Amazon Alexa: Won't Play Requested Station

[gprayback]

Recently stations that have always worked with the Pandora skill on an Alexa device have stopped working. I'll say something like "tell Pandora to play the station calm yoga music." Until recently, it would play  my station which matches that name. But recently it has stopped finding some stations. And once it loses it, it will never find it again. It feels like there's a cache or something that's storing names of recently played stations and if it isn't in the cache, the Pandora skill won't find it from the Alexa device. It's quite frustrating because this is the only way I listen to my music and I have to keep going to the Alexa app and finding my Pandora stations there. I don't understand why the Pandora skill can't find them.

[KeithRieger]

Add me to the list. Same issue for the past year.

[AdamPandora]

@schmerlerb I moved your post over to this existing thread: Amazon Alexa: Won't Play Requested Station

I noticed you had a number of deleted stations with Forever in their name - I went ahead and restored all of them. Feel free to delete the ones you don't actually want in your collection.

In the meantime your feedback has now been added to the ticket we have open with the engineers who are looking into this.

You can use the following steps as a work-around to listen to a station on your Alexa device:

• Open the Pandora app and start your station.
• Next open the Alexa App and tap Play in the bottom navigation menu.
• Locate the same station in Pandora section found under Recently Played.
• Tap on the station to choose your preferred speaker.

We appreciate your understanding as we work on this.

[67]

ok here is my 2 cents worth. After trying all kinds of fixes I decided to just change the name of my pandora stations that Alexa seemed to have lost. This problem was mostly on my routines. So I added the word "new" to the stations I was looking for such as Austin Radio became New Austin Radio, Folk Radio became New Fold Radio. This seems too easy of a fix so I will wait and see how long this works but for right now my routines are finding those stations. Good Luck guys

[nw62]

Whoa. This works! And ... amusingly, you can then change your station name back!

I just tried it: Changed my "Blah Blah" station (not real name) to New Blah Blah ... get alexa to play it ... works! (you may have a wait a minute or two after changing the name). Then went back and edited the station name back to just Blah Blah. And ... now it also still works!

No idea yet how permanent this sort of fix might be.

[67]

I am also not sure how long this fix will work.
Thanks for reply

Sent from my iPhone

[bbells]

That is what I did. I am on the third changed name at this time.

[67]

That’s what I was afraid of. Nothing is ever easy.. oh well …

Sent from my iPhone

[tubalove]

I just tried the New Blah Blah Blah and it worked for me as well. Thanks for that ingenious effort. Now we'll see how permanent it is.

[67]

Unfortunately “bbells” says its temporary.

Sent from my iPhone

[bhhales]

I'm glad this worked for most of y'all. Unfortunately it did not work for me. At first when I asked for the new station name she kept saying she could not play the old station name. Eventually I got her to see the new station name but she still said she could not play it. Good idea though, one I had considered but had not tried.

Barry

[tubalove]

All three of my "new" stations worked today. Ironically I lost five of my old ones. I don't think I like the trade-off. Ha ha ha

[67]

Sorry to hear that. I have not noticed any lost stations…yet. Hey even that huge rocket blew up. Surely Pandora/Amazon should come up with a real fix. Sad.

Sent from my iPhone

[TannerPandora]

Pandora Update: 4/26/23

Ahoy! A recent fix was pushed out that is believed to have helped resolve the issue with Alexa not playing requested personalized stations. Please try again and let us know if you continue to have trouble.

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Pandora Update: 1/19/23

Hello! Thank you for continuing to post your experience around Alexa not able to play requested stations.

Our engineering team is aware of this and working with Amazon to further investigate. Unfortunately, this investigation has taken more time as this issue is more complicated than originally thought.

We understand that this is a frustrating experience and apologizes for the continued inconvenience.

All users who have posted on this thread have been added to our existing ticket. For any new user, please feel free to post and you will be added to the ticket.

Please keep in mind that this thread is only for users who are running into trouble when requesting a station on Alexa. If you're experiencing another issue with Alexa, please create a new post or review the current threads that may be similar.

Moderators will continue to update this thread with any new information as it is provided to us. In the meantime, you can use the following steps as a work-around to listen to a station on your Alexa device:

• Open the Pandora app and start your station.
• Next open the Alexa App and tap Play in the bottom navigation menu.
• Locate the same station in Pandora section found under Recently Played.
• Tap on the station to choose your preferred speaker.

We appreciate your continued understanding as we work on this.

[fcorral]

Worked for me!

[TannerPandora]

Thanks for the follow up, @fcorral! 🙌

[67]

Great!!

Well I tried the Pandora fix suggested by Pandora and it did not work for me. So I will continue using the renaming of the stations “unable to find your station on Pandora” fix. ☹️

Sent from my iPhone

Moderator Edit: Merged posts

[tubalove]

For now, at least, renaming my stations as New this or New that is working. How odd. Meanwhile I find it strange that the actual professional technicians have otherwise come up empty handed.

[67]

So far mine are still working on my alexa routines which is where I first encountered to problem. Like I indicated on a previous posting the pandora suggested fix does not work on my routines…go figure

Sent from my iPhone

[Gar]

Problem seems to be resolved for me! I'm so proud. 6 months of work and we're back where we were 10 years ago!

[gprayback]

Hello, the fix has not improved my experience at all. Nothing has changed. All of the stations that could not be found through Alexa voice commands continue to not play through voice commands. Alexa will report, "I can't find the station (station name) on Pandora," for all of them. No improvement.