Tune-In blocking foreign radio stations in the UK Master thread

  • 13 September 2020
  • 101 replies
  • 17347 views
controlav
Userlevel 7
Badge +23

As Sonos don’t seem to want to, lets try and consolidate the TuneIn UK problem into one master thread.

What we know: starting last Thursday, TuneIn in the UK started blocking all foreign radio stations. They did this because of a lawsuit they lost in November 2019.

Some have also claimed that Sonos Radio is also affected.

The known work-arounds are:

  • Add the direct streaming url of the station to the Sonos system (only available to PC and Mac users detailed here
  • Try a different radio station aggregator (eg radio.com)

 

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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101 replies

K
Userlevel 2

If you live in the UK, try finding the foreign TuneIn stations on MyTuner Radio which is available on Sonos in settings under Services & Voice (scroll down and add it). I found most of them still work.

M
Userlevel 2
Badge +1

Ah so glad I found this.  Thought it was something I’d done wrong, or that sonos was cutting streams to force us to move to S2

L
Userlevel 3
Badge +1

So the question is what is Sonos going to do about this ? Sonos radio was launched as a selling point to update kit get us to go to the S2 app, and now it's effectively useless for what a lot of us want it to do . Sonos must have known that tune-in had an ongoing court case that had the possibility of being found against them ? And yet they still copied it or had some sort of agreement with tune-in to use their system. Sonos don't seem to be saying a lot about this either, but after the May/June launch of S2 when Sonos radio was used as a selling point to the great new future of Sonos listening, it hasn't turned out so well. If you launch a service with a fanfare you better be able to make it work .

T

Came here to say the same thing -- if you can get hold of the stream link you can add the stations as above.

For example, SomaFM have added their links

https://somafm.com/listen/uktunein.html

Some of my fav stations don’t seem to have this link - get in touch with the station to see if they can help.

SomaFM were incredibly helpful as an example for me.

D
Userlevel 1

Thank you to all contributors (here and on the original threads) for your helpful suggestions and links.  I have now tried using Mytuner Radio (and others) and have managed to add some of my original stations back, but some are not available, so I’ve been adding these manually.

Unfortunately, the manually added ones get added without the station ‘picture’, but at least my wife and I can continue to listen to our favourite stations once more.

However, having read about the original court case I wonder how much longer these other ‘consolidators’ will be able to continue to stream non-UK stations to us here in the UK; so we might all end up having to put them in manually!  Further, as Sony/Warner were successful in the UK, will they now try the same thing elsewhere in the world and thus prevent others?

I do continue to think that TuneIn owed a duty of care to its listeners (including through Sonos) and should have informed us - as they knew this was coming as long ago as last November!  Sonos, too, should have been aware (as they make the TuneIn service available on their products) and should have notified us UK users that this was going to happen and provided us with better help to continue to listen to our favourite stations.

Finally though, at least I can continue to use my Sonos system for one of the reasons I bought it originally. Thanks, contributors, for your help.

 

controlav
Userlevel 7
Badge +23

Anyone else having issues?

Just everyone using Sonos in the UK.

 

Author of the leading independent Sonos app for Windows, the only Sonos app for Xbox, and a Sonos app for iOS
J
Userlevel 2
Badge +2

That’s utterly shocking that the chat service were’t able to tell you that their own Sonos Radio product doesn’t really work in the UK as of mid September.

You need to use myTuner Radio instead.

ratty

Thanks for that. But every URL I put doesn’t seem to work and what I do not like is that we must use TuneIn! It is not a service I like and I much preferred Radio.net until Sonos took it down.

You may be using an incompatible URL, if it’s simply been copied from a player embedded in a webpage. It needs to point to a MP3, AAC or WMA stream, often wrappered in a PLS or ASX playlist. 

BTW the My Radio Stations item is tucked into the TuneIn menu but it’s actually independent of TuneIn. If you were to add a custom station to My Sonos/Favorites you could then remove the TuneIn service and the link would still work. Custom URLs are stored locally on the system.

J

It’s really a pain these radios disappearing, I understand it’s not exactly Sonos’ fault but they don’t seem to be handling the fall out very gracefully, or at all…

I’ve had mixed results with stream urls. Most work fine.

Some don’t. In particular this one https://classicrock.stream.ouifm.fr/ouifm3.mp3 works fine in VLC but not with Sonos. Wonder if that provider is actively blocking Sonos based on User Agent header or something...

That seems to work fine on my Sonos, as does the alternative:

http://classicrock.stream.ouifm.fr/ouifm3.aac

Strangely, they seemed to be playing different stations!  Either that or there was a big difference in stream timings.

Edit: I note that your link is https.  I actually used http.  Therein probably lies the answer.  Different security protocols in VLC and Sonos?

Anyway, try http.

Airgetlam

For what it’s worth, I’d expect the MyTuner Radio usage to be temporary. The lawyers are going after TuneIn as the biggest radio provider company, but if they’re successful, expect them to go after smaller providers as well. 

