Custom Shuffle starts playing stations not selected

[KRabbipal]

I have some Christmas stations selected for my current shuffle, and I noticed songs are playing from stations that are not currently selected to be shuffled. The screen shots show the stations the songs are a part of, and that those stations are not currently part of my selected shuffle stations. This has been happening ever since I selected all my Christmas stations and unselected the other ones.

[scQue814]

>From my personal XP in dealing with multiple devices...

Set up your shuffle on the device you feel absolutely the most comfortable using. (For me, that's the Android phone app.) Once you've got your stations set up, hit back button in the Android app... or the Now Playing button on desktop apps. 

LET IT PLAY FOR A COUPLE OF SONGS. 

Hit pause. 

Go to the other device you wish to use for streaming. Sign out of that device's app. 

Go back to the previous device where you set up your shuffle. Hit play again. Play a song or two. Hit pause.  

Return, again, to the devide you wish to use for streaming, and SIGN BACK IN. Enter into shuffle mode. 

You should be good to go. 

[What I've found: whatever device you've streamed last is the one whose shuffle list is considered primary. Yes, I can set up shuffle on the Mac desktop at work, but it's a huge pain in the **ahem** compared to the Android app. So I do this stupid dance every day--at least once!]   

@Pandora: Please streamline all apps to be as intuitive and easy to use as the Android app. Then we wouldn't have to worry about which app we use to set up our shuffle list!
~ Sc'Ericstate college, pa

[rocwind]

Well at least it's an answer. Problem is the other computer is down. No way
to get in it. I'll have to remember this step for when I get it back up
running. Thanks

[scQue814]

My point on the above post is that when you're using multiple devices, the last one you used for shuffle seems to be the prioritized shuffle-boss.

[rocwind]

Even if the other computer hadn't been used for 1 1/2 years to play
Pandora? and I opened a new account (canceled my original account in March
of 2020, did a new one in Oct of 2021)

[scQue814]

Doubtful.  We're talking about active devices here.  If you're signed out of that device, then it doesn't qualify.  The situation I run into is that Pandora app on the desktop Apple at work automatically logs you in and saves settings. So unless you actively sign out of that Pandora session, it will effectively continue it days later, even though you were listening on several other devices in the interim.  

Took me a while to figure this out.  Because when you close a program in Windows OS, you're killing the process entirely.  It's not running in the background. And the only reason it opens so smoothly is that I tell my home desktop to remember my password.  (I never did that on the machine at work. But Apple products have... different... security protocols. I hate Apple products for many reasons. This is one of them.)  

[rocwind]

I had a windows 7 desktop (that's the one that hasn't been used to play
Pandora in a while) and a windows 10 laptop. So no Apple devices.

[Nicksmith5311]

We use Pandora at work and every employee gets to choose a station to add to the shuffle while they’re working. When they aren’t working we turn their station off, but for some reason those stations still play even after they’re turned off. We aren’t deleting stations, just turning the blue shuffle sign off. We try resetting the webpage after turning them off, but that doesn’t work either. We listen online on the web app on a PC. Thanks!

[RetiredBill]

I am using Microsoft Edge browser on a Window 10 computer

[AdamPandora]

@Nicksmith5311 I moved your post over to this existing thread: Custom Shuffle starts playing stations not selected

Your feedback has been added to the ticket we have open with our engineering team as well.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++

It sounds like you're using Pandora to play music in a public setting (which is not considered personal use).

If so, we have a solution for you. Pandora is available and optimized for use in settings like these through Mood Media, with features like unlimited listening, no advertising, and a media player that can connect to your existing sound system.

Additionally, due to the terms of our music licenses, the consumer version of the Pandora service (including Pandora Plus and Pandora Premium) cannot legally be used to play music in a commercial or public setting. Any Pandora listening that isn't personal and private, even for non-profit or tax exempt organizations, must be properly licensed through Mood Media, which fairly compensates artists, authors, composers, publishers and other rightsholders.

Use of Pandora in these settings is available only via hardware sold by Mood Media. To learn more or sign up, click here.

Thanks for listening!

[scQue814]

Interesting. I had a previous employer who used Pandora in this capacity back in 2012.  He was always very adamant that staff did not touch the Pandora. Makes more sense now.  

That said... when users do use Pandora for private, personal use... do artists, authors, composers, publishers and other rightsholders *not* get properly compensated for their work?  I have friends who are musicians whose material is available on Pandora. And I would want to be sure that they are being compensated properly for streams--both public and private.  Please flesh this out better so we may better understand.  (Please leave this post in this thread... and also cross-post it to whatever more relevant thread so that we may all better understand.) 

Thank you, @AdamPandora ! 

[AdamPandora]

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

I look forward to hearing back.

