Great callout about station list length, thank you. ... View more

@johnmnagy Thank you for reporting. I'll raise your report internally. In the meantime, one other workaround to try in this scenario, which may get you out of the broken state and would give us more info on the root problem: Try searching for and adding a new station that's not already in your collection. This would cause the station to be added to your station list, forcing a refresh of the station list. Knowing whether this fixes the issue will also help us to better understand the remaining issue. Can others on this thread also please let us know if/when they see any issues of this nature after the third patch (essentially, after August 15)? ... View more

My daughter put a tooth under her pillow last night and woke up with a bit of cash in its place. I'd call that magic. Maybe something like that could help with the billions as well? Though, that much magic probably requires an OS release. 😆 Joking aside, I'm really, really glad to hear that the patch (along with the passage of time 😃) is doing what it set out to do, and a bit more. I only wish we'd managed to address this sooner. ... View more

Thanks @johnmnagy! We've pushed the update to 100% automatic updates, so it should start to install itself on people's TVs over the next day or two. Any/all, please continue to let us know if you run into issues of this nature. ... View more

The latest patch, 2305.2.3, is available in the tvOS App Store as of this morning. We're letting it sit at 1% *automatic* updates for a day so it won't auto-update quite yet, but anyone can update by going to the Pandora page on the App Store. Tomorrow, we'll evaluate metrics to ensure things look good -- plus will keep an eye on this thread -- then ramp to 100% if so. Thanks everyone for your patience through this process. Please report back if this addresses the lockout issue, or if you still experience that particular problem. ... View more

The latest patch is currently waiting for review with Apple. This fixes issue 1 (we believe for real this time). Issues 2 and 3 are not being addressed at this time, as our focus has been on the issue from this topic. Notes 4 and 5 are very interesting. The basic music screen saver (point 4) may come as a result of compiling our code against a more recent operating system. We first noticed this pop up internally as well, and it was new to us. Issue 5 is how we intended the look to be in the first place, with the background album art. Perhaps the changes related to these patches has changed the view hierarchy in a way that has allowed the background art to shine through again; like you, I'm glad to see the change. ... View more

Our broader approach is to never, ever show the FTUX screen unless you literally logged into the app during that same exact app launch (and meet the other criteria for FTUX). ... View more

I understand the frustration. To date, we have issued two patches, which ultimately surfaced underlying bugs that were just as bad as the original experience. Reproducibility of this issue has been the primary challenge and the reason why we have, to an extent, been fixing in the dark. I just got off a call with one of our lead developers, who confirmed that this is his top priority right now. He has some guidance on taking a more holistic approach to the problem as neither you nor any of us want to need a fourth patch and the ensuing delays. I cannot provide a specific timeframe, but it is being actively worked on as a high priority. ... View more

Thanks. If it happens again, please also file a bug report with Apple as this would represent a serious operating system flaw. Third party apps shouldn't be able to mess with operation of the OS or other apps, even if they're actively TRYING to hack your system. (For the record, we're not trying that, I promise! 🙂 ) They'll want a sysdiagnose from the Apple TV, but it looks like you can file it from the Feedback Assistant app on your iPhone, per this page: https://developer.apple.com/bug-reporting/ ... View more

@johnmnagy Apps are sandboxed within the Apple ecosystem, so an app can't take down the whole system like that. It's an internet connectivity problem -- perhaps not with your router or ISP, but rather with the Apple TV operating system. That surfaced first in the FTUX screen not showing any tiles since it couldn't load the images, then the FTUX not disappearing as it would if you had internet (hence it couldn't pull down stations, which meant it was never auto-dismissed). Then the App Store app wouldn't load anything either due to the same underlying internet connectivity issue. That said, we are aware of ongoing issues stemming from the patch -- most notably around issues accessing the tab bar, but also as you mentioned in an earlier post, the fact that FTUX hangs around for ~5 seconds before auto-dismissing -- and we'll be working on another patch to get to a state of stability. ... View more

Hi @johnmnagy, Would you mind tagging me around the pause issue on a dedicated topic (existing or, if needed, a new one)? It's a shame, but also not entirely surprising, that 4 years of iOS codebase changes didn't magically fix it. It sounds like a deeper investigation would be needed, and I don't know what kind of bandwidth we'll have. Having a separate topic for it -- you provided good detail in a couple posts within this topic -- would nonetheless be helpful for visibility. We've tried to remain laser-focused on getting this critical fix out (and then fixing the fix; the crash hotfix, 2305.2.2, is approved by Apple but is waiting internal QE after the long holiday weekend). Again, can't promise anything, but if you start a separate topic (or, even better, resurrect an existing one with lots of complaints), I can see what's possible. Thanks for your diligence in checking and reporting it. ... View more

