Desktop: Music Stops and Starts

[wemnarr]

I have had Pandora for about 10 years now, maybe more, and I've always loved the platform and the music selection and I've discovered a lot of great music through Pandora Radio, however, in the last couple of years, frequency has been sporadic, I've had several occasions where my music would just not buffer.  The songs playing stop and play, stop and play, repeatedly. I thought it was my connection, but I always wondered why no other internet-based applications suffered. This has been on various Android devices throughout the time with Pandora. Today, I've been playing the Pandora Radio on my laptop, and I am not giving anymore excuses for Pandora.
My laptop has 150 mb/s download and 235 mb/s upload speeds, yet Pandora radio still suffers to buffer music and continues to stop and play music within just a few seconds of time between.  Now that you know my frustration is justified - Dear Pandora:

Please, I don't know how you invest the money you receive for your services, but a company on the path to improving customer experience does not neglect such an important issue. By looking on this community board, I see I'm not the only one... Here is some feedback I hope your developers and management teams take into consideration - 

1. Work out this buffering kink and try to provide music services on even the worst of internet connections, at least on general internet connections. You'll be surprised how much this matters to your users. 

2. Side note, provide more variety. When I play a station I've played before, I don't want to hear the same 10-15 songs over and over again. I want to play music similar to that artist/song, but not the same music as I've listened to on previous days. I know of the button that can say 'don't play this song for a while', but I don't want to keep clicking that - it's not a fair compromise for me. If anything, offer a one-button/feature that doesn't play the same songs for 50 songs and 100 songs of my history, whether I turn off the app and open it back up another day, the rules would still apply. 

I've stopped paying for services because of these two deal-breakers. I've begun to turn to alternatives such as Youtube Playlists and specific car radio apps. If I see these two requests fulfilled, I will pay for your services again; and I think I speak on behalf of many, many users who are unspoken.

Thanks for reading - good luck

Final Thought: Put funding into improving the user experience. Your software developers are your biggest asset, don't neglect their importance.

mod edit: changed title for clarity

[AlyssaPandora · Accepted solution]

Thanks so much for your continued support over the years, @wemnarr. 

Taking the time to provide your genuine feedback is much appreciated.  

You are a valuable part of our listening audience, and we respect your opinion.

Sounds like you have some great ideas and creating feature requests can help us improve the service.

Feel free to create one here. 

++

Repetition:

It's true there can be a certain amount of repetition in some stations. Each listener has different tastes when it comes to hearing the familiar versus discovering new songs. Finding the right balance for each individual is something we continue to work on.

In the meantime, here are some things you can do to improve your stations:

1. Listen using Pandora Modes when listening from a computer or mobile device, you can access Pandora Modes to customize your station experience. You can pick different modes like Crowd Faves, Discovery and Deep Cuts.
2. Put tracks on the shelf: If you get sick of a track but don't want to give it a Thumbs Down, you can put it on the shelf for a while. To do this from the web, hover your mouse over the album art and select "I'm tired of this track." Pandora Premium listeners should click the ellipsis (3 dots) next the album art to see that option.
3. Edit your station: In some cases, it might actually help to remove Thumbs Up ratings in the station to mix things up.
4. Add Variety: To add more variety to your artist or song based stations, you can select additional artist and/or song seeds. You can Add Variety when editing stations.

This should help increase the variety of the station you're hearing repetition on pretty quickly.

Hope this information is helpful. See ya around the community! 🎶

[Gerberd]

I have the same issues .today I am going to cancel my subscription 

[AlyssaPandora]

Hi there, @Gerberd. 👋

Sorry to hear that you're having trouble during your listening sessions. I'm happy to help troubleshoot.

Could you share more about how you're listening?

• MAC or Windows computer?
• Pandora Desktop App?
• Or, are you using a web browser? If so, which one?
• Are you receiving any error messages? If so, what exactly does it say?

