Firefox: Playback stops

[JGeo]

I am using a high end workstation laptop windows 64bit and Firefox 115.3.

I am signed on to your web site and my ad-blocker is off, I have 5 bar internet stream and Verizon 4G cellular service.

This has been an ongoing problem with your service for years.  It seems to come and go with versions of Firefox.  Started about a month ago, maybe version 108 or so not sure of this.

The play back is stopping every couple of tunes, I have purged the web browser cache.

Before this started I was able to play non stop for 6 to 8 hours with no problem.  this has been true whether I have 2 or more bars, sometime even with 1 bar.

My laptop has been setup the same for the last 3 or so years, maintained regularly and seems fine other wise.

WHAT GIVES?

mod edit: changed title for clarity

[AlyssaPandora]

Hi there, @JGeo. 👋

Sorry to hear that you're having trouble. 

Are you encountering any error messages when your playback stops? If so, what exactly does it say?

I've included troubleshooting steps below, feel free to disregard any that you've already tried. 

++

Firefox Troubleshooting:

To check if this is a browser-related issue, try to open Pandora in a separate browser, such as Google Chrome.

If you prefer Firefox as your browser, please try the following to troubleshoot Pandora:

• Update Firefox.
• You mentioned clearing your cache, you can try clearing cookies & history if you'd like:
  • Select the menu icon in the upper right corner of your browser's toolbar.
  • Next select History and then Clear Recent History.
  • Set Time range to clear to Everything.
  • Confirm the box for Cookies is marked and select OK.
  • Restart the browser and go back to pandora.com.
• Confirm you are accepting cookies from Pandora:
  • Select the menu icon and then Settings (If you're on Windows, select Options).
  • Select the Privacy & Security tab on the left.
  • Go to Cookies and Site Data and select Manage Exceptions.
  • Enter "pandora.com" in the Address of website field and click Allow. Then click Save Changes on that menu.
• Click on the above icon and change the autoplay permissions to Allow Audio and Video.
• Turn off extensions like Disable HTML5 Autoplay, and NoScript, or allow www.pandora.com within them.
• 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.
• Finally, if the issue persists, try rebooting your computer and returning to pandora.com

Let me know how it goes. 🎧

[JGeo]

As I suspected, I did everything that you suggested and no difference in
performance was achieved. Also, having done numerous web searches
concerning this problem, it is evident that this is an ongoing problem with
something other than the steps any user can take to fix it. For years this
problem has appeared out of the blue for many users on multiple platforms
with no solution, it starts, goes on for some time then corrects. Meanwhile
many are not happy.



I get no error message. The problem is not the network service, which does
happen and affects all web services. I can stream hi-res video and audio
from different sites but not from Pandora (when this problem is happening).



I sign on to my Pandora account, your site opens to what was queued from my
last session (currently: shuffle of four of my stations, which I have
played in the recent past for hours no problem, just now played for about
40 minutes and just stopped for ≈five minutes, played for ≈ 18 minutes and
stopped, started again about 5 minutes later , no other streaming happening
and now I am streaming both Pandora and You Tube@720, now for more than 10
minutes) and starts playing. After sometime, maybe the first tune or many
later, play stops abruptly. Sometimes the play counter and time bar keep
moving, but no audio. Getting it to start playing again can take different
actions for no apparent reason. Replace, next tune, replay, just wait,
reload site, etc. I just started streaming video/audio through YouTube no
problem.



Pandora seems to be dropping out while other stream apps continue playing,
also with nothing else going on!



After the YouTube had been playing for several minutes a message did appear
on your playback window saying that you were having trouble with playback
and the network connection should be checked. This happened just as
Pandora started playing again and while YouTube had been playing since
Pandora stopped playing.



I am using Windows and up to date Firefox. I read dozens of user comments
with the same problem dating back to 2019. and if memory serves I think I
have seen comments about this problem back at least 10 years. I have been
a premium member for more than 7 years and I think that this is the fourth
time this has happened.



This is obviously an unsolved ongoing problem and makes Pandora less than
useful.



Please have your engineers look seriously at this ongoing problem, that
looks like a conflict with something else on the web.


Help!

[AlyssaPandora]

Hey, @JGeo. 👋

Thanks for getting back to us with that information, and sorry for the continued trouble with playback on your Firefox browser.

I've gone ahead and shared your experience and feedback with our tech team. We'll follow up with you if need to gather more details to share with them. While I understand this is frustration, we greatly appreciate you taking the time to report this as well as your patience during this process. 🎧