Render Diagnostics and Support

Render Diagnostics and Support

Most users can ignore Render Diagnostics. It is a hidden support mode for cases where a difficult problem needs reproducibility evidence, named-random detail, or environment information in exported JSON. There is no ordinary UI switch for it.

How to enable it

Append this URL query parameter to the FWG page URL before loading the page:

?render_diagnostics=a

The query parameter is the ?... part of the URL. On a hosted HTTP/HTTPS page it is part of the GET request URL; on a downloaded local HTML file, FWG reads the same query component from the local file:// URL. The hosted v3 URL form is:

https://atom-smasher.github.io/Fractured-Wavetable-Generator/?render_diagnostics=a

A downloaded build similarly uses a browser address ending in:

...html?render_diagnostics=a

When diagnostics is active, FWG shows a notice near the top of the page and adds the optional diagnostic material to later exported JSON sidecars.

What it does

🔧 When enabled, exported JSON can include FWG-render-diagnostics-v1 evidence such as detailed named-random information and render/support metadata.

Diagnostics are observational only. They do not change:

• generator or Morph DSP;
• PCM output;
• random decisions;
• patch reconstruction;
• naming or format.json.

The public contract is that diagnostics are observational: enabling them must not change the rendered sound or random decisions.

Large diagnostic JSON

⚠️ Diagnostic sidecars can be much larger than normal patch JSON. When diagnostics is enabled, FWG deliberately disables the normal JSON import byte-size guards so those support files can be re-imported.

This bypass applies only to byte-size limits. Normal schema and content validation still applies.

Good GitHub support report

Include:

• FWG version;
• browser and operating-system family;
• steps to reproduce;
• whether the problem occurs with a local file and/or hosted copy;
• the relevant ordinary or diagnostic JSON sidecar when practical;
• a WAV or screenshot only when it adds information not already captured by JSON.

Before sharing, see Sharing and Cleaning JSON Sidecars for ways to remove optional runtime/environment information.

Frame and sample terminology

Diagnostics distinguish output PCM samples, PCM sample frames, wavetable frames, visualiser frames, and FWG construction states. Where a diagnostic field keeps a historical compact key such as frame, its surrounding description defines which domain owns that value; the wiki does not treat those terms as interchangeable.