Desktop: Locked out of Pandora after adding Surfshark VPN

[ccmovinon]

Shortly after purchasing Surfshark VPN I have not been able to use Pandora.  It tells me that I have my ad blocker on when I have turned it off for Pandora.  I have disabled Surfshark thinking that might be the problem and still the same result - no music and told to disable my ad-blocker.  Any suggestions out there?

[AlyssaPandora · Accepted solution]

Hey, @ccmovinon. 👋

Sorry to hear that you're having trouble accessing Pandora.

Using a VPN can reroute your internet connection while using Pandora. Unfortunately, using a VPN while trying to stream Pandora is not currently supported.

We recommend checking if you can make an exception for Pandora in your VPN settings, or if you can safely disable any VPN connections while listening to Pandora. You may want to contact the support team of your VPN for further assistance.

To avoid experiencing any listening issues, you can find steps on how to add Pandora to the allowlist in your ad blocker on our help page.

Hope this helps. Let me know how it goes. 🎧

[MilesMonk]

None of these solutions are acceptable.  I whitelisted Pandora in my Surfshark VPN and I still cannot connect either using the PC desktop app or through Chrome.  

This must be a bug on the Pandora side because I have whitelisted the websites for the financial institutions I use and those work fine. And I'm sure Bank of America and Citibank have much higher security requirements than Pandora.

Please provide a workable solutions.

[puddecrew3]

I’m having the same issue and unfortunately VPNs are for exactly that, privacy.  I am a bay area local and have remained loyal to pandora for its oakland roots.  But with increasing number of apps (pandora now included) wanting more continued access to our data (even for validation can be done other ways), Im going to need to use other services for music if this isn’t fixed.  I happily listen to ads to generate you revenue, now you want me to be forced to go elsewhere for music.  Unfortunate to disrespect my right to privacy by blocking a service entirely.

[Warrenpitt]

I’m no expert in this field, but having the same problem I have a solution. However, I use NordVPN and not Surf Shark, so it still depends. So, usually, a VPN and a proxy server both mask your IP address and basically do the same thing. However, VPN does more than a proxy. It also encrypts the data you send and receive, as I’ve understood. And that’s why sometimes it glitches and does not do its thing correctly. Maybe it was a problem exclusively with NordVPN. So the single solution I found is to use a proxy server and not the VPN. I moved from NordVPN to https://soax.com/india-vpn-proxy-chrome-extension, it’s still very comfortable as an extension and does work properly. I think that every proxy will work though.

[crawforda29rsu]

it keeps getting blocked