My $300 drawing tablet died during a livestream at 2pm yesterday

I was in the middle of a 3 hour portrait demo on Twitch and my Huion tablet just went black. No warning, no error. Just dead. The USB cord felt warm so I'm guessing the port shorted out on the board. I spent the next 45 minutes trying to swap to my old Wacom but the drivers fought me the whole time. Has anyone else had a tablet fail mid project like that?

3 comments

3 Comments

anthony_wells20h agoMost Upvoted

Harper's point about bent pins is probably where the real problem was, USB ports are way more delicate than people realize and one little piece of dust can ruin everything. That whole backup tablet idea sounds smart but honestly I'd worry about the driver conflicts, nothing worse than having two tablets fighting for the same USB bus while you're already panicking. I'd say keep a cheap display tablet on standby but test the swap workflow ahead of time so you're not fumbling with driver installs during a live audience.

harper_owens1d ago

Man, that is brutal. My old tablet once died right as I was about to save a 6 hour timelapse piece, just went poof and took all the work with it. Another time my cord got so hot it actually melted a little on the rubber, which was a fun surprise to find. Take this with a grain of salt, but I'd check if your USB port has any bent pins or dust stuck in there, sometimes that causes the short. Your mileage may vary, but I started keeping a cheap backup tablet plugged in and ready to go at all times now, just in case. Hope the audience was patient with you while you scrambled to get the old Wacom working again.

theaw6523h ago

Oh man, that melted cord thing gave me chills. Did you get a weird burning smell right before it happened? I had a charger start smoking once and now I unplug everything the second I'm done using it. The backup tablet idea is actually smart, I might have to steal that. Were you able to run to a Best Buy or something that day or did you have to wait for shipping?