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Symptoms: The status bar shows “Connecting…” indefinitely, or the app reports a login error immediately.Steps to resolve:
  1. Verify your username and password. Passwords are case-sensitive. Use Connection → Connect… (⌘K) to re-enter your credentials.
  2. Check that your Mac has a working internet connection.
  3. Confirm that outbound TCP connections on port 2242 (the default Soulseek server port) are not blocked by a firewall or corporate network policy.
  4. If the server is temporarily down, SeeleSeek will retry automatically using exponential backoff: it waits 5 s, then 10 s, then 30 s, then 60 s between attempts. The status bar shows “Reconnecting…” during this period. You do not need to do anything; the app will reconnect once the server is reachable again.
Auto-reconnect stops permanently if the server rejects your credentials (login failed). Correct your username and password before trying again.
Symptoms: Downloads show a speed close to zero, or all queued files remain in “Queued” state for a long time.Steps to resolve:
  • The remote user may have all their upload slots occupied. This is normal; SeeleSeek will poll for a free slot automatically. You can see your queue position in the Downloads view.
  • Check your own download slot limit in Network Settings under Max download slots (default: 5). If you have hit the limit, pause or remove a stalled transfer.
  • A download speed limit set in Network Settings under Download limit may be capping your throughput. Set it to 0 (unlimited) to remove the cap.
  • Open the Network Monitor (⌘8) to check whether any active transfers are making progress. A transfer showing 0 B/s for several minutes is likely stalled and can be cancelled and re-queued.
Symptoms: Peers can find you in search results but downloads fail to start, or you see frequent “Can’t connect to peer” errors in the Activity Log.SeeleSeek uses UPnP or NAT-PMP to automatically map your listen port on your router. The default listen port is 2234.If UPnP is enabled (default):SeeleSeek attempts to map port 2234 in the background, a few seconds after login. Check the Activity Log for a “NAT mapped port 2234” entry. If you see “NAT mapping failed” instead, your router may not support UPnP, or UPnP may be disabled in the router’s admin panel.If you prefer manual port forwarding:
  1. Go to Settings → Network and disable Enable UPnP/NAT-PMP.
  2. In your router’s admin panel, create a TCP port forwarding rule pointing external port 2234 to your Mac’s local IP address on the same port.
  3. Restart the connection in SeeleSeek.
To change the listen port:Go to Settings → Network → Listen port. You must reconnect after changing this value for the new port to take effect.
Even without a working NAT mapping, SeeleSeek can still receive files through server-mediated (indirect) connections. Direct connections are faster, but most downloads will still work through indirect routing.
Symptoms: Searches complete but the results list is empty, or results stop arriving after a few entries.Steps to resolve:
  1. Try a shorter, more common query. Very specific or uncommon searches may genuinely return few results.
  2. Check your result cap in General Settings under Max results (default: 500). Setting this lower will cut off results early.
  3. Verify that you are connected to the server (green status indicator). Searches submitted while disconnected are silently discarded.
  4. If you see results from only a handful of peers, it may indicate a problem with your position in the distributed search network. Disconnecting and reconnecting usually resolves this.
Symptoms: One or more downloads remain in the “Queued” state and never start.Possible causes and fixes:
  • Remote user is offline or has closed the app. The transfer will remain queued until they reconnect. You can remove it and try a different source.
  • Remote user’s upload slots are full. SeeleSeek automatically retries. Your position in the queue is shown in the Downloads view.
  • Firewall is blocking the incoming connection from the peer. Ensure your listen port (default 2234) is reachable. See the Firewall / NAT section above.
  • You have reached your max download slots. Pause or cancel another active download to free a slot.
Symptoms: SeeleSeek was connected, then you changed Wi-Fi networks, woke your Mac from sleep, or switched from Wi-Fi to Ethernet — now the app shows as disconnected and does not recover.SeeleSeek detects connection loss through keepalive pings sent to the server every 5 minutes. When a ping fails, the app triggers an automatic reconnect using the same exponential backoff schedule (5 s → 10 s → 30 s → 60 s).If the app does not reconnect on its own within a few minutes, click the status indicator in the toolbar and choose Reconnect, or go to File → Reconnect.
After a network change, the old listen port mapping registered with your router is no longer valid. SeeleSeek re-runs UPnP/NAT-PMP setup after each successful reconnect, so the mapping is refreshed automatically.
Symptoms: The Activity Log shows “Kicked: another client logged in” and SeeleSeek disconnects without retrying.This means the Soulseek server received a login from a different client using your credentials. This could be another copy of SeeleSeek, a different Soulseek client on another device, or an unauthorised use of your account.SeeleSeek deliberately does not auto-reconnect in this situation, because doing so would create a reconnect loop with the other client. To resume:
  1. Identify and close the other client.
  2. Change your Soulseek password at slsknet.org if you suspect unauthorised access.
  3. Click Reconnect in SeeleSeek.

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Reporting bugs

If you encounter a problem not covered here, please open an issue on GitHub with a description of what you did, what you expected, and what happened instead.

GitHub Issues

Report a bug or request a feature
When reporting a crash or unexpected disconnect, the Console app (search for “seeleseek” in the subsystem filter) contains detailed logs that are helpful to include.