Troubleshooting

A short index of the things most likely to break and how to fix them. The bottom-bar log line on desktop (and the event log on the Android Connection tab) is the first place to look — most failures print there. The full activity log on desktop is in the logs directory (~/.local/state/voxdmr/logs/ on Linux, %LOCALAPPDATA%\voxdmr\logs\ on Windows); on Android it’s accessible from Settings → About.

Connection

Stuck at “Authenticating…” then back to Disconnected

The log shows Authentication FAILED - check password (or Login NAK on Homebrew).

Depending on which network the active profile is set to:

BrandMeister. The hotspot security password is wrong, or you’re using your BrandMeister account password by mistake. Open BrandMeister SelfCare → your profile → Hotspot security password. That’s the one VoxDMR wants — account passwords don’t authenticate to masters. If you’ve never set a hotspot security password in SelfCare, set one now and re-enter it in the profile.
TGIF / FreeDMR / ADN / other Homebrew network. Re-check the published credentials. FreeDMR’s canonical password is passw0rd; TGIF and ADN have their own. If the password is right but auth still fails, flip the profile’s Hash format between Raw and Hex ASCII — almost every Homebrew network uses Raw, but a small number of legacy installs need Hex ASCII.

Stuck at “Connecting…” indefinitely

VoxDMR can’t reach the server at all. Possible causes:

Wrong host or port. BrandMeister masters use 54006; Homebrew masters typically use 62031. Confirm both in the profile editor and on the operator’s status page.
Firewall is blocking outbound UDP. Both Rewind (BrandMeister) and Homebrew (MMDVM) are UDP-based. Corporate or restrictive home firewalls sometimes drop UDP. Try a different network.
The server is offline. The BrandMeister master picker is live, but a master can go down between launches — pick another one. Homebrew servers in the curated list (TGIF, FreeDMR, ADN) occasionally have maintenance windows; check the operator’s status page.

”Error: Invalid DMR ID”

The DMR ID field has to be a 7-digit number. No spaces, no dashes, no callsign. Just the digits from radioid.net.

Disconnects every few minutes

Usually a NAT timeout on a UDP-blocking-ish router. Both Rewind and Homebrew ping periodically to keep the NAT mapping alive, but some routers age UDP entries aggressively. Workarounds:

Use a wired connection if possible.
Try a different master (regional ones tend to be closer and more reliable).
Some consumer routers have a “UDP timeout” setting in advanced NAT/firewall. Increase it if available.

On Android, also check Settings → Background → Ignore battery optimizations and (on Xiaomi/Samsung/OnePlus/Huawei) the per-app Autostart setting. Android aggressively kills background apps; if VoxDMR is being killed during RX you’ll see periodic disconnect-then-reconnect cycles tied to screen-off.

VoxDMR reconnects automatically after a drop (it’s on by default), so a brief blip should heal itself without any action — see Auto-reconnect. If you’d rather it stay disconnected on a drop, you can turn the toggle off there.

Audio

You can’t hear other stations

Check in this order:

Are you actually subscribed to a talkgroup? The status indicator must read Ready, not just Connected. Pick a TG from the picker if it’s not.
Is the right output device selected? Settings → Audio → Output device. If your headphones are plugged in but the system default is still the built-in speakers, the picker won’t auto-switch. Pick them explicitly.
Is RX gain too low? Default is 4×. Bump it up to 10× and see if quiet stations come through.
System volume. Obvious, but easy to miss after an OS update resets it.

Other stations can’t hear you

Is your microphone selected? Settings → Audio → Input device. If the picker is empty, your OS isn’t exposing any input devices to VoxDMR. Check OS-level mic permissions (see below).
Is TX gain non-zero? It defaults to 0.5×. If somebody changed it to 0.1× and you speak quietly, the encoder gets near-silence.
Watch the TX meter. Turn on Monitor mic level off-air in Settings → Audio. Speak. If the meter doesn’t move, the mic isn’t being captured at all. Check device selection and mic permissions. If it moves but stays in green only, raise TX gain until your peaks hit yellow.

