Something not working? Start here.
Most of what comes into the inbox is one of six things, and all six are below with the actual fix. If yours is not here, write to {{SUPPORT_EMAIL}} — a real person reads it, usually within {{RESPONSE_DAYS}} days.
%APPDATA%\TrackClearStudio\logs on Windows and
~/Library/Application Support/TrackClearStudio/logs on macOS — attaching it saves
a round trip. It stays on your machine unless you send it.Windows says “Windows protected your PC”
This is SmartScreen, and it is expected right now. The installer is not yet code-signed, so Windows has no certificate to check it against and warns about anything it has not seen many times before. A signing certificate is on the way.
To install anyway: click More info on the blue dialog, then Run anyway.
To check you have the real file first — worth doing, since “click through the warning” is exactly what a fake installer wants you to do:
- Download only from this site or from our releases page. Nowhere else distributes TrackClear.
- Open PowerShell in your Downloads folder and run:
Get-FileHash .\TrackClear-Setup-{{VERSION}}.exe - Compare the result against the SHA-256 published beside the download on the releases page. If they match, the file is ours and untouched. If they do not, delete it and tell us.
Tag writes fail with “Access is denied” or “Bad file descriptor”
Almost always Windows Controlled Folder Access — the ransomware protection built into Windows Security. It blocks unrecognised programs from writing to Music, Documents, Pictures and Desktop, and it does it silently: the app sees a low-level error and nothing tells you a security feature caused it.
Fix: Windows Security → Virus & threat protection → Ransomware protection → Controlled folder access → Allow an app through Controlled folder access, then add TrackClear Studio.
If that is not it, check the files are not read-only, and that your music is not on a network share mounted without write permission.
Serato does not show the tags TrackClear just wrote
The tags are in the files. Serato does not read the file when it draws the library — it draws its own cached database, so anything written after Serato indexed a track stays invisible until you tell Serato to look again.
Fix: in Serato, select the affected tracks and use Analyze Files ▾ → Rescan ID3 Tags.
Rekordbox behaves the same way: it caches tags in its own collection, and you need to reload tags on the selected tracks for changes to appear.
The Grouping field is blank in Serato but fine in iTunes
Those two programs read different tags for the same field — Serato reads TIT1,
iTunes reads GRP1 — and most tag editors write only one of them. TrackClear
writes both, so a track tagged by TrackClear should appear in both.
If a track is blank in Serato, it was almost certainly tagged elsewhere. Re-write its tags from TrackClear and rescan (see above).
Tracks show as missing after I unplugged a drive
They are marked missing, not deleted. TrackClear deliberately does not remove rows just because
a drive is absent — and it does not trust drive letters either, because Windows hands out
D: to whatever was plugged in first. Every track remembers which physical volume it
came from, so plugging an unrelated stick into the same letter will not make the app think your
music is back, and will not make it prune anything.
Fix: plug the drive back in and refresh. The tracks return with their genres, clearance results and notes intact.
If files are genuinely missing — moved or deleted outside TrackClear — a rescan of the folder picks them up in their new location.
The result came back with no claim. Is the track safe?
Provisionally, and the word matters. Content ID can post a claim hours after an upload, so a silent result is the absence of a claim so far, not a guarantee. TrackClear will not colour it green for that reason; green is kept for a result that has actually been verified.
Results also vary by territory and by channel, and a clear Content ID result is not permission to use a recording — copyright is unaffected by what Content ID happens to detect. Use the results to decide what to swap out, not as a licence.
Common questions
Does TrackClear upload my music?
No. Your audio files stay on your computer. Identifying a track sends a sample of roughly ten seconds to an identification service, and clearance testing uploads short snippets of the tracks you select to your own YouTube channel as an unlisted video. Nothing else leaves. The privacy policy lists every case.
Do I need a YouTube channel?
Only for clearance testing, which is the feature that needs Content ID to look at something. Scanning, quality analysis, duplicate detection, tagging, genre lookup and crate export all work without ever connecting to Google.
Will the test videos appear on my channel?
They are uploaded unlisted, so they are not public and not on your channel page. Delete them once you have your results — the app can do it for you. Do not leave them up: they are snippets of other people’s recordings.
Does it re-encode or modify my audio?
No. TrackClear writes tags and never rewrites the audio stream, which is deliberate: a re-encode would silently drop quality and would strip the cue points and beatgrids your DJ software stores inside the file. It also backs a file up before changing anything.
How do I move my licence to a new computer?
Install and enter the same key. A licence covers three machines at once; if you have retired one, email {{SUPPORT_EMAIL}} and we will free the slot. There is no charge for this and no limit on how often you ask.
Does it work offline?
Mostly. The licence is checked once and then verified locally, so the app opens and works without an internet connection. Identifying tracks and testing clearance need to reach the internet; everything else — scanning, quality, duplicates, tagging, crates — does not.
I lost my licence key.
Email us from the address you bought with and we will re-send it.
Why is the genre wrong on some tracks?
Genres come from MusicBrainz, where they are contributed by people rather than measured. A confidence score there tells you how strongly taggers agreed, not how likely they were right, and a track can be confidently mislabelled. Collaborations are the usual culprit. You can override any genre, and your correction sticks.
Can I get a refund?
Yes — within {{REFUND_WINDOW}} of purchase, no justification needed. See the terms.
Something else is broken.
Write to {{SUPPORT_EMAIL}} with your OS, your version number, and what you were doing. Attach the log if the app produced one. Bug reports get a fix or an honest “not soon” — not silence.