Chord Lens
Support
Something not working?
Chord Lens is a small independent project, so support goes straight to the person who wrote it. Most issues are covered below; if yours is not, mail me and I will read it.
Start here
Four things fix nearly everything:
- Reload the YouTube tab. If you installed or updated Chord Lens while a video was already open, the extension has not been injected into that page yet.
- Check you are on a video page. Chord Lens runs on
youtube.com/watchpages. It does not run on the home page, Shorts or embedded players. - Give a first analysis a moment. The first time a video is analysed it takes a little while. Every replay after that is instant.
- Check the extension is enabled at
chrome://extensions, and that it has not been switched off for youtube.com.
Common problems
Open a question to see the answer.
The Chords button does not appear
Reload the page. If it still does not appear, confirm you are on a youtube.com/watch URL and that Chord Lens is enabled at chrome://extensions. Some other extensions rewrite the YouTube player controls and can displace the button; disabling them one at a time will find the culprit.
Analysis fails or times out
A small number of videos cannot be analysed: age-restricted videos, region-blocked videos, and videos where the audio cannot be retrieved. Very long videos take proportionally longer. If a specific video fails repeatedly, send me the link and I will look at that video directly.
The chords look wrong
Chord detection is a model listening to a real recording, and dense mixes, heavy distortion and quiet or ambiguous harmony all make it harder. Two things often help: turn Simplify on, which collapses extensions down to the underlying triad, and check the detected key at the top of the overlay — if the key looks wrong, the chords derived from it usually are too. Send me the link and the section that is off and it helps improve the model.
The chart drifts out of time with the video
The chart is locked to the video's own timeline and should stay in time at any playback speed. If it drifts, reload the page — a seek during the initial load can occasionally leave the overlay out of step.
The capo setting is not what I left it on
Capo, Simplify and the diagram toggle are stored locally by the extension. Clearing your browser data or using a different Chrome profile resets them.
The sheet window will not open
The sheet opens in a new browser window, so a pop-up blocker can stop it. Allow pop-ups for youtube.com and click Sheet again.
Can I request a feature?
Yes, and please do. Feature requests from people who actually play get built first.
Reporting a bug
Include these and I can usually reproduce it on the first try:
- The YouTube link, and the timestamp if the problem is in one section.
- What you expected and what happened instead.
- Your Chrome version and operating system.
- A screenshot, if it is something visible.
You do not need to send logs, and please do not send anything personal — a link and a sentence is genuinely enough.
Privacy questions
The privacy policy covers what Chord Lens does and does not collect. The short answer is: a YouTube video ID, and nothing else. Anything it leaves unanswered, mail me.