How to use this panel

This page explains the panel in plain English, one topic at a time: what each page is for, what each box means, and what to do when something does not work the way you expected.

You do not need an account to read this page. Only the tasks themselves need one, and signing up is free — section 1 explains it.

Nothing here asks you to use a command line. Every task described can be done in this browser, on a phone as easily as on a computer.

A few words this page uses

You can skip this list and come back to it whenever a sentence uses a word you are not sure about. Nothing else on this page depends on it.

Panel
This website. It is where you manage your TeamTalk server, so "the panel" and "this website" mean the same thing here.
Server
A TeamTalk server: the program people connect to in order to talk. It runs on a computer somewhere, and the panel starts and stops it for you.
Host
The address people type into their TeamTalk client to reach your server, such as teamtalk.example.com.
Port
A number that goes with that address, like a door number in a building. People need the right host and the right port to get in.
Account
This page means two different things, so it always says which: your panel account (your login for this website) or a TeamTalk account (a login for the server, which the people who talk there use). They are completely separate, and changing one never changes the other.
Log
An ordinary text file that the server writes as it works: what it started doing, and what went wrong. Reading it is how you find out why something failed.
Restart and reload
Restart means stop, then start again: it disconnects everyone, and it is needed for settings the server only reads when it starts. Reload asks the server to re-read part of its setup while it keeps running, so nobody is disconnected.
Firewall
The computer's own doorman, which decides which ports the outside world may reach. The panel opens the right ones for you, so you never have to touch it.
Automatic start
A switch, per server, that makes the server start by itself when the machine is turned on or restarted — so a power cut does not leave your server offline until someone notices.

If you are new, start with these three

  1. What this panel is, and how to sign in — a couple of minutes.
  2. Putting your server on the panel — the only setup step.
  3. Starting, stopping and restarting your server — what you will use most.

The rest can wait until you need it.

1. Signing in, and what this panel is for

We Trust You TeamTalk Panel is a web page that lets you look after your TeamTalk server without opening a terminal or editing files by hand. Starting and stopping the server, its accounts, its channels, its settings, its ban list and its log are all in one place, behind one login. Every change is written into the server's own settings file, so a change made here is exactly the same as one made in the TeamTalk client.

Signing in

Signing in happens in two steps, which keeps an account safe even if a password is ever guessed:

  1. On the log-in page, enter your username or email address together with your password. Either one works as the name you sign in with.
  2. The panel then sends a six-digit code to the email address on your account. Type that code on the next page to finish signing in.

The code is valid for a limited time, and only a few wrong attempts are allowed before it stops working. Both pages have a button to send a fresh code, so if the message has not arrived after a minute or two, request another one and check your spam or junk folder.

Ticking Stay signed in on the log-in page keeps you signed in on that device for up to thirty days, so you are not asked for a code every time. Leave it unticked on a computer you share with other people.

If you have forgotten your password

Choose Forgot your password? on the log-in page, enter your email address, and the panel emails a code. Entering that code takes you to a page where you can set a new password. An account that has been banned from the panel cannot sign in at all, and the log-in page says so rather than pretending the password was wrong.

What the panel does not do

The panel manages the TeamTalk server. It does not listen to audio, send messages, move people between channels, or act as a TeamTalk client. To talk to people you still use the ordinary TeamTalk application; the panel is where you set things up and keep them tidy.

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3. The My servers page

This is what you see after signing in. Each server your account is allowed to manage gets its own panel showing:

The status indicator updates on its own every few seconds without reloading the page, so you can watch a server come up after a restart. “Running” means the server is accepting connections, “Stopped” means nothing is listening on its port, and “Unknown” means the panel could not get an answer at all — usually a dropped connection to the panel itself, and reloading the page clears it.

If your account has no servers yet, the page says so and offers the Link a server button.

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4. Linking a server to your account

Linking tells the panel which TeamTalk server belongs to you. Choose Link a server, then fill in:

Port
The number people type into their TeamTalk client next to the server's address. This is the only thing the panel really needs: it looks for the server that uses that number and reads everything else from that server's own settings. If you do not know the number, open the TeamTalk client you already use and read it from the server's connection details.
Host
The address people connect to, such as the domain name of the server.
Server name
Optional. What the server should be called inside the panel. Leave it empty and the panel uses the name from the server's own configuration, or the port number if it cannot read one.
UDP port
Optional, and usually the same number as the port above. TeamTalk listens on two ports at the same time; leave this empty and the panel uses the same number, which is what almost every server does.

