CBC Radio stations disappearing

Hi ​@Toolio 

I/we appreciate your point - indeed, it does seem unfair to someone experiencing an issue that they need wait for others to report it too. However, that is not exactly what I said - I said an issue gains higher priority when it has more cases, and the higher priority means that an issue will be addressed sooner rather than later, but it does not mean that we will never fix it if it does not. That does not, however, prevent a developer hearing that there is an issue, knowing exactly what it takes to fix it, and fixing it quickly - if a developer happens to know how an issue can be fixed with not much effort, it may well get fixed the same day that it is reported. The fix will usually need to wait for the next scheduled update to become public, but that is not always the case (such as with the most recent iOS update).

However, imagine we did not do this - we’d spend a lot of time fixing issues that only affects 10 or 12 people (or fewer), while also ignoring (for the time being) issues that are reported by 10,000. An extreme example for the purposes of illustration, sure, but this is clearly not ideal, even if the number were only 300. Yes, it can be annoying that we have responded by saying that we are aware of an issue, but also ask others to call in, but the fact is that without other people reporting an issue, there may always be other issues with higher priority. In addition, it can be possible that additional data is needed in order to ascertain what the problem actually is, and more users opening cases means more info for us to work with - if an issue only presents itself with particular routers, for example, it may take a few cases to realise that fact.

There are a few issues out there that have only ever been reported once, and they are understandably given a low priority, but that does not mean that they will never be solved. There are also issues - believe it or not - that we cannot actually do anything about, and it is instead up to the music service to resolve - I believe this case in particular is probably one of these, as it is not us who decides what content you see in the music service containers - it is the music service. I would not be surprised to hear (but to be clear, I don’t not currently know) that all we can do for this CBC issue is to inform the service of the issue and wait for them to resolve it.

I hope this helps.

​@Corry P Thanks for your detailed response. I appreciate it. I realize that not everything can be of the highest priority, and that users of the CBC service probably are fewer in number than many other Sonos services. However, those of us who do listen to CBC tend to be quite passionate about our habit, and our issue has been going on for more than two weeks.
I have also pondered whether this might be an issue with CBC rather than Sonos, but I’ve discovered that the CBC radio stations always appear in third-party Sonos apps (Sonopad, Phonos etc.) even when they have disappeared from the official Sonos app. Their disappearance from the Sonos app also is not constant; it comes and goes throughout the day, and the stations that disappear from the CBC service can still be played if they are in a favourites or recently played list. They only disappear from the list of stations in the CBC service, not from the entire Sonos platform. I’m certain the issue has nothing to do with individual configurations because I’ve experienced it in two countries with three different Internet providers and completely different networking equipment and networks. Obviously others are experiencing it as well, including people I know personally who don’t participate in the Sonos community.

Whatever the root cause of the issue, I sincerely hope it is addressed. And again, I appreciate your help and your detailed replies.

Hi ​@Toolio 

You are correct in this assumption - I had never even heard of CBC before this thread was posted! However, people do not spend thousands of whatever local currency when they are not passionate about music - all of our customers feel this way (or certainly the majority - some may only really care about TV audio).

I hope it’s addressed soon too. Again, I still do not know for sure if this issue is on Sonos or CBC to fix, but I feel if it were on Sonos, it would likely be repeated with all music services, and not just this one as we do not alter our code to suit each service; instead, they must write the code that lets our app integrate with their service - when you add a service to your Sonos system, you are basically loading this code written by that service. We instructed all our music partners about the required changes that must be made to these pieces of code in order to comply with how the new app works - a small number of services were unable to do so due to a lack of resources, and they are no longer available on Sonos systems as a result. Others may not have resources to spare very often, and their responses to news about the integration going wrong may be slow as a result. To be clear, I am speaking in general terms and I know nothing about what resources CBC can put on this. Any older apps are likely using the older versions of these integration scripts, which is why they may see different results.

I hope this helps.

Even odder, today at exactly the same time CBC content appears on the Sonos Android app on my phone but doesn't appear on the Sonos iPad app. Same network, of course. But the CBC stations appear on the third-party SonoPad app on my iPad. 

Hi ​@Toolio 

Seeing different results from 2 current versions of our app suggests that the issue might not lie with CBC after all - if that is what you are reporting? You mention SonoPad on your iPad, so I am not 100% sure.

If you are indeed seeing results from the current Android version of the Sonos app and not from the current iOS version of the Sonos app, could you please attempt to browse on each app, and submit a support diagnostic from each app afterwards? Please let me know when you have done so, and which app had a diagnostic submitted from it first, but please do not post any diagnostic numbers. Thanks.

Yes, I am reporting different results with the current official Sonos app on the iPad and the current official Sonos app on my android phone (in this case a Google Pixel 9 pro). My screenshots above were from those two devices using the official Sonos app. I’d be happy  to help you out with the diagnostics, but they will have to wait. I’m travelling this week and am away from my system. However, over the past weekend, I experimented more and this issue seems to be all over the map. On either device, using the official Sonos apps, the CBC stations will sometimes appear, then disappear a few minutes later when I click again on the CBC service. Other times the CBC stations will be there for many hours, then disappear. Or they won’t be there for many hours then reappear. Sometimes there are no CBC stations available on the Sonos app on one device, but available on the other. I’ve experienced incidences where they appear on the iPad app, but not the android app, and the reverse.  Sometimes they disappear from both devices and apps simultaneously. It seems to be totally random, with the exception that there’s a better chance of the stations appearing as they should early in the morning. As the day progresses the chance of getting the “no content items available” message seems to increase substantially.

When I return from my trip next weekend, I’ll check again and send the diagnostics logs if the problems persist.

Hi ​@Toolio 

In that case, it may just be that both versions of the app are being consistent in not consistently showing the content, which may well take us back to the service itself.

Hopefully, by the time you come back, it will have been fixed and you won’t need to bother with any of this - I have my fingers crossed.

If it has not cleared up when you return, however, and if you have not yet been in touch with our support team in regards to this issue, perhaps it would be best if you called our support team instead, to raise the priority. of the ticket pertaining to this issue.

To follow up, the issue of CBC stations frequently being listed as unavailable in the Sonos app seems ro have finally settled down over the past few days. Stations are appearing as they should. It seems somebody has done something somewhere. I hope this remains the norm.