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Selling Tangara

Mon, 02 Mar 2026 12:00:14 +0000

Hey folks. I reached out to someone a few months back here who was asking to buy a Tangara player, but they ghosted me, so I am putting mine up for sale publicly.

It works and is complete, and I'll throw in the 128GB microSD card I was using for it too. I didn't use it much and probably would never actually make use of it like I thought I would.

Looking for $200 USD. If it is domestic shipping (US), I can cover that. International shipping I will ask the buyer to cover.

Touch Wheel Behaving Oddly

Fri, 13 Feb 2026 20:06:59 +0000

I've been heavily using my Tangara since I got it, and today the touch wheel seems to have stopped working. It registers touches, but not well; scrolling around the wheel either direction will make the selection jump around up and down, and actual presses, either long or short, almost never registers.

I'm pretty sure this isn't a software problem, unfortunately. I updated from 1.4 to 1.5 and then 2.0 since the problem started, and it behaves the same an all versions.

Now, I'm not a hardware person. I saw that someone here made the Tangarine button plate, and I'd love to try that, but I don't have a 3D printer to make the buttons with. I'd be comfortable trying to install something like that, which was already made, but not really anything more advanced then that.

I haven't tried anything beside hard restarting it and swapping out the firmware, I think that maybe I could try disassembling it and messing with whatever connection the touch plate uses but I'm a little afraid of the possibility of making things worse.

Does anyone know of troubleshooting steps I could try, or a source I could use to get buttons for the Tangarine plate from? The Tangara is the best MP3 player I've had in years and I don't want to give up on it because of this.

Tangara for SALE

Tue, 03 Feb 2026 15:07:22 +0000

Hi all,

I have a fully built and working Tangara for sale, in great condition. Looking for £180 or 200 euros for it which I think is roughly cost minus tax. I am selling as I have had an operation that means listening to music up close with headphones is extremely difficult for me now so it simply won't get used.

Any questions let me know!

Technical support please for Tangara?

Sun, 01 Feb 2026 21:35:29 +0000

Hello Support Team,

I am seeking technical assistance for a Tangara device that is no longer functioning. Firmware was successfully updated to 2.0.

Issue Description:

The device is completely unresponsive; the screen remains off.
The rotation wheel no longer provides haptic feedback when turned.
Companion software does not detect the device when it is plugged in and powered on.

Troubleshooting Attempted:

Performed a hard reset (previously effective, but now unsuccessful).
Left the device plugged in for over 24 hours to rule out a dead battery.
The device was working as recently as last week, and I have not attempted to open it.

Could you please suggest further troubleshooting steps or advise on repair or replacement options?

I also have two specific questions:

Is it possible to replace the battery?
Since the device does not work even while plugged in, does this suggest the issue may not be battery-related?
When I switch the device on and plug it into the USB-C port, Windows Device Manager does not detect it at all. Could this indicate a faulty USB port on the device, or does it point to another underlying issue?

Thank you for your guidance.

Best regards,
Bryan

What wireless earbuds are you using?

Sat, 31 Jan 2026 05:24:00 +0000

I've got a bunch of wired headphones that I normally use with my Tangara, but I wouldn't mind having a set of bluetooth earbuds (ideally noise cancelling) so I can listen to music when I'm walking to work. What do you folks use for earbuds?

Tangara hanging on logo screen, wont turn off until power runs out

Thu, 29 Jan 2026 14:17:37 +0000

Irritatingly every time my Tangara breaks it manages to do it in a new way as title, when turned on my Tangara is hanging on the logo screen, and won't turn off until power runs out. I was having this issue on firmware v1.3.1, I used the CLI to flash v2.0.0 and I'm having the same problem still.

zoned out

Mon, 26 Jan 2026 17:18:21 +0000

I still love that the forum is reachable via https://zone.cooltech.zone/

playback speed - podcasts

Sun, 18 Jan 2026 13:43:54 +0000

Hi all.

I've had a bit of a look around and I've not found a playback speed setting - any ideas or is this something I can put a feature request in for a future firmware version?

