To homepage To homepage
Answered

BBC working fine, and then.... audio cutting out

T
Badge
So, so sorry to bring up the BBC Radio topic again, but I'm not sure my problem is answered elsewhere. When BBC updated, I followed the instructions on this forum and everything for a few months has been working swimmingly until yesterday. Now the BBC channels cut out, jump back, speed up or just don't play. My partner predominantly listens to Radio 2 and she is getting a bit miffed. Any suggestions? Is the feed from TuneIn faulty or has my system gone a bit awry? Other radio stations are playing fine, as is my streaming from other sources.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks
Johnny
icon

Best answer by Ryan S 3 August 2016, 20:51

Thanks for all the details guys. As Chris brought up, we are digging into this issue with the cutouts. The latest is a correlation with the cutouts and VirginMedia, but we're still gathering data. If you're not already in touch with our support team I recommend giving us a call on our support line. They'll want to upgrade some logging and grab some diagnostics.

We don't currently have a timeline on a resolution but we are working with the BBC on the trouble. We know it's frustrating and will let you know as soon as we have more to add.

Edit: I'm going to make this thread the main one for this issue, so if you're having trouble with BBC stations cutting out and most other services playing fine, please make sure to post in here and follow it. Again, still a great idea to give us a call.
View original
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.

173 replies

A
Johnny Walker Thankyou this worked for me. The connect was instant and no failure for a few hours now.
Sonos team (I contacted you today re this) it looks like this may not be a virgin media/Tunein issue after all? Could Johnny's solution be looked at as a possible way forward?
J
Userlevel 1
Badge
I too am a VirginMedia user and see frequent dropouts on all BBC Radio Streams while others appear to be more stable. I'd really appreciate some form of root cause description and a fix that I can either configure or Sonos can implement. Can Sonos provide some clarity on this, please?
A
John bayne I have added the URL of all my favourite stations to Add radio stations as advised by Johnny Walker sonos is now connecting instantly and have had no outrage since doing this. I was going to throw my sonos out the window yesterday but normal service has resumed for me.

Sonos support please check out Johnny walkers solution and provide a software update as this is a very frustrating issue.
J
Userlevel 1
Badge
Thanks, this approach does apppear to have fixed the issue with BBC Radio for me. I thought I read another response from someone who said it hadn't worked and so was unsure if it was a solid fix/workaround.
Cheers!
J
Userlevel 3
Badge
After switching to the feed URL I posted a day or two ago, streaming BBC Radio 2 was perfect for a day or two, much better than using the tunein selection.

However today I noticed some dropouts again :(

We could do with a poll of users affected to see if it's just a Virgin media issue, in the meantime I'm now trying an mp3 stream for BBC Radio 2: http://www.radiofeeds.co.uk/bbcradio2.pls

So far so good, but obviously I'd prefer to use the higher quality HLS stream, but for casual listening the 128kbps mp3 stream is fine, certainly much better than the constant dropping out when using the HLS stream which is SO annoying.

I'm going to use this mp3 stream and see if I get any dropouts at all and I'll report back :)

Admins, can you change the forum settings to show most recent replies first by default, I personally find it strange to have to manually sort the replies to see the latest updates to a post.
A
Johnny and sonos support I've been listening to Clyde 1 all morning with no issues but just switched to BBC radio 2 and experiencing drop outs. Now trying radio Scotland. All stations being accessed via URL.

I am virgin media user I have reported this to them also.

This is extremely frustrating!
J
Userlevel 3
Badge
Just a thought, if anyone has plenty of/unlimited mobile data on their phone, they could try creating a personal hotspot and connecting their Sonos through that instead of their home broadband connection.

This would be particularly interesting if it's a Virgin Media user, as if BBC Radio HLS streams via Tunein work fine via 3g/4g then it certainly suggests it a Virgin Media issue.
E
A lot of posts on here (i didn't read all of them) mention Virgin. Well, I'm in NY (downtown Manhattan) and radio one also cuts out so i doubt it is specific to Virgin...
D
Another virgin media user here.. Same problems. I've been having the trouble for a couple of months, have changed every wifi setting possible but still keeps happening. I generally only listen to BBC radio 2 and 6. If I get chance I might try the mobile hot-spot but sometimes it's hours before the cutting out starts so it would be a while before I could definitely say that was trouble free. All I want for Christmas is a working radio!
J
I have a similar problem. it re-emerged about 1-2 weeks ago. The station I have noticed it with is Radio 4. It occurs mainly in the mornings. I'm on virgin media and have about 150 Mbps download speed when it is happening. Spotify plays fine.
J
Userlevel 3
Badge
I've been using the mp3 stream since I posted it one here and it's been perfect, it does seem to take a little longer to open the stream initially, but that's a small price to pay for uninterrupted streaming 🙂

