Fast forward for TuneIn Radio

  • 10 December 2020
  • 18 replies
  • 450 views
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Hi,

 

Can anyone help me understand how to get Sonos to work properly when trying to fast forward a radio show when I’m listening to catch-up?

Everything is good when I click on a show to listen and it will play from start to finish but if I want to skip forward 30 seconds or worse jump forward a few hours I often get nothing. Sometimes I get a spinning wheel and after some time it will skip, most of the time it will fail. I assumed maybe it was something on TuneIn’s side and just gave up months ago, but today I tested and actually it works fine on their website. 

The problem lies with Sonos, unless its an API issue from TuneIn - can anyone help or will Sonos look into it?

Thanks.

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18 replies

106rallye
Userlevel 7
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Are you sure you understand the concept of radio? There is no fast forward on radio, radio is almost always a live broadcast.

 

Or am I not getting want you are trying to say?

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Hi - thanks for the reply but yes you are misunderstanding my question. I did say catchup, so by that I mean listening to a radio show after it’s been on. I’m aware Sonos can’t time travel. Thanks. 

106rallye
Userlevel 7
Badge +17

Sorry, I didn't know there was such a thing as a catch up possibility on TuneIn in the Sonos app. Can you post a screenshot?

Ken_Griffiths

Hi - thanks for the reply but yes you are misunderstanding my question. I did say catchup, so by that I mean listening to a radio show after it’s been on. I’m aware Sonos can’t time travel. Thanks. 

Tune-In is mostly live-radio based, perhaps try a podcast service, like pocket-casts or stitcher etc; from the Sonos built-in services and see if that may work a little better for you… I think pocket-casts allows the user to easily scrub both forwards/backwards through a recorded programme from within the ‘Now Playing’ screen.

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Sorry, I didn't know there was such a thing as a catch up possibility on TuneIn in the Sonos app. Can you post a screenshot?

If you go into TuneIn via the sonos app (PC) and type in a radio show name, make sure the “podcasts & shows” part is selected, then you can pick “recent episodes”

For example: 

 

It works ok and plays but you can’t scan forward, but you can using TuneIn directly. 

 

although this itself isn’t a great example because these are actually podcasts…. but there are other shows I listen to that are the whole show.

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Hi - thanks for the reply but yes you are misunderstanding my question. I did say catchup, so by that I mean listening to a radio show after it’s been on. I’m aware Sonos can’t time travel. Thanks. 

Tune-In is mostly live-radio based, perhaps try a podcast service, like pocket-casts or stitcher etc; from the Sonos built-in services and see if that may work a little better for you… I think pocket-casts allows the user to easily scrub both forwards/backwards through a recorded programme from within the ‘Now Playing’ screen.

Thank you, appreciate the reply but that isn’t actually a solution. I like listening to the whole show sometimes, not a podcast. You can scrub but it fails to load, but it does work via TuneIn directly.

 

J

I suspect the answer to this is that Sonos doesn't use the TuneIn service in any real sense. There is no integration, and it doesn't use the Sonos open API.

All TuneIn does is provide a URL lookup for stations,  podcasts and shows. Sonos then goes and fetches the stream itself. So there is no reason why any facility on TuneIn should be available on Sonos.

This is also why you can't access a TuneIn Pro or Premium account through Sonos. 

At least that's how it used to be and I am not aware that it has changed.

(Having said that, it's not unreasonable to think you would be able to skip forward,)

D
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I suspect the answer to this is that Sonos doesn't use the TuneIn service in any real sense. There is no integration, and it doesn't use the Sonos open API.

All TuneIn does is provide a URL lookup for stations,  podcasts and shows. Sonos then goes and fetches the stream itself. So there is no reason why any facility on TuneIn should be available on Sonos.

This is also why you can't access a TuneIn Pro or Premium account through Sonos. 

At least that's how it used to be and I am not aware that it has changed.

(Having said that, it's not unreasonable to think you would be able to skip forward,)

Thanks John, I get what you are saying, but this is just a URL as you say. Its not pro or premium. It just doesn’t work. 