When the link is created, the panel also opens both ports in the machine's firewall, so a newly linked server is reachable immediately instead of needing a manual firewall step.

If the port does not match a server on the machine, the panel says so plainly rather than creating a link that would never work — check the port number, and use Create a new server (admins and the owner only) if the server does not exist yet.

A regular account may link up to 2 servers. Admins and the owner are not limited. If you have reached the limit, the panel tells you when you try to link another one.

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5. Starting, stopping and restarting a server

Open a server with Manage this server. The first group of buttons is the server control:

Start server
Starts the server. The panel waits for the port to genuinely begin accepting connections before it reports success, so a green "Server start requested" message means the server is really up, not merely that the instruction was sent.
Restart server
Stops the server, waits for the port to be free, and then starts it again. That wait is deliberate: starting a new copy while the operating system still holds the old port is the most common reason a TeamTalk server appears to die on restart. A restart disconnects everyone who is connected, so it is worth announcing one before you do it.
Stop server
Stops the server and disconnects everyone. The panel asks you to confirm first.

Starting the server automatically when the machine starts

Under the three buttons, Start automatically when the machine starts is a switch with two positions:

Off (the default)
The server runs only while someone has started it and the machine stays on. After a reboot or a power cut it stays stopped until you press Start server. This is the right choice for a server you are still setting up.
On
The server starts by itself as the machine boots, before anyone signs in to the panel, so a reboot no longer takes your community offline until someone notices. Switching it on or off never starts or stops the server right now — it only decides what happens at the next boot.

One thing surprises people: if the switch is on and you then stop the server by hand, it stays stopped until the machine restarts. That is what makes stopping it useful.

Starting, stopping or restarting every server at once

Admins and the owner also see Every server on this panel in this section, with three buttons: Start all servers, Restart all servers and Stop all servers. They act on every server the panel manages, not just the one you are looking at, so each one asks for confirmation first. Regular accounts never see these buttons.

Each one only touches the servers it can affect: Start all starts whatever is not already running, Stop all stops whatever is running, and Restart all restarts only the servers that are running — a server you deliberately stopped stays stopped. The page tells you afterwards how many it changed and leaves out.

If a start or a restart fails, the panel explains the usual cause instead of leaving you with a blank screen — for example, that the server binary could not be found, or that the server is running under a different system account than the panel and therefore cannot be stopped from here. The troubleshooting topic lists those messages and what to do about them.

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6. Seeing who is online

See online users asks the server who is connected right now and shows each person's account name, nickname and the channel they are in. It answers with a freshly gathered list every time you open it; there is nothing to refresh.

To ask, the panel signs in to your server for a moment using an account that is already on that server, reads the list of connected people, and signs out again. Two consequences are worth knowing:

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7. Managing TeamTalk accounts

Manage accounts is the list of the accounts people log in to your TeamTalk server with. It is not related to panel logins. The page has three jobs.

Seeing the accounts

Every account is listed with its name and whether it is a server admin (full rights on the TeamTalk server) or a regular user. The search box above the list narrows it down as you type.

Creating an account

Give the account a username, a password, and pick its type: Regular user for someone who talks, Server admin for someone who may also manage the server. The "Show password" tick reveals what you are typing so you can check it before creating the account.

Removing an account, or changing a password

Removing is immediate and permanent, and the panel asks you to confirm. Changing a password takes just the account name and the new password.

All three actions are written straight into the server's own configuration file. If the server is running, use Reload configuration afterwards and the change applies to the people who are connected right now, with nobody disconnected. Without a reload, a new account can only sign in after the next restart.

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8. Server settings

Server settings reads the server's own configuration and lays it out as an ordinary form, in four groups. Saving only ever changes the boxes on this page: accounts, channels, uploaded files and bans are left exactly as they are, which is why a mistake here cannot wipe anything else out.

Three of the four groups are read when the server starts, so those need a restart to take effect — which is what the "Restart the server after saving" box at the bottom of the form is for. It is ticked by default. If the server is not running, the changes simply apply the next time it starts.

