What happened to vTuner on Hi-Fi receivers?

If the Internet Radio menu on your Denon, Marantz, Yamaha, Onkyo or Pioneer suddenly shows an error or an empty list, you are not alone — and your receiver isn’t broken.

vTuner was the directory behind the menu

For years, the “Internet Radio” (or NET RADIO) feature on these receivers didn’t hold the station list itself. Each time you opened it, the receiver quietly asked a company called vTuner for the directory of stations. vTuner returned the folders — by country, by genre — and the receiver displayed them.

The directory became paid, then unreachable

Around 2020, vTuner turned its once-free directory into a paid, restricted service. Manufacturers handled it differently: some newer models were migrated to a different provider (Yamaha’s later MusicCast models moved to airable.radio, for example), but huge numbers of older receivers were left behind. On many of them the directory became unavailable or unreliable, and from around January 2025 a lot of receivers simply stopped getting a reply.

The result is the symptom everyone recognises: Server error, “Please go to denon.vtuner.com”, a request for a vTuner access code, or a station list that comes up empty.

Why the rest of the receiver still works

Because only the directory disappeared — not the receiver’s streaming ability. Your media server (DLNA), your saved favourites and any built-in Spotify or Bluetooth all keep working, because they don’t depend on vTuner. Only the browsable station list is missing.

How to get stations back

Retune·FM puts a working directory back behind the same menu. You change one setting on the receiver — its DNS server — and the Internet Radio list loads again, with no app and no account. See the how it works overview, or jump straight to your brand.