J

It isn’t that it doesn’t work, because that starts from the position that what works in TuneIn should work on Sonos.  The point about Pro and Premium was an aside.  It isn’t only not Pro or Premium, it’s not TuneIn!

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I’m not sure I understand, you are saying that because it works on TuneIn it doesn’t mean is has to work in Sonos? 

Surely the fact you can do it on one means you can expect it to work on another, it is a source Sonos consumes, the data is there to be pulled down. I don’t think that is unreasonable, but Sonos should be able to say why it doesn’t work.

J

I’ll try one last time.  Sonos says to TuneIn ‘where do I find X?’.  TuneIn says ‘here’. Sonos says ‘thank you’.  TuneIn’s involvement ends at this point.  Sonos fetches and plays X without TuneIn’s involvement.

D
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I’ll try one last time.  Sonos says to TuneIn ‘where do I find X?’.  TuneIn says ‘here’. Sonos says ‘thank you’.  TuneIn’s involvement ends at this point.  Sonos fetches and plays X without TuneIn’s involvement.

Thank you John, and I fully understand what you are saying, but you are still missing the point yourself. Even in your simplified example TuneIn says here, Sonos fails to play X. 

I do appreciate your input so thank you again. I still feel there is something Sonos should be able to help with.

J

What do you mean. fails to play?  You haven’t said anything about the stream failing to play.

J

Sonos plays the link supplied, which is the stream provided by the content provider.  Sonos gets the stream directly, not mediated through TuneIn.

TuneIn’s only involvement is to hand over the address of a direct link - a URL - for the stream.

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What do you mean. fails to play?  You haven’t said anything about the stream failing to play.

from my original post: “Sometimes I get a spinning wheel and after some time it will skip, most of the time it will fail” 

As soon as I try to skip forward or scrub forward it fails, 99% of the time. However if you try that via TuneIn directly it has no problem, and barely a hesitation in doing so, no long pauses that you get via sonos on the odd occasion that it works. 

controlav
Userlevel 7
Badge +23

from my original post: “Sometimes I get a spinning wheel and after some time it will skip, most of the time it will fail” 

As soon as I try to skip forward or scrub forward it fails, 99% of the time. However if you try that via TuneIn directly it has no problem, and barely a hesitation in doing so, no long pauses that you get via sonos on the odd occasion that it works. 

Whether skipping or scrubbing works correctly is a feature of the stream’s provider, not TuneIn, and not Sonos.

(Oh and John: TuneIn does use SMAPI for enumeration, but once the url is handed to the Sonos player it is indeed out of the picture).

Author of the leading independent Sonos app for Windows, the only Sonos app for Xbox, and a Sonos app for iOS
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from my original post: “Sometimes I get a spinning wheel and after some time it will skip, most of the time it will fail” 

As soon as I try to skip forward or scrub forward it fails, 99% of the time. However if you try that via TuneIn directly it has no problem, and barely a hesitation in doing so, no long pauses that you get via sonos on the odd occasion that it works. 

Whether skipping or scrubbing works correctly is a feature of the stream’s provider, not TuneIn, and not Sonos.

(Oh and John: TuneIn does use SMAPI for enumeration, but once the url is handed to the Sonos player it is indeed out of the picture).

Thanks Controlav for your input. It still doesn’t make sense to me but I don’t know all the in’s and outs of how Sonos interacts with other providers. I don’t know why if it works via TuneIn but not via Sonos that you would lay the issue at the providers door. The error message I was struggling to be quick enough to catch but I have now and it shows this: 

 

J

Sonos also gives warnings that ‘the password is incorrect’ when it cannot find a suitable network, and ‘the song is not encoded correctly’ when it receives a stream corrupted by interference.

I don’t care what the message says, when the stream comes to play the only parties involved are Sonos and the stream provider.  TuneIn is not involved and so what it can do should not shape your expectations of what ‘should’ be possible in any way.

I cannot see any point in further debate - let’s just agree to differ.  

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