General

Server name
The name people see when they look up your server.
Message of the Day
The greeting shown to someone after they log in. It understands a set of automatic placeholders, which the server replaces on the spot: %users% for how many people are connected, %admins% for how many administrators are online, %uptime% for how long the server has been running, %voicetx% and %voicerx% for total voice traffic, and %lastuser% for the person who logged in most recently.
Maximum users
How many people may be connected to the server at once.
Automatically save changes
Whether the server writes its state to disk by itself as things change.
Bind to a specific IP address
Leave it empty to accept connections on every network interface the machine has. Enter an address to limit the server to one interface, or :: to accept connections on all IPv6 interfaces.
Enable UPnP port forwarding
Lets the server ask the router it sits behind to forward its ports automatically. Only useful where the router supports UPnP; on a server with a public address it makes no difference.
Invalid login attempts before an IP is banned
How many wrong passwords one address may try before the server blocks it. Set it to 0 to switch this protection off.
Maximum logins per IP address
How many accounts may be connected from the same address at the same time. Set it to 0 to switch the limit off.
User timeout
How many seconds someone may stay connected without doing anything before the server disconnects them.
Login delay
An artificial pause, in milliseconds, after each connection attempt. It slows down automated password guessing with no effect on normal users. Set it to 0 to switch it off.
Certificate file and Private key file
Only for an encrypted server, which needs the TeamTalk Professional server software. Leave both empty for a normal server.

Bandwidth limits

These cap how much data the server passes to each user, in bytes per second, separately for voice, video from webcams, media files, desktop sharing, and everything together. A value of 0 means unlimited. They are the setting to reach for when a server on a small connection becomes unusable during video or media playback.

File storage

Files root directory
The folder on the machine where files uploaded to channels are kept. The panel and the Unreferenced files page both work from this folder, so if it is wrong or missing, uploads and cleanups will misbehave.
Maximum disk usage
How much space all uploaded files together may take, in bytes.
Default channel disk quota
The file allowance a channel gets unless it is given one of its own, in bytes.

Logging

Logging has two boxes that describe one setting between them, which is explained in full in the next topic: Enable server log activity, a plain Yes or No, and Server log maximum size in bytes. The third box, Logged event bitmask, is a technical value that decides which kinds of event the server records at all; if you are not sure what to put there, leave it as it is.

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9. Switching the server log on or off

On Server settings, under Logging, the Enable server log activity box is a straightforward choice between Yes and No:

Yes
The server keeps a record of what happens on it, and that record is what the View server log page shows. This is what you want while you are investigating a problem, and it is harmless to leave on.
No
Logging is switched off completely, so no new entries are written and the log file stops growing.

The box below it, Server log maximum size, is the same setting seen from a different angle, because that is how TeamTalk stores it: a size of 0 is "logging off", and any other size means "logging on, and trim the file once it reaches this many bytes". So the two boxes always agree with each other, and the panel keeps them that way:

Logging belongs to the group the server reads at startup, so switching it on or off takes effect after a restart — leave the restart box ticked and it happens immediately.

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10. Channel management

Channel management shows every permanent channel on the server and lets you add, change and remove them without opening a TeamTalk client. Permanent channels are the ones that stay on the server even when the last person leaves, which is what makes them the server's furniture: the rooms people gather in, and the layout they see when they connect.

Channel paths

A channel is identified by its path, which is the same path TeamTalk shows in its own clients. The path is built from channel names, each followed by a forward slash:

Because a name is part of a path, a channel name cannot contain a forward slash, and two channels under the same parent cannot share a name: the panel refuses both, saying exactly why, rather than creating two channels that could not be told apart.

Adding a channel

Pick the parent channel the new one should sit inside, give it a name, and fill in as much or as little of the rest as you need. A topic is the line of text shown to people when they are in the channel. A password makes the channel private. Maximum users and disk quota can be left empty to copy whatever the root channel uses. Tick any of the channel options that should apply.

Changing a channel

Edit on any row opens that channel's settings, already filled in. You can change its topic, password, limits and options, and rename it. Renaming matters more than it looks: because paths are built from names, renaming a channel also moves every channel inside it to the new path. The panel does that for you, and it is why the row for the root channel has no name box — the root channel cannot be renamed.

