EntropicLynx
Underground
Created | Tier | Playlists | Stations | Thumbs | Music hours | Podcast hours |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
11/27/2016 | PREMIUM | 43 | 115 | 47 | 2509 | 0 |
Hi all (especially Pandora Moderators and Community Managers, etc.), I wanted to come post a brief update now that it's been over 2 months since my original post and I have learned something new. First of all, I want to make sure that it is understood that the "solution" I marked does not mean that this issue is solved/resolved, but rather that having the engineering teams work on the problem is what is necessary to fix this problem. As I had stated in my second post (the one with screenshots), the fact that this happens on multiple platforms, including Pandora official apps, is a clear indication that the issue is a problem with Pandora and/or the Pandora API directly, which is something that only the Pandora software engineers can address. I perhaps should have made that more clear at the time that I did it. In other words, the necessary solution (something from the engineers) is what I was told was being worked on, and I marked the post where I was told that it was being worked on by the engineers as the "solution". Secondly, I have seen some Recently Played updates pushed to the various platforms that I use, but none of them have been a correct and accurate reflection of my actual use. Pandora Mobile App on Android is still the most up-to-date and accurate Recently Played list for me, while Alexa is still the least accurate (which is particularly annoying to me since Alexa is the one that I need to have be the *most* accurate and up-to-date), but the Pandora Website and Pandora Desktop App are somewhere in the middle. This makes it seem as though the problem is one of the frequency of updates and/or the data source that the updates are being pulled from. It seems as though the Recently Played lists are being pulled from *backup data* rather than the most recently available data. And while it is great that backups of such data are being kept, it definitely is not great that old data is being used by multiple Pandora platforms instead of the most recent and up-to-date data. All Pandora apps and platforms should be getting their data from the most up-to-date source, or they should be directly updating each other's source as well as their own, and that doesn't seem to be happening. Obviously, I don't have a detailed working knowledge of the Pandora network and data backends, but the behavior of the apps and platforms makes it appear as though Pandora maintains multiple datasets independently, and that those datasets do not correctly update one another, nor update in a timely manner. If that assessment is accurate, then the problems would be found in the backend code that deals with dataset updates. Maybe there is a very good reason why datasets for the various Pandora apps and platforms are maintained independently of one another, but if that's the case, then it makes it all the more important for the inter-platform updates to happen accurately and timely. Hopefully this additional information will be helpful to the engineers. Thanks.
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Following are current screenshots, all taken today. Three were taken on my phone, including Pandora mobile app, and two from Alexa, the other two were taken on my PC. Each one should have captions labeling what is being shown. As you should notice, when comparing them, is that only Pandora Mobile is showing the "League of Legends" radio station, and one of the Alexa ones isn't showing "ADP - Power Puff Punk Metal". It's also worth noting that I have listened to "ADP - Seeds of Darkness" more recently than "Dark Wave", but all of the lists are showing "Dark Wave" to the left of "ADP - Seeds of Darkness" as though it were the more recent one. Since the list is not correctly and fully updated on multiple apps and platforms, including official Pandora apps, with the Pandora Mobile app being the only one with a *nearly* correct list (at least it has all of the entries, even if they aren't in the right order), this very strongly suggests that it's a problem with Pandora and the Pandora API. I'm hoping someone can give me a way to force it to correctly update all of the Recently Played lists on all of the platforms, but especially for Alexa. Sorry, one other thing that might me worth noting: This is a recent problem. All platforms, including Alexa, used to update correctly, including updates that occur on one platform (such as Pandora Website) being updated on other platforms (such as Alexa) within a few minutes. The problem with the lists no longer correctly updating started a couple of weeks ago (I don't remember exactly when). Alexa Music - Pandora Browse Alexa Music Pandora Mobile (Android) Pandora Website Pandora Desktop
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I use multiple methods to listen to Pandora, including the website through MS Edge (which is a Chromium-based browser, like all are these days), the mobile app on my Android phone, and through my Amazon Echo Dot using the Pandora Skill for Alexa. And just today, I also downloaded the Desktop App for Windows to try that instead of the website to see if it would work any differently. Here's the problem: My Recently Played entries (stations and playlists) in my Collections are not being updated on *any* of those platforms except for the mobile app. This is, in most cases, an annoyance, but not a major problem. Using Alexa, however, does not list my full collections and also refuses to allow proper searching, and as such, I rely on the Recently Played list almost exclusively when I'm using Alexa, but that doesn't work correctly when that list no longer updates. How can I get my Recently Played list to correctly update on *all platforms*, especially Alexa?
Moderator Edit: Changing title for clarity
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I've wanted to be able to block live performance recordings since the earliest days of Pandora, when we still could create a station using sound descriptor rules, like "syncopation" and "female lead singer", etc. We can't even do that anymore, but we *still* don't have the ability to block live recordings or specific artists? Pandora seriously needs to add this. It's honestly appalling that it's never been an option. Some of us *hate* live performance recordings, and we should be able to block them outright.
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I would love the ability to create a new Station from an existing Playlist that I have created. The idea would be that when someone activates this feature, the system would scan through the songs on the playlist and create a station that uses the most common musical themes/traits as well as the most common Artists that are represented on the playlist as its Seeds for the newly created Station. The effect would be to create a Station in a similar manner to the way that Spotify allows a user to view, listen to, and "like"/"collect" a "Radio Station" based directly off of a playlist. (I prefer Pandora over Spotify, but I would love to see this particular feature implemented in some way here).
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