I followed the guide, but my custom song isn't playing in-game!

Don't worry, you're not alone! This guide will take you through each potential cause to your issue.

Step One: Quick Tests

1. Restart Everest
Press Ctrl-f5 to run a quick reload of Everest. Everest can only add new FMOD banks during a launch or reload.

2. Restart Chapter
Even after updating your map metadata to use your song, the game only checks this to update the song after a chapter start/reload.

3. Make sure your in-game music isn't muted
This one seems obvious, but even audio modding veterans can make this mistake!

Step Two: The Everest Soundtest

If none of the above solutions work, then Everest's built-in soundtest is the best place to troubleshoot where in the process the issue is.
To open soundtest, either go to Mod Options -> Soundtest or enter soundtest in the Everest console, which you can open by pressing " ` " (the key to the left of "1").

Once inside the soundtest, you will see a list of numbers like this.

The grey digits scroll through each bank Everest has loaded, and the white digits scroll through all of the events within that bank.

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To troubleshoot your custom song, try to find your song's event in the soundtest. Begin by scrolling the second grey digit until you find your bank, then scroll the final white digit until you find your event, if necessary.

There are three outcomes here:

1. Your bank is not present
This means that Everest could not find your bank during launch. Go to step 3A for more details.

2. The custom song is present, but it lists the guid instead of the event name
This means that Everest succesfully loaded the bank, but not the guids. Go to step 3B for more details.

3. The custom song is fully present
This means the issue is in your map, and not with FMOD. Go to step 3C for more details.

Step Three: Solutions

3A - Everest cannot find the bank

To ensure that Everest can find your bank, make sure that your bank is in your mod's Audio folder.
If your bank is in the correct location and Everest cannot find it, even after a reload, you may need to re-create your bank. This can be done by:

• Deleting your bank from the banks tab in FMOD

• Creating a new bank (do not copy an existing bank! This is usually what causes this particular issue)
• Re-assigning your event(s) to the newly created bank

3B - Everest cannot find the guids

To ensure that Everest can find and use the guids, make sure that:

• The guids is exported and placed in your mod's Audio folder, alongside the bank
• The guids has the same filename as the bank (e.g. for a bank named MyBank.bank, the guids should be named MyBank.guids.txt
• The .txt extension is not part of the guids' filename. Depending on your system's settings, the filetype extension for a .txt file may or may not be shown in your file browser. Ensure that .guids is the very end of the filename, and that the .txt part is only a reflection of the filetype

3C - Getting the map to find the song

The music for a map is determined by the song chosen in Map Metadata. Unlike the dropdown provided by Lönn, the song's name will not locate the correct event. Instead, the full "event path" is required.
The most straightforward way to get this is to copy it from your guids. Open your guids, and locate your event. Then, copy the entire path beginning with "event:/", then paste into the song field of map metadata.

If that still doesn't work, ensure that the map metadata is not being overridden by room metadata. If the room's Song field is not empty, then it will take precedence over the map metadata's Song field.

Part Four: It still doesn't work

If none of the above solutions work, then feel free to ask for help in #audio_production in the Celeste Discord.