Skip to main content
Answer

Pandora AutoPlay Not Working?

  • January 3, 2024
  • 3 replies
  • 368 views
S

Whether I use the Sonos app to listen to Pandora or cast to the Sonos Arc from the Pandora app, the AutoPlay feature does not work.  However, AutoPlay does work from the Pandora app if I use Bluetooth to my car or other non-Sonos speakers.  I emailed and discussed this issue with Sonos customer support and received the reply below - basically, they know this is a problem and have no get-well date.  My questions:

  1. Has this been fixed yet (I cancelled my Pandora Premium subscription so I cannot check if it works)?
  2. Does anyone else have this problem or an update?

Responses from Sonos Support Specialist (Aug 2023):

“Unfortunately, I am unable to provide any additional information or a timeline as to when you can expect to see this feature available when listening via Sonos.”

“They [engineering] have confirmed that the AutoPlay feature is not supported when listening from a Sonos device, regardless of whether you use the Pandora app or the Sonos app.”

Best answer by Corry P

Hi @Sonicmonster 

No nerve struck - I was just trying to set expectations clearly, as it seemed (by your exact phrasing) that it wasn’t done so earlier.

Basically, the reply above makes me feel like I have the problems: (1) I don’t have the right Sonos device (which is hard to swallow because the Arc is a flagship product); and (2) I do not have an iPhone and AirPlay.  I do appreciate the update though and the clarification.

Apologies - I did not in any way intend to make you feel you (or your Arc) were at fault. All Sonos speakers handle playing music in the same way (although some, like your Arc, are capable of Atmos music too). 

Pandora is not available over here in the UK, so I am not familiar with the exact working of it within the Sonos app, but I think if you only select one song, it’s not entirely unreasonable that only one song is played - that’s why the Artist Radio option that you mentioned is available when tapping the ellipsis (...) - so that similar music is played after the first track. I just did this on my own system but with YouTube Music instead of Pandora and saw the same behaviour - one song plays, and that’s all. This is intended behaviour. We can’t match the behaviour of all the (literally hundreds of) music services that we support, as they all do things a little bit in their own way. It also helps with general usability to have actions be the same across all services when using the one Sonos app.

We don’t support Chromecast - I don’t know why, but there doesn’t seem to be a huge demand for it here on the forums. Don’t get me wrong - it is asked for on occasion, but I guess demand was not high, as if it was, we’d already support it. For all I know, however, we may already be working on an implementation of it.

Some of our speakers (Move, Move 2, Roam, Era 100 and Era 300) support Bluetooth, and all bar the original Move allow that Bluetooth feed to be shared to other Sonos devices on the same system, so in effect, you can “add” Bluetooth to your Arc by adding a second product to your Sonos system. If you were to link your phone via Bluetooth to a Bluetooth-enabled Sonos speaker and play using the Pandora app, behaviour would be exactly the same as when you do so in your car, except you could, in theory, play to up to 31 other speakers at the same time.

I may be misunderstanding something - apologies again if so - but isn’t the Artist Radio feature exactly what you’re looking for here? To be clear, this button does not play songs only by that artist, but many tracks/artists that are similar to the one that was selected.

I hope this helps.

This topic has been closed for further comments. You can use the search bar to find a similar topic, or create a new one by clicking Create Topic at the top of the page.

3 replies

Corry P
Forum|alt.badge.img+19
  • Corry P
  • Sonos Staff
  • January 4, 2024

Hi @Sonicmonster 

Welcome to the Sonos Community!

I wouldn’t quite describe this as a “problem” - it’s a Pandora-only feature that has never been implemented on Sonos. When you contacted our team, they took your contact as a feature request which would be passed to the right teams for consideration. This does not in any way mean that the feature will be added, and if it ever is, I am fairly sure it will take much more than 4 months to implement. When casting from the Pandora app to Sonos or using the Sonos app, a different media delivery technique is used as compared to when playing on the Pandora app itself, so this feature would not be as simple to implement as it may seem.

For all I know, Pandora may not even want this feature to be available outside of their own app.

