Support
Nearly everything that goes wrong is one of a handful of things, and they are all below. For questions about what RowBeat does, visit the FAQ. If your question is still unanswered, write to me. RowBeat is made by one person and the mail is read.
Contact
Get in touch
Every message reaches a person, usually within a couple of days. Three things make a reply much faster: what you were doing when it went wrong, the exact wording of anything on screen, and your iPhone and iOS version. If it involves an ERG, say which monitor.
Questions about the privacy page and feature requests are both welcome.
Apple Music
Access and subscriptions
“RowBeat doesn’t have Apple Music access”
This is a permission on your phone rather than a login, so there is nothing to sign into. If you turned it down the first time, turn it back on in Settings › RowBeat › Media & Apple Music. The button on RowBeat’s home screen takes you straight there.
On a managed or Screen Time restricted device the switch may not be available at all. That is a restriction set elsewhere on the phone, and RowBeat cannot override it.
“Requires an Apple Music subscription”
RowBeat plays full tracks through Apple Music, which needs a current subscription. The 30-second previews on the playlist screen cannot stand in for a workout, and RowBeat does not sell a subscription of its own.
If you do subscribe and still see this, tap I already subscribe, check again under the button. A check that failed to go through looks much the same to the app as not subscribing, so it asks rather than assumes.
“We couldn’t confirm your Apple Music connection”
The check failed to go through; nothing is wrong with your account. Make sure the phone really has a connection, because gym and hotel Wi-Fi that wants you to sign in first looks connected and answers nothing. Then tap Check Connection.
Building a playlist
When the build comes up short
A playlist shorter than I asked for (“Only filled … of … min”)
A track only makes the list if it matches a genre and era you chose and its beat lands on your stroke-rate range. Narrow settings can leave too little to fill the time.
The fix is to add genres or widen the SPM range. Two notes:
- Add genres rather than swapping them. Trading one genre for another can leave a smaller pool than you started with.
- A wider stroke-rate range helps more than it looks like it should, because it opens up several tempo multiples at once.
If the message also mentions a temporary problem looking up song tempos, your settings are not the cause. See the next answer.
“There's a temporary problem looking up song tempos”
Tempos come from other services, and now and then they cannot be reached. RowBeat never fills the gap with music that is not matched to your stroke rate. You get the matched songs it could find as a shorter playlist, or no playlist if none matched.
It usually comes back on its own. Try building again in a few minutes.
I keep getting the same songs
You should not: anything you rowed to in the last month is left out of the next playlist. If a song still comes back, it is usually a different recording of it. A single, an album version and a remaster count as three separate tracks.
If you row often with the same genres and stroke rate, a longer gap helps: choose up to three months under Recently played on the Settings screen. When the songs that fit your settings run out, the ones you heard longest ago come back first. Adding genres or widening the stroke-rate range gives RowBeat more to choose from.
The opposite is also yours to choose: Clear history under Recently played on the Settings screen forgets the history, so everything is eligible again.
Explicit tracks are still appearing
Turn on Exclude explicit tracks under Refine on the build screen. It stays on until you turn it off. RowBeat filters on the rating Apple publishes for each recording, so anything Apple has not flagged will get through.
During a row
Playback
The music stopped and the timer is frozen
A stream that runs dry mid-track gives no warning; it simply stops. RowBeat watches for that and offers a way out. Skip to the next track, or pause and start again.
If your phone dropped off the network you will see a card saying so, and the play and skip buttons go away until the connection is back. They return by themselves.
Nothing plays after the count-in
The track is asked for the moment the count reaches zero, so on a slow connection, or over AirPlay and some Bluetooth speakers, it can take a few seconds more to be audible. If it never starts, the screen offers a way to move on.
Concept2 RowERG
Getting your PM5 found
Nearly every failed search is the monitor’s side rather than the phone’s. In order:
1. Press any button
to wake the monitor. A PM5 sleeps a couple of minutes after the flywheel stops. Press a button rather than taking a stroke, because a stroke starts the PM5 counting and your workout would begin part-rowed.
2. Press Connect
on the main menu. On older monitors: Menu › More Options › Turn Wireless ON.
3. Disconnect it elsewhere
The PM5 pairs with one app or device at a time. Close anything else connected to it, or disconnect from the monitor’s own menu. That could be another phone, a watch, or an app you had forgotten about.
Stay within a few meters of the monitor, and check it is a PM5. A PM3 or PM4 has no Bluetooth and will never appear.
“Nothing answered in 30 seconds”
A scan runs for a fixed window and then stops itself, so the radio is never left running behind your back. If nothing answered, the monitor is most likely asleep, off its Connect screen, or already paired with something else. Work through the three steps above and search again.
Bluetooth errors
- “RowBeat doesn’t have Bluetooth access”: enable it in Settings › RowBeat › Bluetooth.
- “Bluetooth is turned off”: turn it on in Control Center or Settings, and the search starts by itself.
- “The RowERG disconnected”: the monitor went to sleep or moved out of range. Wake it and connect again.
Your data
Removing what RowBeat keeps
Everything RowBeat stores sits on your iPhone: your settings, your play history, the songs you swapped away while rowing, and the ERG it remembers. Deleting the app deletes all of it. There is no account to close. The history can also be cleared on its own, from Clear history on the Settings screen, and the refused songs from Clear list beside it, without touching anything else.
The privacy page sets out exactly what is kept, what leaves the phone, how long each thing is held, and how to withdraw permission.