. A folder that only another user can see is Unreachable until that user's session is the one serving — mount the share for every user, or keep photos in a location all users can read.

Weather isn't loading

Check that the server has internet access and that at least one city is added under Settings → Weather in the web admin. MET Norway may briefly rate-limit — it recovers on the next refresh.

Where are the logs?

The server writes aardvark-ss.log inside the library folder:

macOS: ~/Pictures/Aardvark ScreenSaver/ by default, or wherever you moved it in Settings → Photo storage.
macOS, shared with all users: /Users/Shared/Aardvark ScreenSaver/