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Contributor I
November 18, 2019
Question

My Sonos will not play certain local radio stations via Tunein

Hope someone can help. My Sonos one using tunein radio will play our local radio station called Pirate FM and will also play Pirate 70’s but when I ask it to play Pirate 80’s or Pirate Christmas it states that the station is playing but I get nothing? Any help would be grateful….Thank you

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    9 replies

    Ken_Griffiths
    November 18, 2019

    Do you get any error message at all within the Sonos App ‘Now Playing’ screen when these stations fail to play?

    Ken_Griffiths
    November 18, 2019

    Also what results do you get from a 'Tune-In Radio' search in the Sonos App, does that show the missing radio stations?

    controlav
    Lead Maestro
    November 19, 2019

    I can only see Pirate 70s when searching, no Pirate 80s or Pirate Christmas. I am in the USA.

    Author of the leading independent Sonos apps for Android, MacOS, iOS, Windows and Xbox.
    DonliskAuthor
    Contributor I
    November 19, 2019

    Hi Ken, many thanks for your reply. The error message I receive when trying to play the station is “Unable to play ‘Pirate 80’s’ - the song is not encoded correctly. The Sonos app does show Pirate 80’s but then just comes up with the error message above. When I ask Alexa to play the station once again all I get is dead air.

     

    Thank you also Controlav for your reply. Can you see Pirate FM at all?

    Airgetlam
    November 19, 2019

    They’re not showing up on the TuneIn.com website, either.

    Bruce
    controlav
    Lead Maestro
    November 20, 2019

    I can see and play Pirate FM and Pirate FM (East) from the PC controller. Seems to be a Cornwall-based station.

    Author of the leading independent Sonos apps for Android, MacOS, iOS, Windows and Xbox.
    DonliskAuthor
    Contributor I
    November 20, 2019

    You are correct controlav, it is a Cornwall based local radio station. The strange thing about all this is the fact that I can get both Pirate 80’s and Pirate Christmas through my Amazon echo.

    controlav
    Lead Maestro
    November 21, 2019

    That is not strange at all: TuneIn delivers different station urls depending on the target device type, so it doesn’t surprise me that Echos get a slightly different list to Sonos. I can only assume the “missing” streams use a codec or bitrate that Sonos cannot support, so it is filtered from the Sonos listings.

    Are you in Cornwall? I used to visit Newquay for many summers as a kid, lots of fun memories.

    Author of the leading independent Sonos apps for Android, MacOS, iOS, Windows and Xbox.
    DonliskAuthor
    Contributor I
    November 21, 2019

    Hello controlav, thank you so much for explaining things, at least now I know it is not a fault in the product. I will just have to stream it via my phone or tablet ( which does work very well ).

    Yes I do live in Cornwall, not far from a place called Looe. I do go down Newquay sometimes but not too often these days.