Happy Christmas everyone, and I hope you all get this sorted.
C
Userlevel 6
Badge +12
Sonos have replied on this issue: https://en.community.sonos.com/troubleshooting-228999/virgin-media-and-tunein-playback-issue-6763042
A
Hi.
This issue started for me about 2 weeks ago. Prior to that playback had fine. Diagnostic report 7420073. No change in setup. Not Virgin Media customer.
Thanks for your help
Tom B
Userlevel 4
Badge +3
Hi.
This issue started for me about 2 weeks ago. Prior to that playback had fine. Diagnostic report 7420073. No change in setup. Not Virgin Media customer.
Thanks for your help

Hi andy117, welcome to the community. Can you first try removing any BBC stations which you might have saved to your Favorites? Try playing them back just by searching for the station by name within the app. If you continue to get problems, please get back to us with a new diagnostic report.
H
Userlevel 1
Just started having intermittent Radio 3 today. Rebooted router but SNAFU. Found this blog thread and will try removing favourites as suggested. PS BT Infinity 2 user. Hope this is a temporary bug.
A
1 year later and I can't believe this hasn't been fixed yet! First off, Internet is not provided by VirginMedia so the assumption that it is correlated to Virgin is misleading - though I wouldn't completely rule it out, it's just unlikely IMO.

BBC Radio 1 has been constantly dropping out this morning so I found this thread and tried the suggestion, which was to manually add the radio station. Having done this, I've had no drop outs at all so I can only assume there is something wrong with the BBC radio stations on Sono's Tune In Radio music service.

Can a Sonos Staff member confirm whether BBC Radio 1 in Tune In Radio is playing this direct stream that works for me, or is it something else?
http://a.files.bbci.co.uk/media/live/manifesto/audio/simulcast/hls/uk/sbr_high/ak/bbc_radio_one.m3u8
H
Userlevel 1
After removing Sonos favo(u)rites my cut-out problem has not recurred yet. Worth trying this solution which seems to have worked for 18 days so far.
A
I am also having this issue with my system, I am a BT customer. Submitted diagnostics 7758611
H
Userlevel 1
Just discovered a new possible cause. This morning I used my iPhone app to group/sync all Sonos speakers to Radio 3 Tune-in radio (they had been playing different radio stations in different rooms; two of them activated by my morning alarm switch-on settings) and immediately the music started cutting out every few seconds . After a month without problems I was again furious. Went to my (Windows) PC to post to this blog but before doing so I used the PC controls to set the group to another BBC station which played OK. Returned to Radio 3 and that also played OK. So I am suspecting that there is a software glitch which kicks in if the grouping and syncing of the speakers is conducted from two different controlling programs. I will keep an eye on this possible cause and report again if it recurs. While the cutting out is a pain in the neck it seems that if there is a usable work-around it is better then no solution at all.
S
Userlevel 2
Just discovered a new possible cause. This morning I used my iPhone app to group/sync all Sonos speakers to Radio 3 Tune-in radio (they had been playing different radio stations in different rooms; two of them activated by my morning alarm switch-on settings) and immediately the music started cutting out every few seconds . After a month without problems I was again furious. Went to my (Windows) PC to post to this blog but before doing so I used the PC controls to set the group to another BBC station which played OK. Returned to Radio 3 and that also played OK. So I am suspecting that there is a software glitch which kicks in if the grouping and syncing of the speakers is conducted from two different controlling programs. I will keep an eye on this possible cause and report again if it recurs. While the cutting out is a pain in the neck it seems that if there is a usable work-around it is better then no solution at all.

I believe there is something in this theory. I have been streaming BBC Radio 6 music for weeks without a problem. Yesterday I turned on the stream in one room from my phone. I then grouped another room in from my iPad and straight away the cutout started every few seconds. I ungrouped the room using the iPad but the cutouts still continued. Looking at the phone, the rooms still appeared grouped. Ungrouped again and closed the apps on both devices and the cutouts stopped.

However, today the cutouts started again after an hour of listening in a single room, having made no changes from the day before. App was only open on one device.
I then visited the Favourites page where my Radio 6 stream is listed as a favourite and the cutouts stopped immediately without making a single change. It's been fine for the last half hour.
M
Hi,
I know this thread has been going on for quite some time. Unfortunately, I am also suffering problems with BBC radio (and Spotify for that matter) dropping out with monotonous regularity.
I have just generated a diagnostics report, 8337778, for the latest occurrence.
FWIW, I'm a Virgin Media customer as well.
Is there any indication when this issue will be fixed?

Many thanks


Mark
M
Unknowningly posted re:BBC drops

03-06-2019, 6 months on from the last post, by MarkPope.

My post is at https://en.community.sonos.com/ask-a-question-228987/bbc-radio-dropouts-6826314

Have just seen JohnnyWalker's list and potential solution. Thank you for that data. Mow we will try that line as our next attempt to beat the drops.

Phil

View real-time service status