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TuneIn BBC Radio Shows “song not encoded correctly”

  • 1 October 2021
  • 45 replies
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45 replies

Userlevel 3
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Just to add on this - Friday Night Comedy podcast does work fine through TuneIn; but no other shows I’ve tried. So is there a distinction between shows defined as podcasts vs listen again?

The “song not encoded correctly” message is often a symptom of a stream corrupted by packet loss. In other words there are likely to be network issues, quite possibly local due to wireless interference.

Stop it. This “oh, must be your network” nonsense is a classic from the Sonos playbook and absolutely meaningless - just a way to blame the end user rather than spend any time whatsoever investigating why their own products don’t work consistently with a range of average consumer setups. 

We don’t build the products or develop the software, and we’re not tech experts; the onus is not on us

“Stop it”? I’ve seen how this “nonsense” plays out countless times.

The vast majority of Sonos problems -- probably well over 95% -- are caused by network issues. Sure, these could be issues at the distant server end -- which might be the case here with the BBC -- or the internet in between, but the weight of evidence is that local network gremlins, usually wireless, are to blame. The laws of physics are immutable.

Sonos provides FAQs to assist with diagnosing wireless problems. Moreover such issues leave clear tracks in the diagnostics, so Support should be able to help troubleshoot.

Ugh, not sure how to quote only part of this. 

The fundamental point stands that most Sonos customers are *consumers*. They have a Wifi setup that they plugged in and it worked, they’re not IT professionals. And 9 out of 10 of them have a wireless network that’s fairly average - it’s not some obscure mesh approach with huge backhaul or enterprise hardware. If a Sonos product doesn’t work on their average wifi setup that works well enough for them, whose fault is that? 

It’s like Microsoft saying “Windows won’t update - it must be *your* driver issue”. I just bought the computer, I didn’t set up the drivers; why is it my fault that Windows won’t play with fairly MOR drivers??

Well, it does appear that all the BBC podcasts accessed via TuneIn are now incompatible with Sonos. 

Thanks for checking that out ratty. I am currently laid up in bed recovering from surgery that I had earlier today. I will hopefully be able to do more investigating myself once I am able to get out into the other rooms of my house 😀, and also read these forums more thoroughly. Sorry for wasting everyone’s time.

I should qualify my comment. BBC News items and BBC London podcasts do play. The rest don’t. Mysterious.

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Well, it does appear that all the BBC podcasts accessed via TuneIn are now incompatible with Sonos. 

Thanks for checking that out ratty. I am currently laid up in bed recovering from surgery that I had earlier today. I will hopefully be able to do more investigating myself once I am able to get out into the other rooms of my house 😀, and also read these forums more thoroughly. Sorry for wasting everyone’s time.

Well, it does appear that all the BBC podcasts accessed via TuneIn are now incompatible with Sonos. 

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Works fine on BBC Sounds.  

It does work fine on BBC Sounds, but that app has to be Airplay(ed) from my iPad to the Sonos speakers. Meaning it drains the battery of the iPad.
I want to use the TuneIn Service inbuilt in the Sonos App to listen, so that once it is playing I can turn the iPad off and not have to worry about the battery being drained.

Userlevel 6
Badge +14

Same issue here - every single BBC Listen Again show, across stations, that I’ve tried is showing as “not encoded correctly”. It’s about 80% of my listening during the day, so a challenge

I would be inclined to point at TuneIn... Their integration with the BBC is flaky. 

 

The “song not encoded correctly” message is often a symptom of a stream corrupted by packet loss. In other words there are likely to be network issues, quite possibly local due to wireless interference.

Stop it. This “oh, must be your network” nonsense is a classic from the Sonos playbook and absolutely meaningless - just a way to blame the end user rather than spend any time whatsoever investigating why their own products don’t work consistently with a range of average consumer setups. 

We don’t build the products or develop the software, and we’re not tech experts; the onus is not on us. 

“Stop it”? I’ve seen how this “nonsense” plays out countless times.

The vast majority of Sonos problems -- probably well over 95% -- are caused by network issues. Sure, these could be issues at the distant server end -- which might be the case here with the BBC -- or the internet in between, but the weight of evidence is that local network gremlins, usually wireless, are to blame. The laws of physics are immutable.

Sonos provides FAQs to assist with diagnosing wireless problems. Moreover such issues leave clear tracks in the diagnostics, so Support should be able to help troubleshoot.

Userlevel 3
Badge +3

The “song not encoded correctly” message is often a symptom of a stream corrupted by packet loss. In other words there are likely to be network issues, quite possibly local due to wireless interference.

Stop it. This “oh, must be your network” nonsense is a classic from the Sonos playbook and absolutely meaningless - just a way to blame the end user rather than spend any time whatsoever investigating why their own products don’t work consistently with a range of average consumer setups. 

We don’t build the products or develop the software, and we’re not tech experts; the onus is not on us. 

Userlevel 3
Badge +3

Same issue here - every single BBC Listen Again show, across stations, that I’ve tried is showing as “not encoded correctly”. It’s about 80% of my listening during the day, so a challenge. 

Unsurprising. I would expect the BBC to be much more concerned about their own streaming applications than any of the external applications/servers. 

Userlevel 6
Badge +14

Works fine on BBC Sounds.  

Ah, excellent point, all of these systems are being told by the BBC where to access the stream. The BBC owns the servers. 

It’s splitting hairs but TuneIn doesn’t get the feed as such. It points the Sonos client player at the feed, which it then pulls directly.

I’d assume they will, but as they don’t pay any money to TuneIn to carry the stream, it would likely be more helpful if you were to add your voice to the chorus of complaints. And frankly, not to TuneIn, but to the BBC , who is responsible for the server that TuneIn gets the feed from.

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see this from Tune in 

 Please be advised that for this particular podcast, the stream was recently updated thus I suggested you directly reach out to the podcaster to let them know of your experience. This will prompt them to reach out to us to update any streams that may need updating so that it works for the listeners.

it was in relation to shows i listen to on 6 music  Gideon Coe , Marc Riley and others   all same message.

will Sonos contact the BBC?

Or, for that matter, try something other than TuneIn, to see if the BBC isn’t playing games again with TuneIn, as they appear to have done in the past?

Did either of you submit a diagnostic, and contact Sonos directly?

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Same issue  with me    the shows i listen to worked last week but not this weekend     what is different?

It’s got me stumped, there has been no changes to any of my wireless setup in the house. So I would very much doubt it has anything to do with wireless interference, we live far enough away from any neighbours for them to impact my wireless network.

I am hoping that Sonos can provide answers/solutions.

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Same issue  with me    the shows i listen to worked last week but not this weekend     what is different?

The “song not encoded correctly” message is often a symptom of a stream corrupted by packet loss. In other words there are likely to be network issues, quite possibly local due to wireless interference.