post Re: iOS: Unable to play Pandora with Siri when phone is locked in iOS

iOS: Unable to play Pandora with Siri when phone is locked

Strongarm1731 — Mon, 02 Oct 2023 17:21:15 GMT

I've got a 12 pro max on iOS 17.0.2

After dealing with this forever I finally decided to search for an answer.

Theres a thread from 2021 which states this issue was fixed with a Pandora firmware update, however it's October 2023 and this is definitely still an issue.

Can someone tell me how I can fix this?

Moderator Edit: Changing title for clarity

Re: Unable to play Pandora with Siri when phone is locked

TannerPandora — Mon, 02 Oct 2023 17:20:56 GMT

Hi @Strongarm1731 Welcome to community. Sorry to hear you're having trouble playing Pandora with Siri.

I'm on iOS 17.0.2 myself and I tried some testing with my iPhone. Unfortunately, I've been unable to replicate your experience. Siri was able to play Pandora even while the phone was locked.

I'm happy to pass this along to our engineering team for a closer look. Can you please confirm the following information:

1. Which Pandora version are you on? Let me know if you need help finding this.

2. Please confirm that 'Allow Siri When Locked' is enabled from your phone Settings. From your phone, visit Settings > Siri & Search > Allow Siri When Locked.

Thanks for the help!

Re: iOS: Unable to play Pandora with Siri when phone is locked

Strongarm1731 — Thu, 05 Oct 2023 04:00:29 GMT

So when your phone is locked, and the Pandora app isnt already open in the background, you're able to say "hey Siri, open Pandora" and she'll actually open it up WHILE the phone is locked, without it already being open in the background behind the lock screen?

If the app is already open in the background either playing music or paused and my phone is locked, yes using Siri is no problem.

However when asking her to open it with the phone locked she ALWAYS says "please unlock your phone first".

Re: iOS: Unable to play Pandora with Siri when phone is locked

TannerPandora — Thu, 05 Oct 2023 17:40:36 GMT

Thanks for the follow up, @Strongarm1731.

Requesting Siri to open apps while the phone is locked is a iOS level feature. Unfortunately, Pandora doesn't have control over this. I should note that this experience is not limited to Pandora. Siri will request to unlock your phone for other apps as well.

However, you should still be able use voice commands to request Pandora to play music while the phone is locked and Pandora is not in the background.

Re: Unable to play Pandora with Siri when phone is locked

Xjohnmadden — Sun, 01 Mar 2026 16:25:27 GMT

Hey it’s march 1 2026 and I found out how to make this work you go into settings> Siri settings>click apps> and scroll to pandora & click use with Siri request hope this helps somebody