The computer doesn't appear
The Mac or PC never shows up under "Devices on this network" in the PreviewMonitor app. Work through these checks in order.
The connect screen shows nothing under Devices on this network, or shows a different machine but not yours.
Discovery is Bonjour/mDNS on UDP port 5353, and the app only lists a computer once the plugin is advertising itself on the same Wi-Fi network. Every check below is a reason that advertisement never reaches the phone.
Start with a pull-to-refresh on the connect screen — it forces a fresh mDNS query and takes about a second. If that does not bring the computer back, work down the list.
The list is empty and only the Connect a Device and How to connect rows remain — this is the state every check below is trying to fix.
1. Both devices are on the same Wi-Fi
The iPhone's control connection is pinned to Wi-Fi and refuses expensive paths, so cellular data will never carry a stream even when the computer is reachable in principle. Check that the phone is on Wi-Fi, not 5G, and that both devices are on the same SSID — not the 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz halves of two separate networks, and not one on a mesh extender that isolates its clients.
PreviewMonitor is LAN-only by design. There is no internet path, no VPN support and no IPv6 tunnel. See Network reference.
2. The Local Network permission is granted
iOS blocks Bonjour browsing until the app has been granted Local Network access, and PreviewMonitor deliberately does not ask at launch — the prompt fires when you tap Enable network discovery in the setup walkthrough.
If the permission was denied, the app detects it and replaces the spinner with Allow Local Network access and an Open Settings button. Tap it, turn the permission on, and come back — the search resumes on its own.
If you never saw the prompt, open How to connect on the connect screen and walk to the discovery step, then tap Enable network discovery.
A denied Local Network permission cannot be re-armed from inside the app. If Settings shows no PreviewMonitor entry at all, the only way to get the prompt back is to delete and reinstall the app — see Reset and reinstall.
3. Premiere Pro is running with a sequence open
The plugin only starts advertising when Premiere Pro creates a Transmit instance, and it only does that once a sequence is open. A running Premiere Pro with the Home screen showing and no project loaded advertises nothing.
Open any project and any sequence. In After Effects, open a composition.
4. The plugin is enabled in Preferences
Open Preferences → Playback in Premiere Pro (recent builds label the menu Settings; the panel is the same), find PreviewMonitor under Video Device, and tick Video Stream. Tick Audio Stream too if you want sound.
Video Stream and Audio Stream must be ticked, and Disable video output when in the background must stay unchecked.
If PreviewMonitor is not in the list at all, the plugin did not load. Quit and reopen Premiere Pro — plugins are scanned only at launch. If it is still missing after a relaunch, the install did not land; see Install on Windows or Install on macOS.
In After Effects the path is Preferences → Video Preview, and you enable Mercury Transmit first, then tick PreviewMonitor as the device.
5. "Discoverable on network" is switched off
The Setup window has a Discoverable on network switch. It defaults to on. With it off, the plugin skips the mDNS advertisement entirely — the computer still accepts connections, it just stops announcing itself.
Open the Setup window from the gear next to PreviewMonitor in Preferences → Playback, and check the DEVICE card.
Discoverable on network sits directly under the Name row in the DEVICE card, above Use NVIDIA / Intel HW HEVC encoder.
On Windows the switch does not take effect until the transport restarts. The Windows handler saves the new value but does not apply it to the running listener, so turning it back on does nothing visible until you quit and reopen Premiere Pro. macOS applies it immediately. If you have just turned it on and the computer still does not appear, relaunch Premiere Pro before assuming something else is wrong.
6. The network isolates its clients
Guest Wi-Fi, hotel and café networks, and most "client isolation" or "AP isolation" router settings block device-to-device traffic — including the multicast that mDNS depends on. The computer and the phone can both reach the internet and still be unable to see each other.
Corporate networks frequently drop multicast on purpose. Switch both devices to a normal home network or a phone hotspot that the computer joins, or use the manual IP route in step 8.
7. The firewall is blocking the ports
The Windows installer pre-authorizes the plugin's ports on both the Private
and Public profiles by creating a firewall rule named PreviewMonitor:
| Protocol | Ports |
|---|---|
| TCP | 47100, 47110, 47120, 47130 |
| UDP | 47101–47102 |
| UDP | 5353 |
If discovery is failing and you did not install with the official installer — or the rule was removed by a security tool — recreate it, or reinstall. It connects but nothing happens covers the firewall in detail, including how to recover from a Block rule.
8. Connect without discovery
Two routes bypass the device list.
Connect by IP. On the connect screen, tap Connect a Device, then Connect via IP address instead. Enter the computer's IPv4 address, pick which Adobe app you are connecting to, and tap Connect. This never touches mDNS, so it works on a network that blocks multicast and it works with Discoverable on network switched off.
Find the address in the Setup window under Advanced info → NETWORK → IP.
The Ports row next to it reads 47100 control · 47101 video · 47102 audio.
Scan the QR code. Tap Connect a Device and scan the code in the Setup window.
The field accepts a plain IPv4 address; the Connecting to picker below it decides which control port the app dials.
The QR code is not a discovery bypass on a first pair. The code carries the computer's identity and name but no IP address, so the app still has to resolve that identity over mDNS unless it has connected to that machine before. On a network where discovery is broken, use the IP route.
There is no six-digit code you can type to find a computer. The six-digit code is a pairing code that the computer shows after a connection is already in progress — see The pairing code isn't showing. Some in-app help text still describes an older model where a fixed code was used for discovery; that model was removed.
Still nothing
If the computer is listed but tapping it does nothing useful, or the picture never arrives, continue at It connects but nothing happens.
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The phone asks for a six-digit code but no code window is visible on the Mac or PC. Here is where it appears and why it can be hidden.