Tesla light show not working
Most custom shows that fail have one of a handful of problems with the drive or the files. Run the light show checker first — it catches the majority of these in seconds.
Custom show doesn’t show up
The popup says “Light Show”, not “Custom Light Show”
The car didn’t find a valid custom show, so it offers the built-in one. Work through the drive checks below — folder name, file names, drive format and a stray TeslaCam folder cause almost every case.
The folder is there but the car ignores it
It must be named exactly LightShow, with a capital L and S, at the very top of the drive — not inside another folder.
The files are there but no show appears
The .fseq and the music must share one name: lightshow.fseq with lightshow.wav (or .mp3). Windows sometimes hides extensions, so a file can really be lightshow.wav.wav — turn on “File name extensions” in Explorer to check.
It works on one drive but not another
The drive must be exFAT or FAT32 (MS-DOS FAT on Mac), or ext3/ext4. NTFS isn’t supported. A drive that also holds dashcam footage — a top-level TeslaCam folder — or map/firmware update files won’t load a custom show.
Only one of my shows appears
Multiple shows on one drive need software 2023.44.25 or newer. Each show needs its own name pair.
Show starts but misbehaves
The car shows an error about the sequence file
The files were found but the .fseq has a problem. The usual cause is a compressed export: set xLights to “V2 Uncompressed” (File → Preferences → Sequences) and render again. A file that wasn’t built from Tesla’s xLights project can also have the wrong channel count.
Lights drift out of sync with the music
Re-export the music at 44.1 kHz. Tesla notes that 48 kHz audio doesn’t sync properly. Also make sure the .fseq was rendered from this exact audio file.
A window, mirror or the liftgate stops moving
Each closure has a movement limit per show, and dancing too long triggers thermal protection. Model X windows moving while the doors move can also trigger pinch protection and stop the show.
A light never turns on
Not every car has every light — for example rear fog lights are mostly on non-North-American cars, and some trims have no front fogs. Shared outputs can also stay on if the show never leaves a common gap.
My car won’t offer Light Show at all
Custom shows need software 2021.44.25 or newer. Tesla lists Model 3, Model Y, Model S and X from 2021, and Cybertruck as supported.
Still stuck?
Try one of Tesla’s own example shows from its GitHub repository on the same drive. If that plays, the problem is your show file; if it doesn’t, it’s the drive or the car. Making your own? See how to make a show in xLights.