I used to use Pandora for about 2 hours every day and then have it on in the background every night when I slept. I've consistently used Pandora since 2007 or 2008 and have paid for a Pandora Premium account since 2021. I mainly used to use it on my Android Samsung Galaxy S21 5G (most current OS and Pandora version - I always keep my devices to to date with the latest updates) and my Windows 11 laptop.
Around March 2024, my Pandora voice assistant stopped working. It still opens the voice assistant to “hey Pandora” and the microphone pulses when I talk, but nothing is registered and it ends up closing with the “sorry I couldn't hear that” message. The voice assistant used to speak aloud but doesn't do that anymore either.
The Pandora app has permissions to everything but my contacts, location, and nearby devices. I've cleared the cache, cleared the data, updated the app, and uninstalled the app then reinstalled it. Considering I use Pandora every time I drive and my work commute is 1 hour, not having voice controls work is really inconvenient. I could work around it, but then recently things got worse.
Since May 2024, Pandora started freezing. Music would play in the background but there wouldn't be any way to control it - the app wouldn't take any input. Eventually my phone system would say an error occurred with the app and I'd have to force close the app. There is no definitive common trigger for this issue, but it tends to occur more when starting up the app (especially when trying to play it with Waze running in the background and the Waze navigation banner enabled in Pandora). Again, not good when I use Pandora while driving.
Since the end of July 2024, I'm starting to have issues with the Pandora website. I've started listening to Pandora in the background during work hours at my new job, thinking that I should get my money's worth of my Pandora Premium with that newly increased price, and since I was having issues with the app, why not try the website on my computer? Sadly, that didn't work either. The website will randomly start skipping through a song while playing a radio station. It jumps forward 5 or 10 seconds over and over again until I refresh the page or the website stops the song in the middle of playing/skipping through it to go on to the next song, only to have the same issue 4 songs later.
I'm tired of paying for something that doesn't work. I'm tired of constantly trying everything to get my Pandora working again. I'm tired of having thousands of songs thumbed up over 17 years and not being able to listen to them. Over the years, Pandora has introduced me to some of my favorite artists and I've bragged about Pandora being so much better than Spotify or YouTube to friends. I took pride in being a loyal Pandora customer since I was in middle school. I was so proud to finally join Pandora Premium and have access to unlimited skips. I'm not bragging anymore. I'm not proud anymore. And now I'm moving over to Spotify, despite seventeen years of loving Pandora. My Pandora Premium subscription is canceled, and I have started paying for Spotify. I miss Pandora already, but not the current one - I miss the Pandora I put 17 years of passion, enjoyment, and care into curating. I miss the Pandora that worked, not this mess of bugs and issues.