I've pretty much got it set up how I like and am enjoying the latest firmware.

Thanks!

Wired headphones w/ inline volume controls

Fri, 16 Jan 2026 03:09:01 +0000

I've got a set of wired headphones with volume controls on the cable, but when I press those controls they don't adjust Tangara's volume. Is that a hardware limitation of the minijack receptacle used by the Tangara hardware, or is it something that could in theory be added as a feature in firmware later on?

Unable to Perform File Operations on Mounted Player

Thu, 15 Jan 2026 15:36:23 +0000

Summary
When the Tangara device is mounted, i'm unable to perform any file operations: creating new files / folders; deleting files; renaming files; etc.

Observed Behaviour
Steps to Reproduce

Plug the Tangara into my PC via a USB-A to USB-C cable.
Enable USB Storage in the Tangara settings.
Mount the Tangara—either via automagic by clicking on the icon that appears on my Debian desktop, or via

Code:
$ doas mount -o uid=$MYUSERUID -o gid=$MYGROUPID /dev/sdXX /path/to/mountpoint
Attempt any file operations, either in Thunar or in a terminal window.

Results
Thunar tends to hang when attempting anything. I can browse files mostly successfully, but right-clicking virtually anything; or attempting to move or create files always hangs. Right-clicking on the Tangara's device icon in the sidebar also hangs.

The terminal window is nominally more successful. Operations take an eternity, but appear to succeed. They do not, however. For example, earlier today i attempted to create a new Music directory, and once "finished" the directory was filled with mysterious (non-existent) garbled garbage (fake files and directories with nonsense names), and

Code:
$ du -hd0 /path/to/mountpoint/Music/dirname/

reported that the directory had a size of 26G, and that the fake folders could not be accessed, returning a permissions error. The folder and all of the falsely-reported garbage within disappeared upon umounting, and were not present upon a remount.

Unmounting is also dirty. Via a GUI, it is claimed that file operations need to complete before unmounting (even when none were initiated), but no tool performing said operations is listed. However, when told to unmount anyway, this completes successfully.

No corruption appears to have yet resulted.

Expected Behaviour
File operations should succeed, etc.

System Info
Computer
Debian 13 "Trixie" x86_64 / amd64
Xfce v. 4.20
Thunar 4.20.2
xfce4-terminal 1.1.4
Kernel 6.12.63+deb13-amd64
Attempts were made on multiple ports (USB-A v.2 and 3) and over multiple USB-A to USB-C cables.

Card
Sandisk Extreme PRO [full-size SD card]
SDXC I, V30
128GB
Formatted as FAT-32L [0x0C]

Tangara
ESP32 v. 2.0.0
SAMD21 v. 6.0
Collator Generic

Additional Notes
I've seen in another forum post that SD card operations via the Tangara's internal reader may be unreliable in general; should i just plan on ejecting the card and mounting it separately in the near-term (i have been doing so on a separate laptop running OpenBSD [which has /never/ played nicely with the Tangara] to this point, but i thought it might be worth reporting this—i was unable to find a similar issue on Codeberg, though apologies if this is redundant >_<)? Or is this the sort of thing i can troubleshoot, work around, and/or remedy?

Any tips or assistance are appreciated, and i'll be happy to provide additional info if it'd help. Thanks in advance!

Help! I'm outta my league!

Mon, 12 Jan 2026 12:20:26 +0000

Hello, I'm very new the whole "diy" type tech, tech as whole I suppose. I got relatively basic understanding of it. I bought the tangara to escape the clutches of "big tech"constantly watching me, nickle and dime-ing me for every little function of tech that used to be free. And while I was super excited to finally get my tangara a few months ago. trying to use it has been a bit of a headache. Downloading music and building my library hasn't been that hard. But I'm super confused about how to proper sort my library or make playlists. I have read the tutorial on how todo it. but that just results in a file sitting on my sd card that only plays a single song queue. I'm not sure what I'm doing wrong or if I'm doing anything wrong at all.