The password box on the edit form starts empty on purpose. Leaving it empty keeps the password the channel already has; typing into it replaces that password; and if the channel has a password at the moment, a "Remove the channel password" tick clears it so anyone may join.

Removing a channel

Delete removes the channel and everything inside it. The confirmation message says so before anything happens, and the change cannot be undone. Files that were uploaded to a deleted channel stay on disk; the Unreferenced files page is where those are found and cleaned up. The root channel cannot be deleted, because every other channel hangs from it.

Channel options

These are the same options as the checkboxes in the TeamTalk client's channel properties window, and all of them are yours to choose:

Permanent channel (stored on the server)
Whether the server keeps the channel at all. Ticked, the channel is part of the server's saved channel file and is there after every restart, which is what you want for a room people use — it is why the panel ticks this box for you when you add a channel. Unticked, the server stops keeping the channel: the next time it saves its state it drops the channel from its own channel file, and the room is gone the next time the server starts. These servers save automatically, so that happens as soon as anything changes — someone logging in is enough. The room still works for whoever is in it until the next restart, which is why taking this tick off is not a good way to close a room you may want back: delete the channel instead, or tick the box back on and save while the channel is still listed on the Channel management page. The root channel is the one exception: it is always permanent, because every other channel hangs from it, so its box is ticked and locked.
No interruptions (one speaker at a time)
Only one person can transmit at once; whoever wants to speak waits for the channel to fall silent. Excellent for large public rooms, and a frequent cause of confusion in a small one.
Classroom (the channel operator controls who may transmit)
The channel operator decides who is allowed to speak, send video or share a desktop.
Operator receive only
Only the operator sees and hears what is happening in the channel. Used to cut bandwidth in teaching setups.
No voice activation (push-to-talk only)
Microphones open only while someone holds their push-to-talk key, which removes background noise from an open microphone.
No audio recording allowed
Nobody may use the client's "record conversation to disk" option in this channel.
Hidden channel
The channel is invisible to anyone without the right to see hidden channels; they have to know its name and password to enter it. TeamTalk expects a hidden channel to have no channels inside it, so keep hidden channels at the end of a branch.

Options the panel does not offer here are left exactly as they are on every channel you edit, so a setting that came from the TeamTalk client is never quietly switched off just because this page does not show it. A new channel is created from a copy of your own root channel, and the Sound boxes on the add form start out showing that copy, so the new room sounds like your server already sounds unless you change something.

Channel sound (audio codec)

The Sound (audio codec) boxes are the audio settings from the TeamTalk client's channel properties window. The codec decides how everyone in the channel is compressed, and every client in the channel has to use it, which is why the wrong choice here is heard by everybody:

Codec type
OPUS is what the TeamTalk client itself uses for a new channel, and what every channel on these servers uses — leave it alone unless you know you want something else. No codec lets each client send audio exactly as it captured it. A channel that is set to Speex shows Speex here and says so: this page does not manage Speex, and leaving the box as it is keeps that channel sounding exactly as it does now.
Application
VoIP is tuned for people talking to each other. Music is tuned for music and other high quality audio. Choosing Music for a room where people only talk costs bandwidth for nothing, and choosing VoIP for a music room makes the music sound flat.
Sample rate
How many times a second the audio is sampled, in Hz. 48000 Hz is what the TeamTalk client uses and what the server is built for; lower rates save a little bandwidth and lose detail.
Audio channels
Mono or Stereo. OPUS falls back to mono on its own below 30 kbps, so stereo is only worth choosing together with a higher bitrate.
Bitrate (kbps)
How much bandwidth one talker uses, from 6 to 510 kbps. Around 32 kbps is plenty for talking; music wants far more. Every person in the channel sends at this rate while they talk.
Variable bitrate
Lets the codec use less bandwidth when there is less to send. Left on is the sensible choice.
Ignore silence (DTX)
While someone is quiet, nothing is sent at all. This saves bandwidth in a busy room; leave it off if you would rather keep a steady stream.
Frame size (msec) and Transmit interval (msec)
These two work together. The frame size is how much audio one frame holds, and the transmit interval is how much audio a client collects before sending one packet, so the interval has to be at least as long as the frame. 40 msec in the interval is the TeamTalk default and a good starting point; longer means fewer, larger packets and a little more delay. Leave the frame size at 0 to let the server choose it.
Enable fixed audio volume for all users
Everybody's microphone is brought to the same loudness, so one person is not noticeably louder than the next. It can cost a little audio quality. The reference volume level underneath is the level they are all brought to, and has no effect while this box is unticked.

