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Troubleshooting

This page covers the most common problems encountered when installing, configuring, and operating MultiTuner. Issues are grouped by symptom.

Device Does Not Power On

LED does not light up at all

  • Check that the C14 power cord is firmly seated at both ends
  • Verify the outlet is live by testing with another device
  • Check that any rack PDU switch or circuit breaker serving the outlet is on

LED flashes but never turns green

  • A single flash at startup is normal — the device is booting
  • If flashing continues beyond 2 minutes, the boot process has stalled
  • Power-cycle the device: hold the front-panel button to power off, wait 10 seconds, then power on again
  • If the problem persists after two attempts, contact support

LED turns red and stays red

  • Indicates a hardware fault or failed boot
  • Power-cycle once and observe whether the LED eventually turns green
  • If it stays red, the device requires service — contact Stream Labs support

Web Interface Unreachable

Browser shows "connection refused" or times out

  1. Confirm the device LED is green — the web server starts only after a successful boot
  2. Verify the computer is on the same network segment as MultiTuner (default: 192.168.112.0/24)
  3. Try pinging the device: ping 192.168.112.1
  4. If ping succeeds but the browser fails, check that port 80 is not blocked by a local firewall
  5. If ping fails, the problem is at the network level — see below
  6. If you are connecting through a switch, verify the cable and switch port are active

Ping fails — network connectivity problem

  • For direct connection (no switch): confirm the server's NIC has a static IP in the 192.168.112.0/24 range — see Network Connection
  • Check that you are connecting to the correct IP. If the device IP was changed from the default, the old address will not respond
  • If the IP address is unknown, perform a factory reset to restore the default

Web interface loads but immediately redirects to login, then fails

  • Clear browser cookies and cache — stale session cookies from a previous session can cause a redirect loop
  • Try a different browser or incognito/private mode

Login Fails

Correct password but login is rejected

  • Passwords are case-sensitive — verify caps lock is off
  • If the password was recently changed via API, tokens issued before the change remain valid but the password itself is updated immediately
  • If the password is genuinely unknown, a factory reset restores the default admin / admin credentials

"Unauthorized" error in API requests

  • Tokens expire — obtain a fresh token via POST /api/login
  • Ensure the Authorization: Bearer <token> header is included and correctly formatted
  • Check that the role used (admin or user) has permission for the endpoint being called — see API: Authentication

No Signal on a Channel

Channel shows no RSSI, or RSSI is at zero

  1. Check the antenna cable connection at the rear panel
  2. Verify the antenna is positioned correctly and has line-of-sight to the transmitter where possible
  3. Confirm the channel is enabled — click Enable on the channel tile if it appears inactive
  4. Check that the tuned frequency is correct — rescan if necessary

RSSI is present but SNR is very low

  • The signal is being received but is heavily degraded
  • Likely causes: weak transmitter, long antenna cable run without amplification, nearby interference source, or multipath from reflective surfaces near the antenna
  • Check the Multipath reading — if it is high (>30%), antenna repositioning may help

Channel shows signal but audio is silent or distorted

  • Verify the de-emphasis setting matches your region: 50 µs (Europe/Asia) or 75 µs (Americas). A mismatch causes incorrect levels and may trigger silence alarms
  • Check that the channel is not muted — the muted state is visible on the channel tile and controllable via POST /api/tuner/{id}/muted
  • Confirm the station is actively broadcasting — some stations reduce power or go off-air outside peak hours

Streaming Problems

Stream is configured but no data arrives at the destination

  1. Confirm streaming is enabled — the cloud icon on the channel tile should be highlighted, and stream_enabled: true in the API response
  2. For multicast: verify the network switch has IGMPv2 enabled and that the multicast group address is in the valid range (224.0.0.0–239.255.255.255). Without IGMP snooping, the switch may drop multicast frames
  3. For unicast: check that no firewall between MultiTuner and the destination is blocking the configured UDP port
  4. Verify the destination address and port in the stream configuration — a typo is the most common cause
  5. Use a packet capture at the destination to confirm whether packets are arriving: 
    tcpdump -i eth0 udp port 1234

Stream arrives but audio is choppy or drops out

  • Check the MultiTuner network link for errors — a degraded cable or port can cause packet loss that is audible in UDP streams
  • Verify the switch port is running at 100 Mbps full-duplex
  • If the stream crosses multiple network hops, check for QoS policies that may be deprioritizing UDP traffic

HLS stream does not play

  • Ensure the device is reachable at its IP address from the player
  • The HLS endpoint does not require authentication — open http://{device_ip}/api/tuner/0/live.m3u8 directly in VLC to rule out player configuration issues
  • Check that the channel is enabled and has an active signal — HLS cannot stream a channel with no input

Alert Thresholds Triggering Incorrectly

Alerts fire immediately on startup

  • The tuner needs a few seconds to fully lock onto the frequency before measurements stabilize. Brief threshold breaches at startup are expected
  • If alerts persist beyond 30 seconds, the signal conditions genuinely breach the threshold — review the threshold values against actual baseline measurements

Alerts never fire despite signal degradation

  • Check that thresholds are not set to the disable value: 0 disables RSSI and SNR alerts; 100 disables multipath alerts
  • Confirm the margin field in the threshold object is not so large that the alarm condition never triggers

Too many spurious alerts on a weak station

  • Increase the margin value in the threshold configuration — this adds hysteresis so the alarm only fires once the signal has been outside the threshold for longer, filtering out brief fluctuations
  • The rssi_interval parameter sets how many consecutive seconds the RSSI must be below threshold before an alarm fires — increasing it suppresses transient drops

RDS Data Not Showing

Channel has signal but no RDS data

  • Not all FM stations transmit RDS — this is normal for some stations, particularly in regions where RDS adoption is lower
  • If the station is known to transmit RDS, verify SNR is sufficient (RDS decoding typically requires SNR > 15 dB)
  • Check the rds field in the API response — rds: false in quality means the decoder has not locked onto an RDS signal

RDS data appears garbled or shows wrong characters

  • Extended Latin characters and special symbols occasionally cause display issues in some browsers — this is a rendering concern, not a decoding error
  • The API rds.radiotext field returns the raw decoded string — compare it against what the browser displays to identify whether the issue is in decoding or rendering

Configuration Changes Not Taking Effect

Network or hostname changes not applied

  • Network and hostname changes require a reboot to take effect
  • Check status.reboot_needed in GET /api/status — if true, the device is holding pending changes that need a reboot
  • Reboot via the web interface system settings or POST /api/system/reboot

Settings reset after power cycle

  • MultiTuner stores all configuration in NVRAM — settings should survive power cycles
  • If settings are lost repeatedly, the NVRAM may be failing — contact support

Restoring Access to the Device

Device IP is unknown or the web interface is inaccessible

If the device IP address has been changed from the default and is no longer known, the only recovery method is a factory reset via the API — if you can still reach the device at any address:

POST /api/system/factory_reset
Authorization: Bearer <admin_token>

This restores the device to factory defaults including:

  • IP address: 192.168.112.1
  • Username: admin
  • Password: admin

All channel configuration, thresholds, schedules, and custom network settings are erased.

Warning

Factory reset is irreversible. Back up the configuration first using GET /api/conf if the device is still reachable.

If the device is completely unreachable over the network, contact Stream Labs support for recovery options.