[rocwind]

I don't understand your response. What does compensating artists have to do
with my desire to listen to Christmas stations only on Christmas day? I
owned a dog kennel that I used to listen to Pandora while I took care of
the dogs. While I was listening to music while I was at work, I was the
only one there, so I don't think that falls into public. I pay for Pandora
and I presume Pandora pays for the rights to the music they play. So,
again, I don't understand your response. My computer I had at work hasn't
played Pandora since I closed my business in March of 2020. It's upstairs
away from activities. I wanted to play Pandora on my laptop which is in the
dining room, so I can listen to music during my day. I signed up again for
Pandora in October 2021. On Christmas day I deselected ALL my other
stations, leaving ONLY Christmas stations selected. It would play 2 or 3
Christmas songs, then go back to my regular stations for several songs,
eventually going back to Christmas songs. My question is how do you get
Pandora to play ONLY the stations you select? Why did it keep playing music
I had removed? All I wanted was Christmas songs on Christmas day. Didn't
think it would be impossible. No help was available, so I ended up playing
the radio station Cozi 101 on my laptop. My question STILL has not been
answered by the way.

[pjeffers84]

Oh good Lord that is ridiculous! You should be able to set it up on one
device and be good to go. Thank you though for what works for you!

[pjeffers84]

I'm looking forward to hearing from them.

[JoshBranJones]

Happy New Year🎉

No matter what I do, no matter which device I use, no matter what stations I select, Shuffle continues to cycle all of my stations together. I've even tried deleting all my stations and bringing them back; the problem persists.

(For example: This month I was in TX, so I felt like listening to a Custom Shuffle tri-blend of my Hip Hop, R&B, and Country stations--- except I couldn't. I have to either choose only one of my stations, or I have to Shuffle all 70 of my stations together at once. My Shuffle ignores specific station selections.)

Are my custom stations broken? Is my profile broken?? Is Pandora broken???

I posted about this last year. The engineers never fixed it for me. Hopefully 2022 can be better.

[AdamPandora]

@JoshBranJones We have created a new ticket with our engineering team so they can help further investigate this issue.

Your feedback has been added to the ticket.

We appreciate your patience with this as they look into it. 🤝

[pjeffers84]

I found that after I changed my shuffled stations I needed to log out and
then log back in for the new mix to take effect.
I hope that helps some of you.

[scQue814]

I was trying to explain this through observational, fact-based replies... but no one seemed to get it.  To be clear though, @AdamPandora , this should *in no way* be viewed as a "feature"! 

User should have a contiguous experience from one session to the next--regardless of platform, or intermingling thereof!  

Hear me out: 

Y'all at Pandora broke it trying to build up based on broken/inadequate code many years ago, when you should have been looking to re-build from the bottom up while maintaining existing UI features.  Pandora did the former and failed. And then seemed to start doing the latter, and failed again.  I forgive you for this, because I understand how difficult it is to rework a live system. (You should not be implementing updates to a live system. You should be beta-testing.)   

The real problem arose when you tried to tell your customers that nothing changed... or that the problem doesn't exist... or that you're working on it (when you're not)... or when you chastise your customers for speaking their mind on the community forum you created to try to quell user dissatisfaction... or when you literally update a live system with programming changes that are faultier than the previous build WITHOUT BETA-TESTING IT. 

All of these things happened IN THE PAST.  But we can certainly move past it.  Because Pandora now seems to understand that errors were made along the way.   

But the biggest takeaway here (other than customer service, which is also much-much better, btw): 
BETA-TESTING is very important.  The speed at which you roll out updates is not, so long as you've not screwed the pooch during the past 12 iterations.  Each update should not leave the next generation of programmers baffled or stuck trying to undo faulty or malicious code.  (I can't say for certain that this happened, but I can say that it looked very much like it happened about 6 years ago.) 

Keep up your current customer service model with good community forum moderators.  This seems to be working.  And when you implement new code, please make sure it's quality tested to some degree before rolling it out. 

This has been THE MOST USEFUL thread I've seen since my time here, Pandora. Keep it up. 

[cherylann1965]

I am very comfortable navigating Pandora however I am experiencing a problem that I do not know how to fix.
I shuffle Christmas music during the holidays. I have changed what stations I want to shuffle but I am still getting holiday music in my shuffle. Since I am working on picking music for a spring wedding reception, having holiday music pop up now and then may be an interesting conversation starter but it really isn't what I want to hear at my reception.

Steps I have taken to resolve this issue include

*  Turning off shuffle and playing each of the individual stations I want to shuffle for about a half hour to make sure there is not a problem with any individual channels.

* Scrolling through my channel list, while in shuffle mode to make sure I did not forget to unselect one of my holiday music channels.

* Turning shuffle off for a few days to see if that would clear out the old holiday music.

* Logging out of Pandora and logging back in.

I do not know what else to do. I am one of those people who could listen to Christmas music all year round, but this is not one of those times where I want to be hearing it.

Thank you in advance for any suggestion on how to resolve this issue.

[AdamPandora]

@cherylann1965 I moved your post over to this existing thread: Custom Shuffle starts playing stations not selected

Your feedback has been added to the ticket we have open with our engineering team as well.

Thanks for your patience in the meantime!