Some random things to try.... 1. Make sure the tension is right, I use Wikla's immortal string calculator (now runs in my telephone). 2. Get a good tuner. 3. In the dark night of lute tuning discombobulation, tune a unison to the string a fourth below, then slowly crank it up a fourth. Sometimes after jetlag I have been know to be off by an octave. Don't laugh. Find the nearest neighbor tone. 4. Make sure nothing is chomping at the the nut, causing the tension in the pegbox to be way higher.
If the gut starts to slowly twist before your eyes, you've gone to high. It's the great unraveling. If the gut repeatedly snaps with no warning, like a youthful slingshot adventurer, check for snags and rough edges. Of course, sometimes new gut just breaks. It's like watching money being eaten by a toad, mistaking it for a bug. dt To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
