Troubleshooting

Troubleshooting

Common failure modes and how to recover.

My edits are gone / the scanner doesn't boot

1. Don't panic, don't write to the card again.
2. Pull the card. Copy every file off to a safe folder.
3. If you've been using Scanner Manager, look for <hpdname>.session.bak right next to the HPD file. That's the most recent pre-save snapshot.
4. Copy the .session.bak over the current HPD (renaming to drop the .session.bak suffix) to restore.
5. Still broken? Run Uniden's Sentinel or BT885 Update Manager to re-pave the card from factory defaults, then re-import your groups from the MetaStore event log using Tools → Replay change log onto fresh HPD....

"Unusable" RadioReference page

Double-check the URL. The importer wants a category or trunked-system page:

• Good: https://www.radioreference.com/db/sid/7728
• Good: https://www.radioreference.com/db/aid/123
• Bad: https://www.radioreference.com/apps/db/... (homepage)

If the right URL still fails, open a GitHub issue with the URL and the page's raw HTML if you can.

SmartScreen won't run the EXE

Because the EXE isn't code-signed, Windows SmartScreen treats it as unknown. Click More info → Run anyway. After a few users have reported the file as safe, SmartScreen usually relaxes.

You can always run from source instead (pip install -e .).

Uniden Tools aren't detected

• Click Refresh after installing.
• If the tool landed in a non-standard path (e.g. C:\Uniden\), use Override Path... and point at the EXE directly.
• Check app_settings.json under %LOCALAPPDATA%/scanner-manager/ to see what override got stored.

Installer download fails

• "Hash mismatch" - do not bypass the check by re-running. Open a GitHub issue with the URL, expected hash, and observed hash; the maintainers will roll the manifest if Uniden rotated the installer.
• Corporate network blocks - use Browse for installer... in the Download dialog to point at a copy you obtained elsewhere.

Coverage Map button does nothing

Install the optional dep:

python -m pip install tkintermapview

Restart the app. Until then, use Heatmap... for a pure-Tkinter fallback.

Donate dialog has no QR codes

Install the optional dep:

python -m pip install qrcode

Restart the app. Address rows and Copy buttons still work without it.

The app crashed - where's the log?

Global crash handler writes to:

%LOCALAPPDATA%/scanner-manager/logs/crash-YYYYmmdd-HHMMSS.log

The crash dialog also offers a Report an Issue... button that pre-fills the GitHub issue form with the traceback and log path. Use it - maintainers need those logs to fix alpha bugs.

Reset everything

If things go sideways:

1. Close Scanner Manager.
2. Delete %LOCALAPPDATA%/scanner-manager/ (app settings, crash logs, installer cache).
3. Delete <hpdname>.meta.json and <hpdname>.session.bak next to your HPD file if you want a fresh event history too.
4. Relaunch.