That's not an actual FAQ. More a list of questions that came up once.

1. Streamtuner2 doesn't start.

   Check the list of dependencies first.

   Start it from a terminal instead to get more useful information. Alternatively enable the debug mode even:

   streamtuner2 -D
   

   That'll reveal a bit more searchable error causes. (Don't google for Gtk warnings though. They're seldomly relevant. And nobody cares.)

2. Channel lists keep empty.

   Again try to debug the startup first. If you're using an ancient distro package (2.0.8 is still distributed in some), then install a newer package from the Sourceforge project page.

   • Some directory services change their layout or listing details more frequently than others. So naturally ST2 won't be able to read them out forever. Look for updates.
   • Alternatively try the ☒ PyQuery parsing configuration setting.
   • Check that you haven't set the ☒ Filter bitrate plugin to some excessively high value. If you expect to find only 192kbit/s radio stations in all channels, you're going to be disappointed. ;}

3. Wrong channel played.

   There's a known bug in 2.0.x versions. When resorting a channel tab, the association to the actual stream data became out of order. Click F5 to reload.

   Better yet, use a newer version.

4. Category lists empty, or no stations are found.

   Use "Channel > Reload category tree" to update the genre list. If the directory service/website is down, you'll often get an empty list. Try again at a later time.

5. Player doesn't start.

   Please check the configuration dialog (F12). If any of the entries contain red markers, then the listed audio player isn't actually installed. You should get a similar notice on the console when running streamtuner2 -D

6. Stream recording doesn't work.

   This is usually a misconfiguration.

   1. No window appears.

      Usually there's a terminal window coming up for recording. If it isn't, then the configuration dialog lists something like x-terminal-emulator ... in the recording table.

      See the configuration dialog (F12). It's likely marked with a red stop sign. In which case you'll need to use a different prefix, like xterm or rxvt, depending on what your distro has installed/available.

   2. Window closes quickly again

      This indicates that streamripper failed, or couldn't even be started.

      Append something like ; read -p WAIT to the recording command to see its actual output.

   3. Streamripper error message

      If a stream cannot be played, it also cannot be recorded. Which is mostly because the radio streaming address is outdated / invalid / or just temporarily inaccessible.

      Recording may also be blocked server-side. In this case you might use the streamripper -u option to fake a different "User Agent" (a browser name). See the manual or streamripper manpage on some examples.

7. Rhythmbox doesn't start playing.

   Rhythmbox is not so much an audio player, but more of a playlist manager (just like streamtuner2 itself). It'll often only add radios in some list, but won't start with playback right away. It'll crash if it got feeded an XSPF playlist even (from Xiph perhaps).

   Try rhythmbox-client --play-uri=%pls for the configuration. Or use a different audio player.

8. RadioTray doesn't bookmark, it just plays the radio.

   You need to apply the documented patch to make that feature work. Also check the radiotray plugin options. It's perhaps just set "play". Or if it tries to "map" your radio genres, then perhaps the association is out of sync / you don't have the preconfigured categories anymore. Then set the according option to just "root" bookmarking.

9. Search function finds nothing.

   The "cache" search will only uncover stations/songs, if you have browsed the according genres and channels recently.

   The "server" search is not implemented for all channels however. Only the major ones and non-static lists can actually return something.

10. Crashes while switching tabs

    That's probably a known problem. It's just difficult to reproduce and fix still. The main issue is concurrent threads clashing with the Gtk user interface handling.

    If you can reproduce it (using the -D debug mode), then please send in a bug report. Otherwise, and if this happens more than once, just enable the "no-threading" mode in the settings dialog.

11. Channel errors about undefined conf.* variables

    When upgrading from a previous ST2 version, you might encounter some plugins failing with initialization errors. If so, run streamtuner2 once with -D flag to have new config options applied. (Not actually seen this happening, but could be...)