What you're seeing
Changes you make in one tab or device aren't appearing live in another. Specifically:
- A quick-list edit in one tab doesn't show up in another.
- A running timer you started on your laptop doesn't appear on your phone.
- A pomodoro step change isn't reflected on a second device.
Refreshing the page shows the up-to-date state, but new changes don't keep flowing afterward.
Why it happens
A few common reasons live updates stop:
- The live connection dropped. A proxy, VPN, or corporate firewall closed it.
- Your session expired. When you've been signed out, the connection can't re-establish itself.
- A backgrounded tab went to sleep. Your browser suspended the tab after it was inactive long enough.
- A network gap lasted too long. A few seconds offline is fine; minutes can require a manual nudge.
- The page isn't a live one (not a bug). Not every page updates live. Quick list, time tracker, pomodoro, and time-entry export status update in real time; most other lists refresh when you return to the tab rather than pushing changes live. Watching a clients list and expecting live updates won't work because that page isn't one of the live ones.
See Realtime updates for the full list of which pages update live.
How to fix it
- Refresh the page. This re-establishes the live connection. The large majority of disconnects clear up here.
- Sign back in. If refreshing just sends you to the sign-in screen, your session lapsed — sign in and the connection will reconnect.
- Check the network. Corporate proxies, ad blockers, and aggressive VPNs sometimes interfere with live connections specifically. Try a different network or disable suspect extensions.
- Confirm the page updates live. It may not be one of the live pages — see Realtime updates for the list.
If two open tabs on the same network both fail to reconnect, live updates may be temporarily unavailable — wait a few minutes and try again.
Tips and edge cases
- Kanban drag-and-drop doesn't travel between tabs. Reordering tasks on the kanban board shows instantly on the tab you're using, but other tabs only catch up when they next refresh.
- Backgrounded tabs reliably lose the connection. Browsers throttle suspended tabs; when you switch back, give it a second to reconnect.
- Toggling the Quick list panel still works while disconnected. The Quick list panel opens and closes regardless of the connection — but edits you make while disconnected reach Ceum once the connection recovers.
On mobile
On mobile, cached data stays readable offline, but only transactions and time entries can be changed offline — those queue locally and sync automatically once the connection recovers. Other changes need a live connection. See Offline support.