Android: Stations Switch Unprompted

[ChristinaATL]

How do I stop at my stations from automatically switching? I can be listening to one station or album and then Boom! A switch sound occurs and it goes to another station. it's frustrating. I have a subscription but I'm about over this! I could be listening to Drake and then it'll automatically change to my customized gospel station.  Ugghhhh 

Moderator Edit: Changed title for clarity

[BeachGeek]

When I originally had the problem and posted here was years back.
I don't really remember.
Haven't had a problem lately, but I'm on free plan. If I remember
correctly, originally it would jump drop whatever I was listening to, and
play an offline station.
But really, it was so long ago, I don't clearly remember.

[traci]

This is happening to me too. I have just opened a case about it under support. This happens when I am listening to a station I have picked. It switches to a different station that I didn't choose. I am listening to the Pandora App in Android Auto. My phone is a Samsung Z Fold 5 and all my programs are up to date. My carrier is T-Mobile. I am listening on mobile data, no need for android auto when I am home in my living room.  I am a premium user. Your program switches from my station Meg Radio to a different Station Meg Christian Radio. I have gone through the troubleshooting steps. Furthermore, your program won't let me switch back to Meg Radio when I go to the list where you choose stations and pick Meg Radio. It persists in playing Meg Christian Radio even though I manually picked Meg Radio. The only way I can switch back to the station I want to listen to is to take my phone out of my pocket, launch Pandora, and manually switch to Meg Radio. As you can imagine this is a very dangerous maneuver while I am driving and the fact that I do it should tell you just how irritated and frustrated I am that your program is telling me which station to listen to and it won't let me change back to the station I want to listen to.  I didn't do anything to be able to listen offline on either station. It sounds like a neat feature, and I would like that capability for both stations. But first, you need to fix this problem, or you will lose a premium user. I will not tolerate your program dictating which station I listen to. I will select the station I want to listen to, or I won't use your service.

This is not a solution. Marking it as having a solution probably makes you less likely to actually find a solution. You just offered troubleshooting advice, no fix for the actual problem.

FYI, autoplay was already turned off on my phone and i have this problem. I am glad it worked for you but I am putting this here so that the tech support people won't think this problem is solved. Pandora, this doesn't fix the problem for me.

Just touching base with you. The hype on the support page says you guys monitor the community 24/7 so I thought someone might have gotten back to me after my post last night. Still early days so I am not upset or anything but I wanted to be sure you were still monitoring this thread.  Even if you don't yet have a real reply for me, please let me know you saw my message. Thanks.

Moderator Edit: Merged comments

[AdamPandora]

@traci I definitely understand your frustration.

When you have the chance, can you send over a bit more info about your device?

• Model: Samsung Z Fold 5 
• Carrier: T-Mobile
• Android version (Settings > About Phone):
• Build number (Settings > About Phone):
• Android Security Patch Level, if noted on your device (Settings > About Phone):
• Pandora version:
  • If you can open Pandora, go to Profile, then select Settings. Scroll to the bottom of the screen for the version number.
  • If you can't open Pandora: from Android Home screen > Android Settings > Applications > Manage Applications > Find Pandora

Additionally:

• Does this only occur when streaming Pandora through Android Auto? Or does it also occur when streaming directly from your phone?
• Are you using voice commands when connected to Android Auto?

Let me know what you can find out.

---

In the meantime, I've enabled a trace on your account to help me further investigate. For this trace to be useful, please clear the app data and cache on your Samsung with the following steps:

1. Open your device Settings
2. Tap Apps
3. Scroll down to find Pandora
4. Select Storage
5. On the storage details page tap Clear Data.

When these steps have been correctly completed you will be asked to log back into your account. Please note, as Premium subscriber, you may need to re-download some of your offline content after completing these steps.The next time a station changes, please note the time and date and I can take a closer look.

Use your mobile device only when conditions allow and as permitted by applicable law.

[traci]

Android Version 14
Build number UP1A.231005.007.F946USQS4CXG6
Security patch level August 1, 2024
Pandora Version 2407.1.1 (ANDROID - TUNER 24071101)

I mostly listen to Pandora in my car via Android Auto. I don't know if it
would do it if I listened on my phone or my smart TV more often. I can tell
you that the change it makes is uniform across all my devices so if it has
hijacked Meg Radio and changed it to Meg Christian Radio it will be Meg
Christian Radio on my phone and also on my smart TV.

I am using the touch screen on my infotainment center in my Chevrolet Bolt
EV 2020. I don't trust voice control, in the old days you never knew what
would happen and I can't get used to over riding my sense of caution now.

I cleared it and i have started the downloading process again on my
stations.

Thanks for your help.

Traci

[AdamPandora]

@traci Thanks for following up.

I do see you currently have two stations created from the same artist:

• Meg Christian Radio (this appears to be the station you created first, and has the most thumb ratings) 
• Meg Radio (this appears to be a newer station that was recently created)

I recommend deleting the newer station (Meg Radio) to avoid any future confusion with this.

Let me know if you'd like to proceed.

[traci]

No, that is totally unacceptable. I have curated both stations for
different moods and I want to listen to both of them when I am in the mood.
I just want to listen to the one i want to listen to without Pandora
deciding to switch between them without any instruction from me. We need to
solve the problem with the operation of your program, not trash my
carefully thought out content that I have actually spent years developing.

[dhaag23]

Could it be that people are getting switched to an offline station? Perhaps with some devices/os's the algorithm is more sensitive and switches offline more easily. People should have heard the clip that plays when you go offline though.

[traci]

It is hard to know if the problem is under control because it seemed to happen at random. But, it hasn't happened in several days and I have a hypothesis about why. Someone else said their problem went away when they went to settings, advanced and turned off autoplay. Autoplay was already turned off on my phone, so I didn't think that had anything to do with it in my case. However, there is another similar option in advanced settings, auto-start, which was turned on. It seemed similar enough to autoplay that it might cause similar problems, so I turned it off. Since I turned off auto-start the problem has not reappeared. Again, that could just be a coincidence, and it may fail tomorrow, but it is encouraging.

Turning off autoplay or auto-start, both fall under the heading of workarounds, not solutions. Bottom line is that there shouldn't be any possibility that Pandora will switch stations unprompted. The fact that it does is a major bug. Pandora should make fixing that bug a priority because it has gone on years too long. A workaround will keep me happy for a while, but I had turned on auto-start because I wanted that functionality.  The work around means I sacrifice that functionality and none of us should have to do that. When we put the program on a station it should stay on that station until we explicitly change the station. I want it to stay on the station I put it on no matter what choices I make in settings and no matter if the change happens during the switch from online to offline mode. If you don't want to make that the program default, at least give us a setting that will let us turn on 'never change stations unprompted'.