Only OPUS is rewritten when you save. Everything else the block holds — and every setting of a Speex channel — is left exactly as it was, so editing a room's topic can never change how it sounds.

Making channel changes visible

The server reads its channel list when it starts, so a change takes effect after a restart. Both forms have a Restart the server after saving box, ticked by default, and deleting a channel always restarts so a removed room cannot keep accepting people. If you untick it, the change is saved but only appears the next time the server starts — which is the right choice when you are making several edits and would rather restart once at the end.

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11. Banned IP addresses

Banned IP addresses is the server's own ban list: the addresses the server refuses to let in. It lists each banned address with the time the ban was created and the details TeamTalk keeps alongside it. An entry's Unban button removes it after a confirmation.

To add one, type the address — a single address such as 203.0.113.10, entered the same way the server reports it. The panel checks that what you typed really is a valid IP address and tells you if it is not, rather than writing something the server would ignore. If the same address is already banned, it says so instead of adding a duplicate.

The nickname, account name and channel path boxes are optional; they are the details TeamTalk stores alongside a ban so that whoever reads the list later can see who and where it was about. Only the address decides who is blocked.

An existing ban is applied by the running server as soon as it is told to re-read its configuration, so on a running server follow a ban or an unban with Reload configuration and it takes effect immediately, with nobody disconnected. Otherwise it applies at the next restart.

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12. Unreferenced files

Files that people upload to channels are kept in the folder named by the Files root directory setting. When a channel is deleted, the files that were uploaded to it have nothing pointing at them any more, so they take up space while being impossible to reach. The Unreferenced files page finds exactly those files by comparing what is in the folder against what the server's configuration still refers to, and lets you delete the ones you no longer want.

Two safeguards are built in, and both exist for good reasons:

Only ordinary files sitting directly in the files root are considered, never folders, and never links pointing somewhere else. If the page reports that the files root is missing, the setting above points at a folder that does not exist, and it is worth correcting before anything else.

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13. Reading the server log

View server log shows the most recent part of the server's own log file, which is where the server writes what it is doing and what went wrong. It is usually the first place to look when something misbehaves, and it is the only place that shows a failed start in the server's own words.

Finding one line in a long log

The search box above the log looks through the whole file, not only the part shown on the page, and it ignores capitals: typing albert also finds Albert and ALBERT. Every result shows its line number and the line itself, with the matching word highlighted, so you can tell how far into the file it happened.

Search for something you already know — a nickname, an account name, a channel name, or a word such as failed, error or banned. Leave the box empty to go back to reading the newest part of the log.

If nothing is found, the page says so instead of showing a blank screen. That usually means the event happened before the part of the log the server still keeps, because old entries are trimmed away once the log reaches its maximum size.

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14. Reloading the configuration

Reload configuration tells the running server to read parts of its configuration file again, on the spot, without disconnecting anybody. It is the quick way to make a change live on a busy server, and it is the reason a new TeamTalk account or a new ban does not have to wait for a quiet moment and a restart.

What a reload applies:

What a reload cannot apply, because the server only reads these when it starts:

Those need a restart. If the server is not running at all, reloading has nothing to act on and the panel says so rather than pretending it worked.

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15. Downloading a backup and changing the port

Download configuration backup

This downloads a copy of the server's own configuration file, which holds its name, limits, accounts, channels and bans. It is a genuinely useful habit before a big change: keep the file somewhere safe and it is a record of how the server was set up at that moment. The download does not include uploaded files.

Change port

This moves the server to a different port number. The panel does the whole dance for you: it stops the server, writes the new number into the configuration, opens the firewall on the new port, starts the server again, closes the old firewall rules, and updates the port the panel records. Both the TCP and UDP port are set to the new number.

