Most problems are one of three things. The Mac app is not running. The two devices are on different networks. Or macOS has not been given permission yet — SOME Desk Host needs Screen Recording to show your Mac, and Accessibility to let your keyboard and trackpad drive it.
Below, find the exact words the app showed you.
This is the one permission SOME Desk Host cannot work without. Open System Settings → Privacy & Security → Screen & System Audio Recording and turn SOME Desk Host on. macOS requires the app to be relaunched afterwards — quit it from the menu bar and open it again, or the switch will look on and nothing will change.
That is Accessibility, which is a separate permission from Screen Recording. System Settings → Privacy & Security → Accessibility, and turn SOME Desk Host on. Without it the Mac receives nothing you type.
Pairing is deliberately not always-on. On the Mac, click the SOME Desk Host icon in the menu bar and choose Allow a New iPad to Pair…, then connect from the iPad again. The window stays open for a few minutes and then closes itself.
The iPad is waiting for you, and it will wait as long as you need — there is no timer on this screen. Go to the Mac: a window is asking whether to pair this iPad, and it shows six digits. Check they are the same six digits the iPad is showing, then click Pair. If the digits differ, click Don’t Pair: something other than your Mac answered.
Someone clicked Don’t Pair on the Mac, or the pairing window closed before you got there. Start again from the Mac’s menu bar.
One iPad at a time. Disconnect the other one — or, if it is not yours, that is worth knowing.
Deliberate. Repeated pairing attempts are rate-limited so that six digits cannot be guessed by trying. Wait a minute.
Read this one before you tap anything. Every Mac has a fingerprint, your iPad remembered it, and what answered this time offered a different one. If you reinstalled SOME Desk Host on that Mac, or replaced the Mac, that is expected — compare the two fingerprints the app is showing you and pair again. If you did not, do not pair again. Something else is answering as your Mac, and pairing again would trust it. Disconnect from that network and email us.
The Mac can take audio from your iPad, but nothing on the Mac is listening to it yet. On the Mac, open the dictation app you use and set its input device to SOME Desk Mic — in Wispr Flow, in Superwhisper, or in System Settings → Sound → Input if you want everything on the Mac to use it. SOME Desk installs a microphone; it does not change what your apps listen to, on purpose.
Dictation is not in this version yet. When it is not available the button is hidden rather than greyed out, so its absence is the answer. See the roadmap.
iPadOS microphone permission was refused. Settings → SOME Desk → Microphone.
The Mac is hearing you and the dictation app is not listening, which is the case above — check its input device. The meter is driven by the audio actually leaving the iPad, so if it moves, the microphone half is working.
Dictate opens the iPad’s microphone. It does not press Wispr Flow’s shortcut key, because you may have remapped it, or may be dictating into something else entirely. If you want that key pressed too, turn it on in SOME Desk Host’s settings on the Mac and choose the key yourself.
A safety net, not a fault. A locked-open microphone closes itself after ten minutes so it cannot be left open for an afternoon. Hold or double-tap to open it again.
Expected. Installing the microphone restarts Core Audio.
The display SOME Desk created on your Mac stopped existing — usually because the Mac slept, or because SOME Desk Host was quit or updated. Reconnect.
Not a fault. Your iPad could not reach your Mac directly and the connection took a longer path, which usually means it is slower. The dot on the grip stays while that is true.
The Mac was there and now is not: asleep, off the network, or the app quit. Macs also sleep while you are reading this — check Energy settings if it keeps happening at the same interval.
Deliberate. SOME Desk does not show a “your connection is poor” warning, because on a remote-desktop app that warning fires constantly, is never actionable, and teaches you to ignore every other message. If you want the numbers, turn on the statistics overlay in Settings and watch them yourself.
A bug, and we want it. Both offer a button that collects a diagnostic — see below.
The two halves of SOME Desk are updated separately — the Mac app updates itself, the iPad app updates through the App Store — so one can run ahead of the other. Update both and they will meet. Start with the Mac app, which is the one that is usually behind: open SOME Desk Host from the menu bar and choose Check for Updates…. Then check the App Store on the iPad. The changelog says what each version changed.
The Mac app is too old to do something this iPad expects, and the missing piece is named in the message. Update the Mac app: menu bar → Check for Updates…. This banner does not go away by itself, because there is nothing useful to do underneath it until the versions match.
The reverse: the Mac is offering a video format this iPad has no hardware decoder for. Update the iPad app first — a newer client usually knows more formats. If it persists after both are current, this is ours and not yours: send us the message with the format name in it, and which iPad you have. That name is the whole bug report.
The encrypted connection could not be set up. Try again first — this is usually a connection that dropped mid-handshake rather than anything wrong with either device. If it repeats every time with the same Mac, update both apps, and if it still repeats, send us the message with the part after the colon intact. This is not the same as “This Mac’s identity has changed” — that one means something answered as your Mac and is a security decision (see above). This one means the conversation failed before it got that far.
On the Mac: click the SOME Desk Host icon in the menu bar and choose Collect Diagnostics…. It gathers recent crash reports and a log, shows you the file in Finder, and sends nothing on its own. Attach it to an email if you want us to see it.
On the iPad: nothing to collect and nothing to send. The iPad app reports crashes to Apple the way every app does, and we see those without asking you.
What we will never ask you for: your Mac’s password, a pairing code, or a fingerprint. If a message claiming to be from us asks for any of those, it is not from us.
Email support@somedesk.com and a person will read it. Tell us the exact words the app showed you — that sentence is usually the whole answer.