Your transmissions sound distorted to others

The CLIP indicator on the right of the TX meter latches red when peaks saturate. Drop TX gain in 0.1 steps until clip stops triggering, then click CLIP to reset the latch. See Audio Settings for the full meter explanation.

Microphone permissions

Linux: most distros expose all input devices to all apps. If you’re on a sandboxed Flatpak or Snap (not how VoxDMR is currently distributed), the sandbox needs to grant audio access.
Windows: open Settings → Privacy & security → Microphone. Make sure “Let apps access your microphone” is on, and that VoxDMR (or “Desktop apps”) is allowed. After changing this, restart VoxDMR.
Android: the mic permission is requested the first time you press PTT. If you denied it, open Android Settings → Apps → VoxDMR → Permissions → Microphone and grant it manually. Microphone permission denied in the snackbar means VoxDMR couldn’t capture audio.

PTT

Pressing the PTT key does nothing

Is the main window focused? VoxDMR doesn’t grab a global hotkey. The window has to have keyboard focus. Click the title bar, then try again.
Is the right key bound? Check Settings → Interface → PTT key. Spacebar is the default but might have been changed.
Is something else eating the key? Some game launchers and screen recorders intercept Spacebar globally. Bind PTT to something less common (F8, F12, Insert). See PTT Modes.

TX never stops in toggle mode

You toggled TX on and forgot to toggle it off. Tap your PTT key once more, or click the on-screen TX button.

If a key event got swallowed and TX seems stuck on with no way to toggle it off, disconnect from BrandMeister, TX cuts automatically when subscription is lost.

Firmware

”Firmware not found” or stuck on the setup card

The vocoder firmware isn’t installed yet, or the install location isn’t where VoxDMR is looking. The setup card lets you fix this two ways:

Download (≈2 MB): the easy path; works on any machine with internet access to md380.org and raw.githubusercontent.com.
Choose existing files: for offline machines or restrictive networks. Point VoxDMR at D002.032.bin and d02032-core.img on disk.

If you have the files in a non-default location, set VOXDMR_FIRMWARE_DIR to point at the directory before launching:

VOXDMR_FIRMWARE_DIR=/path/to/firmware ./VoxDMR-linux-x86_64

“SHA-256 mismatch” / firmware shows ✗ in Settings

A firmware file got corrupted (partial download, disk error, accidentally edited). Open Settings → Firmware and click Reinstall…. Same flow as first-launch: download or pick from disk.

Auto-download fails behind a corporate proxy

ureq (the HTTPS client VoxDMR uses) doesn’t read system proxy settings. Either use the Choose existing files path with manually-downloaded files, or run VoxDMR from a network that allows direct outbound HTTPS to the two source hosts.

Activity dots stay gray

The live last-heard feed comes from api.brandmeister.network over a WebSocket. If your network blocks it, the dots in the favorites list stay gray. Everything else (RX, TX, subscribing, talking) still works. The activity feed is purely informational.

Active profile is on a Homebrew network? Then this is expected — there’s no equivalent live activity feed for TGIF, FreeDMR, ADN, etc. The dots stay grey by design. You find out who’s talking by hearing them. Switch back to a BrandMeister profile and the dots will work again.

To check whether your machine can reach it:

curl -I https://api.brandmeister.network/lh/socket.io/

A 200 or 400 response means the host is reachable. A timeout means it’s blocked upstream.

Crashes / blank window / weird UI behaviour

VoxDMR is built on iced + wgpu. On rare GPU-driver combinations the renderer doesn’t initialise correctly and you get a blank window or a crash on startup.

Check the log file (path above) for wgpu or panic lines.
On Linux, try forcing the software renderer:
```
WGPU_BACKEND=gl ./VoxDMR-linux-x86_64
```
On Windows, update the GPU drivers. Old vendor drivers sometimes ship a broken Vulkan implementation.

Still stuck?

Read the full log file (~/.local/state/voxdmr/logs/ on Linux, %LOCALAPPDATA%\voxdmr\logs\ on Windows).
Open an issue on GitHub with the log and a description of what you were trying to do.