Let me know, and I can help. 🎧

[jeffkemp5280]

same problem, sometimes I can't even listen to 1 song, hit forward to start another song then maybe I'll get through another song if I'm lucky

tried Chrome and Safari on Macbook Pro

been a paid customer for several years, on the verge of cancelling since it almost never works anymore

[AlyssaPandora]

Hi there, @jeffkemp5280. 👋

Sorry to hear that you're having trouble during your listening sessions. I completely understand how frustrating this can be.

Could you let me know if you receive any error messages when this happens? If so, what exactly does it say?

++

Troubleshooting:

In the meantime, I’ve enabled a trace on your Pandora account to help us better understand what’s happening. For this trace to be useful, we’ll need you to run through our troubleshooting steps for the browser you prefer to use most.

• Safari Troubleshooting
• Chrome Troubleshooting

Another option is to try using the Pandora Desktop App for Mac computers. If you're interested, you can install the Pandora desktop app from a Mac computer here.

Open the downloaded file and follow the prompts to complete the installation. Please note, minimum System Requirements: Mac OS 10.10 Yosemite or later.

If the browser specific steps don't work, you can try rebooting your connection.

1. Shut down your device completely;
2. Unplug your modem and router, wait one full minute, and then plug them back in;
3. Wait five more minutes to allow the modem and router to fully boot back up;
4. Turn your device back on and try Pandora again.

If Pandora still isn't working, could you check if you're able to connect to your network using another streaming service, such as YouTube?

I hope this helps. Feel free to let me know how it goes. If the issue persists, I can report this over to our engineering team on your behalf. 🎧

[ronqali]

Same here exactly...HELP

[AlyssaPandora]

Hey, @ronqali. 👋

Thanks for posting!

Could you share a bit more about how you're listening when this happens?

• MAC or Windows computer?
• Pandora Desktop App?
• Or, are you using a web browser? If so, which one?
• Are you receiving any error messages? If so, what exactly does it say?

Let me know, and I can send over some troubleshooting steps. 🎧

[ronqali]

Using Windows desktop in Microsoft Edge 

[AlyssaPandora]

@ronqali Thanks for getting back to me with that information.

A lot of times quitting your browser completely, re-opening it and going back to pandora.com can help.

To check if this is a browser-related issue, you could try to open Pandora in a separate browser, such as Google Chrome or Mozilla Firefox:

• To install Chrome, go here.
• To install Firefox, go here.

++

If you prefer to use Edge and re-opening your browser hasn't helped, try these steps:

1. Clear your browser's history, cache and cookies.
   • Click on the three dots in the top right (located on the browser toolbar).
   • Select Settings
   • Select Choose what to clear under the Clear browsing data title.
   • Check the boxes for Browsing History, Cookies and saved website data and Cashed data and files.
   • Click Clear.
2. Turn off extensions like Disable HTML5 Autoplay, Adblock, and NoScript, or allow www.pandora.com within them.
3. If you are using an internet firewall or anti-virus program, it could be blocking portions of our site. Try allowing access to www.pandora.com within those programs, and then try visiting our site again. If this doesn't help, then try disabling such programs entirely as a test to see if this affects your issue.

Once you've completed this, restart your computer and then try loading pandora.com again.

Let me know how it goes. 🎧

[AmyBeeBee]

I added Pandora to my Adblock "allow list" and my spontaneous stop/play has ceased - so far. Although - I do not understand why adding Pandora to Adblock's "allow" list would affect the playback when I have premium - meaning NO ADS. This makes NO SENSE. 😞 Thanks for the problem solve though, it was getting frustrating having my song stop half-way through and having to skip to the next song in order for my playlist to continue. >o<

[willowmoon]

I am having the same problem & it's not just on my desktop at work, it is also on my android & my Roku.

If it does not get fixed soon, I will cancel my subscription.

[AdamPandora]

@willowmoon I'd be happy to help with any questions you have, but I will need additional information to do so.

Can you explain your issue a bit further?

1. Is there an error message? If so, what does it say?
2. Can you provide me with a screenshot of what you're seeing?

The more details you're able to provide, the better equipped I'll be to help.

I look forward to hearing back.