If anyone's able to give a bit more of an indepth tutorial on how to properly make a playlist, I'd really appericate it!

Thank you!

[SOLVED] Queue clears on reboot

Sun, 11 Jan 2026 14:47:24 +0000

Note: Fixed in Firmware v. 2.1.0

Thanks! Original issue archived below as a quote.

Quote:Summary:
Whenever the system restarts or is manually restarted, the queue clears.

Observed Behaviour:
Whenever the system is automatically restarted (i.e. when play is paused and the screen is switched off for the appropriate period) or is restarted manually (by holding both volume buttons and toggling the display switch), the queue is cleared. This persists through multiple restarts.

Notably, if the SD card is ejected and then reinserted, the queue is mysteriously restored.

Possibly also worth noting: i primarily use my device for Podcasts, which is why this issue is so noteworthy to me.

Expected Behaviour:
I would expect the queue to persist through restarts.

It's good to have the workaround of ejecting and reinserting the SD card to restore the queue in a pinch, but this also, of course, puts wear on the SD card slot, and these slots do seem to wear out comparatively quickly ime.

System info:
ESP32 v. 2.0.0
SAMD21 v. 6.0
Collator Generic

Please let me know if there's something i'm missing or doing wrong; any additional troubleshooting i could perform; and/or any additional info i could provide to help make sense of this. Thanks so much in advance for any help and advice!

Distortion / buzz / noise when playing

Wed, 17 Dec 2025 07:01:22 +0000

I just picked up a Tangara second-hand, and am quite excited about it! Today was my first day using it, and i encountered a… troubling, transient issue: when playing music, i noticed some significant distortion in the output.

Here's what happened:

First, my headphones are Sony WH-1000X M3. I noticed this distortion:
* When connected via cable through an external volume-control potentiometer (with and without active noise cancellation);
* When connected directly via (a quality) cable (with and without active noise cancellation);
* When connected over Bluetooth (which forces active noise cancellation) [a rude surprise that this change didn't affect the situation!]

The distortion is hard to describe; it was just sort of a general buzzing whenever music was playing. Silent parts were silent, but when there was sound, there was kind of a… halo of buzzing hum around and within it, almost a kind of frying sound distortion, and it was /very/ distracting. I just switched from a cheap generic player, so it was kind of a shock that the sound being produced from the Tangara was a definite step down from this!

That said: this issue has since disappeared.

I ended up disassembling the unit to investigate whether there was anything obviously wrong. In this process, the unit was switched off for… perhaps thirty minutes, and—perhaps crucially?—i reseated the cable connecting the two boards.

Mostly: is this a problem anyone else has noticed? Is it the sort of intermittent thing i should have a prepared workaround for? Is it conceivable that i might have accidentally resolved it in the disassembly / reassembly process? Are there obvious places to troubleshoot if it occurs again?

So far i do love the unit—i've listened to several hours of podcasts already ^^ (this issue was probably present but not notable when the only sound was voices speaking; and anyway, podcast recording equipment is, of course, of highly variable quality anyway, so the listening experience is much more forgiving). I'd just like to have something ready in my back pocket should this arise again. Thanks so much in advance for any help and/or thoughts!

PCBWay-ready files

Wed, 03 Dec 2025 18:34:47 +0000

Since the only way to get a new Tangara now is to build one yourself, I'd like to get a bulk order with some friends from PCBWay. Unfortunately, neither of us is very familiar with the hardware side of things, CAD and all.

I've previously tried just using a KiCad plugin to export some files for quoting on PCBWay, but they came back saying there are issues to be resolved. Since I'd love to avoid as much of that as possible, does anyone have the required files for manufacturing AND assembly with them with the least friction available and is willing to share them?

If you have anything you are willing to share, you can send it to ydwktp5a@duck.com, thanks!

Battery status fault and only charging to 52%

Sat, 22 Nov 2025 17:19:10 +0000

Hi, I have noticed the battery is not fully charging staying around 52% and the status is showing as fault. Any suggestions why and solutions?