My session crashed and I lost my place

If ToyControl freezes, the browser closes, or the tab refreshes mid-session, here is what you keep and how to pick up where you left off.

If your browser tab closes, the laptop crashes, or you accidentally hit refresh in the middle of a session, here is what survives and what you have to redo.

What you keep

These persist across crashes and reloads:

Your account. If you signed in with an email, the account follows you. If you are anonymous and the cookie survives, the account does too. See Anonymous account vs email account.
Your settings. Multiplier, speed range, per-device intensity, suction bias, and the active source view are saved automatically.
Your imported scripts. Anything you imported into the Script Player library stays in your browser storage.
Your folder-linked scripts. Folder mode requires re-granting permission once per browser session, but the folder is remembered.
Sync offsets per script. Once you set First Cue or fine-tune a script, that setting is saved per script and reloads next time.
Subscription state. Pro / Free / trial minutes are server-side.

What you lose

These do not survive a tab close:

Toy pairing. Bluetooth pairings are held by the browser tab; closing the tab disconnects the toy. You will need to pair again. This takes a few seconds.
Folder permission. The browser asks for folder access once per session for security. After a reload, you re-grant.
Active session state. If you were mid-script or mid-pattern, the playback position resets. You can scrub back to where you were using the heatmap.
Remote Control room state. If you were in a room, the room closes when both participants leave. Either side can recreate one with a new 5-letter code.

How to recover quickly

After a crash or tab close:

Open ToyControl again.
Re-pair your toy (click the + in the sidebar, pick from the catalog, confirm).
Re-grant folder access if you use folder mode (Script Player > + Folder > pick the same folder > Allow).
Reload your script if needed.
Resume.

The whole recovery takes about 30 seconds.

Auto-save behavior

ToyControl saves settings about every half-second when something changes, and flushes on tab close (using sendBeacon). This means even an abrupt browser crash usually loses less than a second of state.

If you find a setting that did not save:

Check if you were signed in.
Check if the change was made just before the crash; a half-second window can sometimes be lost.

What about a long script session

A 90-minute SLR scene playing in ToyControl is a long session. If the tab crashes 60 minutes in:

You can resume by reloading and scrubbing back to where you were on the heatmap.
Your sync offset is saved, so the script still aligns with the video.
You will lose the in-progress playback position but not the alignment work.

For very long sessions, a small risk reduction: keep the laptop plugged in to power, avoid pinning hundreds of other tabs in the same browser, and prefer Chrome (the most stable Web Bluetooth implementation).

Remote Control rooms specifically

If you and a partner are in a room and one side's browser closes:

The other side sees the participant leave.
Control vacates if the controller is the one who left.
The room itself stays open if the host is still in it.
The departed side can rejoin with the same 5-letter code if it has not expired.

For more reliable remote sessions, consider keeping the ToyControl tab focused and not minimised.

Reporting crashes

If ToyControl itself crashes (not the browser), use the Report bug link in the sidebar. Include:

What you were doing when it crashed.
Browser and OS.
Time and rough duration of the session.

We can usually trace the cause from the server logs.