Update: Unfortunately we discovered a crash in the 2305.2.1 update and are working to address. We've paused automatic updates and plan to get a patch out ASAP. If affected by this issue, for now please do not update; instead use @bhhales solution, and we should have another update out in the coming days. ... View more

Yes haha, it truly is. The version numbering system is: YYMM.(release # for that month).(patch # if applicable) This one was forked off our second iOS release in May (the two are in the same Git repository and share a high % of code), hence it's got a "patch" number even though it isn't technically a patch. (Though in terms of the FTUX screen, you could argue that it is.) The expectation is that the only changes will be some bug fixes. It's possible that -- outside of our own changes -- some improvements will come from targeting the most recent operating system. ... View more

Thanks for all the guidance here! The new version will be 2305.2.1. QE is on the edge of approving, and we're planning to submit the build to Apple tomorrow (6/20). ... View more

Great point here. Yes, that should work. We have a fix for this issue, currently in QA. The issue is actually tvOS's file system deletion policy, where the app's files can be deleted proactively by the OS. We were re-creating the file, but (pre-fix) we weren't then updating the app's UI once the file was re-created. So by force-quitting the app, you've allowed the app to recreate the file, and the OS isn't evicting the file before you re-launch, which addresses the issue. We're planning to submit the new version to Apple next week. Apologies for the delay on this. Please use @bhhales's suggestion of force-quitting the app in the meantime.  @AlyssaPandora can we please mark that post as the "solution" -- UNTIL the hotfix release is out? ... View more

So glad to hear this! Even if the moving target can be a bit frustrating, it's also nothing new, as you say. The hand that giveth can taketh away...and then giveth again. They must have tweaked something in the black box algorithm for how proactive the OS is about clearing out applications' file folders. The fix we'll release soon (QE has a build as of late last week) will keep the app usable, and keep listeners from being FTUX'ed, regardless of any further progress or regression within that black box. So I'm glad this came to my attention before the OS seems to have made it less of a burning issue (assuming others have the same positive experience with the new OS). Thank you for reporting back and helping other users out! And, more generally, thanks for both your patience and candor. (Shoot, I'm slipping out of the mechanic mold again.) ... View more

Update: The goal is to get this to our QA team by mid-week, then release the following week. This is significantly expedited vs. our initial timeline, though I know it still isn't what folks are hoping to hear. I can't provide exact timing as there are multiple teams involved. As mentioned previously, the issue in this thread has been addressed for the new build; we also put up a code review last night to fix one of the remaining issues (which comes from compiling against the latest OS, so not something seen in production yet). Initial usage queries that we ran indicated that this issue may not be affecting the majority of our users; that said, the experience is so bad that we're still expediting. Not super helpful to you immediately, and I may get roasted for this, but... One of the other updates in this release is to enable better monitoring of the Apple TV app. If it starts to look like getting that in is going to delay the release in a non-trivial way, I'll push to have that be a separate release such that we can keep to the timeline. ... View more

Gruff and surly mechanic here. Just got pulled into this one. We’re looking into this and appreciate all the info. Sorry, not gruff enough; we don’t appreciate the info or the screenshot that pinpoints the issue very, very specifically. Hot take: tvOS treats application caching differently than iOS; that may be part of the issue. Also, refuting: layoffs and code bombs are not the issue here. Hopeful to have a fix in the App Store within the next month, though it’s wrapped up with a couple other (very minor) changes. (Accidentally posted from my personal account that I actually use for the service, instead of my corp account; if it helps, I see that I'm a "Local Performer" here) Warning: Please prep for good news / bad news. I've discovered the issue and have a code review open with some of my team members. The issue is file persistence on tvOS is not guaranteed, and our app was not handling this correctly. The operating system was wiping out the file that housed station data. We regenerate the station data when the app launches; however, the app was already seeing that no stations were available, hence displaying the FTUX ("first time user experience") screen. The app wasn't then listening when the data came back, to dismiss that FTUX screen (which would likely happen before you could even see it). The fix is to listen to when the stations come back, and dismiss the screen. That's the code change I have opened for review. Details on tvOS storage limitations: https://developer.apple.com/library/archive/documentation/General/Conceptual/AppleTV_PG/iCloudStorag... As far as this getting worse over time, Apple must have been tweaking how proactive the file storage clearance policies. That's well within their rights to do, but it has exacerbated this issue. That's the good news. The cause is now known, and a fix is prepared. The bad news is that we have to get a few more under-the-hood changes into this update (for various reasons), plus it's been a while since we've updated this app, so our QA team will have to run more of a regression pass. So it'll still be a bit of time until the update actually releases. I'm hoping we can bring it to market in late June or July. I've set a reminder for myself to share an update here in a few weeks, at which point I hope to have better line of sight into a narrower release window. mod edit: merged comments ... View more