Reference

Troubleshooting

Fixes for the problems that come up most.

The notification has no Start Recording button

It's showing as a banner, where the button only appears when you point at it. Set Stenny's Alert Style to Persistent in System Settings → Notifications.

Stenny doesn't offer a lecture

• Check which course the event title matches: stenny match-course "VL Data Analytics".
• If it matches none, add a word from the title to the course's calendar list, or add an alias.
• Events shorter than 20 minutes are ignored.
• Make sure Stenny has access to your calendars in System Settings → Privacy & Security → Calendars.

Nothing was recorded

Most likely the lid was closed on battery, which always puts macOS to sleep. Keep the lid open while recording. Also check that Stenny has microphone access in System Settings → Privacy & Security → Microphone.

Parts of the transcript are missing

Run stenny check to see how much audio the microphone delivered and where the gaps are. Gaps are marked in the transcript as No audio from the microphone.

If you record with your iPhone, it sends no audio while you use it or while it's locked. Keep the backup microphone on so the Mac fills those gaps. See The backup microphone.

The transcript has many errors

• Look at the level meter while recording. Orange means too quiet: move the microphone closer to the lecturer.
• Add the course's terms to its glossary, and corrections for recurring mishearings.
• Add the slides.
• Remember that the live draft is rough. Only the final transcript is meant for studying.

Passages in another language were translated

With a fixed language, Whisper tends to translate other languages instead of transcribing them. Set the course to language = "mixed" with the right languages.

The final transcript hasn't appeared

On battery, the final pass waits in the queue. Plug in and run stenny queue run, or install the schedule with stenny schedule install. stenny queue list shows what's waiting.

The slides aren't used

• For a live lecture, the PDF must be the only PDF in the lecture folder.
• Scanned PDFs without a text layer can't be read.
• For a lecture that's already final, run stenny refresh.