Controls and Synchronization

The server owns radio state. Every control action updates one shared radio, while each client receives the best playback method it supports.

Radio menu

Depending on tier settings and access, the native menu can provide:

• play, pause, resume, and stop;
• previous and next track;
• direct track selection;
• loop or shuffle;
• queue management;
• shared radio volume;
• personal listener volume;
• hearing distance;
• accurate seek controls for compatible clients.

Tier settings can independently hide or lock playback actions. See Radio Tiers.

Access modes

Mode	Who controls the radio?
ADMIN_ONLY	Players with administrative control permission
TRUSTED_PLAYERS	Owner plus players trusted for that specific placed radio
ALL	Anyone who passes the tier's control permission

Trusted-player radios receive a five-character ID. Owners use that ID with /radio trust to list, add, or remove trusted players.

Mixed vanilla and modded listeners

Players with the optional client can join a currently playing radio at the exact server position. Vanilla resource-pack sounds cannot begin at an arbitrary timestamp, so each tier chooses a fallback:

vanilla-join-behavior	Result
PLAY_FROM_START	The entering vanilla player hears the active track from its beginning until the next global change.
RESTART_TRACK	The current track restarts for every listener.
WAIT_FOR_SYNC	The entering vanilla player remains silent until the next full track start.

Actions that synchronize everyone

Skipping, selecting another track, stopping, or starting a full track creates a common synchronization point for vanilla and modded listeners.

Seeking is different: modded listeners can move immediately, but vanilla listeners cannot. When vanilla listeners are nearby, the UI requests confirmation and shows the next synchronization state.

Synchronization chat alerts

Vanilla listeners can receive two independent kinds of chat alert:

• desynchronization alerts when their local playback cannot match the server timeline;
• synchronization alerts when playback reaches a shared synchronization point again.

Both preferences default to enabled. Players can change their global, persistent preferences with:

/radio desyncalert on|off
/radio syncalert on|off

Each tier can also enable or disable either alert category with playback.desynchronization-alert and playback.synchronization-alert. An alert is sent only when both the tier setting and the player's matching preference are enabled.

/radio mute and /radio streamermode temporarily suppress both kinds of chat alert while radio audio is muted. They do not change either saved alert preference. These controls affect chat only: radio-menu synchronization details and the action bar remain available according to their normal settings.

Positional behavior

sound:
  proximity: true
  directional-audio: true
  max-distance: 32.0
  falloff: LINEAR

• proximity enables distance-based playback.
• directional-audio moves audio between left and right based on radio direction.
• Set directional-audio: false to preserve distance attenuation while centering audio.
• falloff accepts LINEAR, SMOOTH, or NONE.

The optional client reproduces configured falloff more accurately. Vanilla playback still follows Minecraft's native positional sound rules.

Empty areas and restarts

pause-when-empty can pause a radio when no listeners remain inside empty-check-radius.

disable-on-server-restart: true leaves a placed radio stopped after restart. Set it to false to restore the saved playing state and position.