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Hijacked iHeart radio station stream

  • 2 December 2023
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  • hobo
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I listen to the show over iHeart 6 days a week, and beginning with the first commercial break, Sonos seems to be hijacking the stream to play it’s own commercials over the iHeart stream.  I can listen to the same stream on my phone and hear the actual iHeart stream, while the Sonos controller is running the same obnoxious commercial set every time.  Worse, the Sonos commercials play longer than the iHeart set, so when I finally stop & restart the stream on Sonos, I’ve missed portions of the show.  So I have gotten in the most annoying routine of constantly stopping and restarting.  Most often, a new song will play, which is better than the same horrible commercial for the thousandth time, but that song or the next also end up playing over the actual show stream.  

Playing from phone and AirPlaying to Sonos works through the first commercial break, but at the second, Sonos hijacks it again.  I could regretfully live with the hijacked commercials IF they would stop in line with the actual radio show breaks, but they never do.  I’m listening  to the same show on Sonos, my computer and my phone as I type and only the Sonos stream is hijacked.

Any suggestions to stop this most annoying behavior?

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Best answer by Airgetlam 2 December 2023, 19:27

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3 replies

Airgetlam

Unless you’re connecting via Sonos radio HD, Sonos doesn’t insert any advertisements into an iHeart radio stream. The only people who insert advertisements in iHeart radio are the iHeart Radio people themselves. 

If, however, your speakers are periodically losing connection to the iHeart radio servers, then reconnecting, it’s entirely possible you’re getting a ‘pre-roll’ ad, again from iHeart radio, which may stomp on the current ‘live’ stream. Have you double checked the wifi interference FAQ?

Have you submitted a system diagnostic within 10 minutes of experiencing this problem, and called Sonos Support to discuss it?

There may be information included in the diagnostic that will help Sonos pinpoint the issue and help you find a solution.

When you speak directly to the phone folks, they have tools at their disposal that will allow them to give you advice specific to your network and Sonos system.

Bruce
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Thanks for the info Bruce.  I thought iHeart at first but the different ad streams on phone & Sonos when side-by-side convinced me it was Sonos doing it.  

Airgetlam

I can understand that thought…although the two ways of playing the music connect to two different SiriusXM servers, and no Sonos servers. The one that SiriusXM has asked Sonos to point at has the SMAPI installed on it, the app on your phone points to one that doesn’t. Sonos never has that data on their own servers.

If you’re interested, poke around on the Sonos partners page. There’s more information there than you can shake a stick at, to use a colloquialism. 

Bruce
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