Android: Pandora Voice Search Does Not Respond to Commands

[MusicFan78989]

All of a sudden, voice search has stopped working. It will respond to, "Hey, Pandora" and open the search screen. When I speak, "Play...", the microphone icon pulses to the rhythm of my words, showing that it hears them. But nothing else happens. Then it usually returns back to the homepage. Yesterday, it crashed and restarted instead.

This is the same non-response, whether I am using wifi or cellular. 

I have double checked that the app has permission to use my mic and the voice search is on (again, this started on its own, without having made any changes). I tried clearing all the app's data, updating the app, completely uninstalling and reinstalling, and double-checking it can run in the background without optimizing the battery. I just cleared out more memory on my phone too.

Still no change. Texting and emailing support just sends me back the same response on how to turn on Voice Search. It's on. I never turned it off. Now what?

Moderator Edit: Edited title for clarity *** I'm so mad that a moderator changed my title to "Not responding to Hey, Pandora. IT IS RESPONDING TO "HEY, PANDORA". THEN NOTHING HAPPENS. This is exactly the  obtuse support problem that led me to post this comment. I keep saying, over and over, to every support person, that the voice search will open but then it does not search anything. I keep getting back the same gibberish on how to turn on voice search. SEARCH IS ON. IT DOES NOT WORK.

[Awwcool22]

It seems Pandora doesn't care. I've already cancelled after being a premium
subscriber for over 10yrs.

[ballroompics]

@MusicFan78989 

I have added my voice to the chorus and created a ticket. I pointed back to this conversation in the ticket.  S21 Ultra, Android 14. Cleared cache (both app cache and cache partition) and uninstalled/reinstalled.

It's worth noting that the behavior is the same whether you say "Hey Pandora" or instead touch the microphone button (it goes to listening for your command mode but nothing happens).

I suspect that "hey pandora" is processed locally in the phone and that's why that works to activate the listening but that the actual directive commands (play Lana Del Ray, etc) are uploaded to their service for voice processing. This leads me to believe the problem is either in the transmission of the command to pandora servers or the commands are getting transmitted successfully but the software on the pandora servers is failing. 

It could be something as simple as a blocked port on their firewall - but that should have been found and remediated very quickly.

Pandora the company should note that this is a bit of a safety issue as many of us use voice commands while driving in preference to using the touchscreen.

[ballroompics]

@AdamPandora 

Would it be fair to get a status back from the company posted publicly here? 

With at least 5 months of troubleshooting efforts under their belt,  Pandora must know the problem source - even if a solution is not yet available. 

When we on the customer side of things just have silence for months, it undermines confidence. 

A status update would be very welcome. Something more than a generic "our engineers are working on the problem".

Thank you.

[AlyssaPandora]

Pandora Update (07.02.24): Hi friends 👋

Thank you for your valuable feedback and for taking the time to report this issue. We understand how frustrating this must be. While there are no updates to provide right now, rest assured that our moderation team has carefully compiled all the feedback we have received around this issue and have shared it with the appropriate engineering team for investigation.

Due to the nature of this issue and the effort across teams to investigate, we’re unable to provide an estimated timeline for a fix. We apologize for the inconvenience around these functions and features.  Thank you for appreciate your continued patience during this process. 🎧