Bruce
M

Hi. Not a sonos user but tripped over this thread looking for the same topic. The tunein situation is affecting denon, roberts radio etc - some are moving to different aggregator. However, for those that don’t know, if you can’t find the URL for a radio station stream, go to their webpage, play live and then from google chrome press F12 to open the page elements and under the network tab you will usually find an element with the stream URL which you can right click and open in a new tab to check it is actually the stream.

It may be easy to identify by a large “activity bar”, it may be called “stream” you may have to search for it, but it will be there somewhere.

D

Thank you very, very much for creating this thread and special thanks to anyone who mentioned adding a URL directly.  
 

I have been listening to Proton Radio via TuneIn for well over a decade and access to Proton via TuneIn was the sole reason I bought into the Sonos ecosystem.  I thought all was lost and I would not be able to listen to my favourite station and artists via my Sonos system for the foreseeable future!


For anyone wanting to know the direct URL to stream Proton, the following has worked for me: http://www.protonradio.com/proton.m3u

 

I honestly would not know what to do with myself without being able to listen to Proton, so hopefully that URL will help others in my position and perhaps even introduce new people to the music and artists they feature; Transitions from John Digweed, Terminal from Cream; Looq Radio from Jondi and Spesh; Mind over Matter from Embliss... I could go on and on!

 

PS. If you recognise any of those shows and/or artists and can recommend a similar station to Proton, please post the URL!

ratty

Rather than mess around with VPNs, just locate the URLs for the stations you like to listen to and add them to My Radio Stations.

H

Came here to say the same thing -- if you can get hold of the stream link you can add the stations as above.

For example, SomaFM have added their links

https://somafm.com/listen/uktunein.html

Some of my fav stations don’t seem to have this link - get in touch with the station to see if they can help.

SomaFM were incredibly helpful as an example for me.

Thanks for this. Couldn’t work out how to get Groove Salad from somaFM playing until I read this. 

C

I LOVE my Sonos which is why I am so frustrated at this stupid lawsuit and stupid inability to listen to what we want. It’s all about money and greed which winds me up enormously. I am furious at the U.K. justice system anyway so believe me when I say that them passing this lawsuit is definitely not something I agree with. 🤯

C

I can’t believe that I am finally hearing my favourite radio station again…. 😍😍😍 I feel like I have a part of my life back! Sorry if that sounds dramatic but it’s true. I feel that there could be clearer directions given on the Sonos website on how to obtain the streaming url. So THANK YOU controlav for providing me with the fix that I’ve been looking for in the past few weeks! It’s a shame that the Sonos support advisors could not provide this when requested. You should be the Sonos advisor and support developer! 🙏

D

I’m glad i found this thread i have literally been going crazy the last few days deleting and reinstalling the app. 

Another problem i have encountered is i can’t play my own music (through my PC)  it loads the music on to the S2 app but then when i click on a folder it says “no selections are available” just wondering if anyone else is having this issue?

D

That issue will be local to your system but I suggest you start a new thread so that this thread can remain on topic.

 

I think it’s linked as this problem only started on Thursday?

No there is absolutely no chance of this.  How is the result of a court ruling on radio stations supposed to affect your ability to play local music files?  Lots of things happened in the world last Thursday that were unrelated to the TuneIn radio ruling.  My Sonos Music Library is working fine.  Now can we please stop hijacking this thread?

You need to retreat to your safe space John stop being such a snowflake nobody is hijacking anything!

P
Userlevel 1
Badge

This problem also seems to be affecting my use of Sonos Radio - there seem to be a large number of stations that don’t work.  Is Sonos Radio, apart from the exclusive streams, simply a wrapper around TuneIn?  If so, does Sonos have any plans to replace TuneIn with another radio database as its default service?
 

J
Userlevel 2
Badge

Irony or ironies. Yesterday I received an email from Sonos inviting me to take part in a survey about Sonos Radio. 

So there’s clearly a well functioning marketing machine at work here. Why didn’t use it to warn me of what was happening?

1
Userlevel 3
Badge +1

Thanks mate, it really ought not to be that hard! I’m not going to do the pi solution as I’ve enough convoluted tech in the house already. The missus will be stuffed when I snuff it! In addition I sometimes listen to a local beeb station for a footy match. I guessed your solution would be the way I went down though even then, searching for streams, copying them in, monitoring them for inevitable changes - all a pain in the bahooky. Just when you get the system stable and doing what you want it goes and changes <grr> 

ratty

Can someone help me with info on how to add and then find a radion station if I add the URL?

TuneIn > My Radio Stations

https://support.sonos.com/s/article/260

 

Airgetlam

As well as the technology they have available for geo blocking, which likely also varies widely.

Bruce
J

No that answer doesn’t make sense because some stations do post stream links

https://radioparadise.com/listen/stream-links

 

I am not sure your answer makes sense. Firstly because it assumes everyone is now complying. 

Also because a station publishing its own links is rather different from a service that provides links to tens of thousands of stations with which it has no association, is it not?

controlav
Userlevel 7
Badge +23

I am not sure your answer makes sense. Firstly because it assumes everyone is now complying. 

Also because a station publishing its own links is rather different from a service that provides links to tens of thousands of stations with which it has no association, is it not?

And also inserts ads and monetizes the listings of those streams. Which if you read the court case was the crux of the problem.

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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