If you had a Sonos product that supported Bluetooth or a iOS device to use AirPlay on, you could cast audio from the Pandora app to Sonos in much the same way as you do to your car, but it doesn’t look like you happen to have either of these.

So, in answer to your direct questions:

  1. No
  2. Everyone will be the same, as the feature has not been implemented. If it is ever implemented, it’s unlikely that anyone (including me) will be informed prior to the fact.

I hope this helps.

"Common sense is the collection of prejudices acquired by age eighteen." - Albert Einstein
Airgetlam
S
  • Sonicmonster
  • Author
  • Contributor I
  • January 4, 2024

Hello @Corry P,

I appreciate the quick reply and I can sympathize with the challenges of the programming.  I was just looking for whether this was something that had been fixed, if it was going to be fixed, or if any updates existed.  Didn’t mean to hit a nerve.  If I play a song with the other music services I have on the Sonos app or through the native apps themselves, the music just keeps playing, but not with Pandora on my Sonos Arc.  I have to keep selecting/playing new songs if I have just played a specific song (to clarify: the Radio features keep playing music though).  Just to be straightforward: not having this feature, along with other challenges in the Sonos app, or even not being able to directly cast from the YouTube music app (no Bluetooth or Chromecast-like feature) makes me consider buying other brands of speakers going forward.  I am not upset, just feeling limited by not being able to use the speaker how I want to use it.  One could argue I should have done more research before buying the Arc to understand exactly what I am (and am not getting), but I did spend some hours doing this and still did not catch everything.  

Basically, the reply above makes me feel like I have the problems: (1) I don’t have the right Sonos device (which is hard to swallow because the Arc is a flagship product); and (2) I do not have an iPhone and AirPlay.  I do appreciate the update though and the clarification.

Corry P
Forum|alt.badge.img+19
  • Corry P
  • Sonos Staff
  • Answer
  • January 5, 2024

Hi @Sonicmonster 

No nerve struck - I was just trying to set expectations clearly, as it seemed (by your exact phrasing) that it wasn’t done so earlier.

Basically, the reply above makes me feel like I have the problems: (1) I don’t have the right Sonos device (which is hard to swallow because the Arc is a flagship product); and (2) I do not have an iPhone and AirPlay.  I do appreciate the update though and the clarification.

Apologies - I did not in any way intend to make you feel you (or your Arc) were at fault. All Sonos speakers handle playing music in the same way (although some, like your Arc, are capable of Atmos music too). 

Pandora is not available over here in the UK, so I am not familiar with the exact working of it within the Sonos app, but I think if you only select one song, it’s not entirely unreasonable that only one song is played - that’s why the Artist Radio option that you mentioned is available when tapping the ellipsis (...) - so that similar music is played after the first track. I just did this on my own system but with YouTube Music instead of Pandora and saw the same behaviour - one song plays, and that’s all. This is intended behaviour. We can’t match the behaviour of all the (literally hundreds of) music services that we support, as they all do things a little bit in their own way. It also helps with general usability to have actions be the same across all services when using the one Sonos app.

We don’t support Chromecast - I don’t know why, but there doesn’t seem to be a huge demand for it here on the forums. Don’t get me wrong - it is asked for on occasion, but I guess demand was not high, as if it was, we’d already support it. For all I know, however, we may already be working on an implementation of it.

Some of our speakers (Move, Move 2, Roam, Era 100 and Era 300) support Bluetooth, and all bar the original Move allow that Bluetooth feed to be shared to other Sonos devices on the same system, so in effect, you can “add” Bluetooth to your Arc by adding a second product to your Sonos system. If you were to link your phone via Bluetooth to a Bluetooth-enabled Sonos speaker and play using the Pandora app, behaviour would be exactly the same as when you do so in your car, except you could, in theory, play to up to 31 other speakers at the same time.

I may be misunderstanding something - apologies again if so - but isn’t the Artist Radio feature exactly what you’re looking for here? To be clear, this button does not play songs only by that artist, but many tracks/artists that are similar to the one that was selected.

I hope this helps.

"Common sense is the collection of prejudices acquired by age eighteen." - Albert Einstein
Airgetlam
Terms & ConditionsCookie settingsAccessibility statement