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16. Inviting people with a server URL

A server URL is a small web page, hosted on the panel's own website over HTTPS, for one particular server. Give its address to someone and opening it hands their TeamTalk application everything it needs — the server's address, ports, an account to log in with, and even the channel to join. It turns "connect to this address on this port with this username and password, then join that channel" into one link.

When you create one you choose the last part of its web address, a title for the page, an optional description and keywords, the account name and password the link should use, and the channel it should join (with a channel password if that channel has one).

Two things are worth being careful about:

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17. Announcements

Announcements is where news about the panel itself is posted — a new feature, planned maintenance, a change to how something works. Everyone who uses the panel sees the same list, newest first, ten to a page.

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18. The notification bell

The bell in the menu opens Notification settings for the device you are using. Turning notifications on means the browser itself can tell you when an announcement is posted, even while you are looking at something else; turning them off stops that until you turn them back on.

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19. Your own panel account

Change my password
Changes the password you sign in to the panel with. It asks for your current password first, so someone who finds an unlocked browser cannot simply take the account over, and the new one must be at least eight characters. This does not change any TeamTalk account password.
Log out
Ends your session on this device. Always log out on a shared or public computer; on your own device, "Stay signed in" is what saves you from re-entering a code every day.
Forgotten password
Handled from the log-in page, with a code sent to the email address on your account.

Your account lives on the panel, not on TeamTalk, and it is what decides which servers you can manage: your own, plus everything, if you are an admin or the owner.

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20. Admin and owner tools

Everything in this topic is visible only to admins and the owner. The owner can do everything an admin can do; the difference is that the owner account is the one that cannot be banned, deleted or demoted from these pages.

The Admin panel — All accounts

Every panel account is listed with its name, username, email address, Facebook link, role and status. From a row, an admin can:

All linked servers

Every server on the platform in one table — name, TCP port, UDP port, host, owner and live status — with two extra buttons:

Audit log

A record of the actions taken through the panel — who did what, and when. It is the place to look when a server's settings have changed and nobody is saying why.

From any server's own page, an admin can also Unbind it (unlink it from its account without touching the files or stopping the server) and Permanently delete it (stop it, remove it from the machine and unlink it, which cannot be undone).

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21. When something goes wrong

These are the messages the panel actually shows, and what each one means.

"The server did not start."
Nothing began accepting connections on the server's port. Usually the server software is not where the panel expects it, or the account the panel runs under cannot write inside the server's folder. The server log usually says which.
"The server could not be stopped."
The server is running under a different system account than the panel, which means the panel is not allowed to stop it — typically because it was started outside the panel, or as an administrator. Stop it once from wherever it was started, then start it again from the panel, and stop and restart will work normally from then on.
"The server stopped but did not come back up after restart."
The stop worked and the start did not, so the server is currently down. Start it again from the panel and read its log; a port already in use or a configuration problem are the usual causes.
"No TeamTalk server found on port X on this VPS."
When linking: no server on the machine uses that TCP port. Check the number against your TeamTalk client's connection settings.
"This port is already linked to another account."
Each server can be linked once. If it is yours and linked to an old account, an admin can unbind it so you can link it again.
"The TeamTalk SDK on this server cannot load ..."
From See online users: the panel's TeamTalk client library is installed, but a system library it depends on is not, and the message names which. An administrator fixes it once on the server itself — on Debian/Ubuntu, apt-get install -y libasound2 libpulse0 — after which the page answers normally. Reinstalling the Python package does not help here.
"I changed something and nothing happened."
Check which kind of change it was. Accounts and bans apply after Reload configuration. General settings, file storage, logging and channels apply after a restart. Channel changes have a restart box of their own, ticked by default.
"Stop this server first."
From the Unreferenced files page: deleting files is only safe while the server is stopped.
The status indicator says Unknown.
The panel could not reach its own status check, so it does not know either way. Reload the page; if it persists, the server's port may be unreachable from the panel.
Nothing arrived in my email.
Sign-in and password-reset codes do expire. Request a new code, and check spam and junk folders, and any filter that might be catching messages from the panel's address.
"That announcement ..." or a link that no longer works.
A revoked server URL stops working immediately, and a deleted announcement disappears for everyone. Both are deliberate.

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22. Keyboard and screen reader use

The panel is built to be used without a mouse and without seeing the screen, and several details exist purely for that:

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