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User en Troubleshooting FAQ
- Check your country. Settings → Country. A profile saved for Germany will call the German API; if you're travelling to France, switch country. The app supports 17 countries — make sure you've picked the right one.
- Check connectivity. Offline → no live prices. The app falls back to the cached last-known prices (marked stale in red).
- Country API outage. Government APIs go down sometimes. Try again in a few minutes. Check downdetector or the GitHub Issues page.
- Cache staleness. Pull-to-refresh or tap the refresh button. The app retries the API.
The app has a single central Search button in the bottom navigation bar — it's the only search trigger across every tab.
- On any tab → tap it to jump to the Search branch.
- On the Search results or Map view → it opens the Criteria sheet (fuel, radius, source).
- Inside the Criteria sheet → a re-tap runs the search.
The old "Search nearby" and "Search along route" buttons inside the result list have been removed. If the button looks greyed out, it usually means you're in route mode without a destination filled in.
- You need a free API key from creativecommons.tankerkoenig.de.
- The key format is a UUID:
00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000002. - Paste it into Settings → API keys → Germany.
- If it still fails, the key may have been rate-limited by heavy use. The service rate-limits per key — do not share keys publicly.
- Open Android Settings → Location → turn on. Give the app While in use permission.
- Indoors? GPS can't fix indoors. Go outside or use postal-code search instead.
- If the app says "Coarse location only" — enable precise location in system settings.
- The routing service (OSRM) is public and sometimes slow.
- A multi-country route may stream partial results — the banner at the top tells you which countries are still answering. You can tap a result the moment it appears.
- Retry. The app caches the polyline so the second attempt is usually instant.
- If you consistently see timeouts, file an issue with the route start/end you used.
Nothing found during scan:
- Car ignition must be on (accessory or run, not off). Engine running is fine.
- Adapter LED must be on and solid (blue for most models). If blinking or off, re-seat it.
- Bluetooth must be enabled on the phone.
- Android 12+: did you grant Bluetooth Scan and Bluetooth Connect? Open Android Settings → Apps → Sparkilo → Permissions.
- Android 11-: the app needs Location permission to enumerate BLE devices (an OS quirk — the app never records your location for this).
Adapter visible but connection fails:
- Error "Unresponsive" — cheap clone. Wait 30 s, retry. Try to fully start the engine briefly.
- Error "Protocol init failed" — counterfeit ELM327 chip. Try a different adapter model; vLinker FS is a reliable cheap option.
- Error "Permission denied" — re-grant in system settings; some Androids forget Bluetooth permissions after reboot.
Connects but the odometer reads 0 or wrong:
- Your car may not expose PID A6. The app retries with PID 31 and manufacturer Mode 22 (VIN-based).
- Some older European cars (pre-2008) don't expose odometer at all over OBD2. You'll need to type it.
Auto-record requires:
- Adapter paired to a vehicle — the first manual pairing creates the association.
- Auto-record enabled in Settings → OBD2 → Auto-record.
- Phone Bluetooth on, with system battery optimisation not killing the app.
iOS: the OS-level background wake needed for "auto-connect when the adapter powers up" is still in progress (#1542). Until then, iOS users start trajets manually from the Trajets tab. Android handles the full hands-off flow today.
The approach overlay only fires while a trajet is recording and you're inside profile.approachRadiusKm (default 1 km) of a station. If you want to verify the UI flips correctly without driving, open Settings → Privacy Dashboard → Test approach overlay — the button pushes a synthetic in-radius state for 30 s. See Consumption & OBD2 → Approach overlay for the full setup.
- System notifications enabled? Android Settings → Apps → Sparkilo → Notifications → Allow.
- Phone on ultra-battery-saver? Android's aggressive power savers kill WorkManager. Whitelist the app: Settings → Battery → not restricted.
- Phone was offline at the scheduled check time. The check runs on the next network window.
- Price hasn't actually dropped below the threshold yet.
- Android limits widget updates to once every ~30 min minimum. This is a system policy.
- The widget uses the same cache as the app. Tap the refresh icon on the widget itself — it re-pulls prices in the background without opening the app.
- Tapping the widget opens the right station whether the app is cold-killed or already warm in memory; if it doesn't, file an issue with your phone model and Android version.
On landscape phones and on tablets (width ≥ 600 dp) the Favorites screen renders the favorites list and the alerts list side-by-side with a vertical divider. There's no tab switcher in that layout because both panes are visible at once. Rotate back to portrait if you prefer the tab switcher.
- The button is in Settings → Privacy Dashboard (it used to say "Copy" — it's "Save" now and actually writes to Downloads).
- Check that you've granted file-access permission on first save.
- If the save fails, the app falls back to copying the log to the clipboard so the action never silently does nothing.
- Check Settings → Clear cache (via Android system settings).
- If the crash persists, file an issue with: Android version, phone model, app version (from Settings → About), and the latest crash report (the app offers Save on next launch — the file is in Downloads).
Settings → Data → Export all data → JSON file written to the public Downloads folder. Store it somewhere safe. On reinstall, Import on the same screen.
TankSync users don't need to do this — data lives on your Supabase instance. Note that trajets only sync if you've also turned on Sync trajets in TankSync settings (it's opt-in).
- Happens sporadically on weak connections.
- Swipe down to refresh the map.
- If it persists after closing and reopening the app, the OpenStreetMap tile servers may be rate-limiting; try a few minutes later.
Settings → Data → Reset app. Wipes every local Hive box and clears secure storage. Irreversible. If you use TankSync, delete your server account first: Settings → TankSync → Delete account, or scrub just the trip rows with Forget all synced trajets.
Partially. Favorites work offline (last-known prices shown). Searches require a network call — you can't discover new stations without one. Maps cache tiles you've recently viewed, so areas you've visited before load.
- Report a bug: github.com/fdittgen-png/tankstellen/issues — use the Bug Report template. Attach the saved error log from the Privacy Dashboard.
- Request a feature: Feature Request template, or discuss first in Discussions.
- Privacy questions: see PRIVACY.md.
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