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issues with tunein radio and CBC radio

  • 11 September 2022
  • 18 replies
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Userlevel 1

Canadian user here having issues listening to CBC radio1 through TuneIn radio. It has become incredible annoying to try to listen to the radio through TuneIn over the past few weeks as every fe minutes the program cuts out to hear the”tunein song”, and sometimes ads. This is a new problem, and is driving me crazy. I have updated all apps and operating systems. 

Does anyone have any advise? Please. 

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Best answer by Corry P 21 September 2022, 12:02

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18 replies

If you are referring to Tune-In or CBC radio ads, which often raises revenue to pay artists and staff etc; then you’re probably best to contact those media service providers direct. Sonos is just the platform used to deliver their content, but the actual media (including the Ads) is going to be down to the provider themselves.

Userlevel 1

Thanks will do that. Is there any other way to listen to radio stations through my sonos, so as to avoid using tunein all together? 

I tend to personally use a mix of Sonos Radio, BBC sounds, and myTuner radio, but I still get ads aswell. So I mostly just opt to use the streaming music services playlists and stations from Amazon (Music Ultimate HD).

Occasionally I will use my own NAS library tracks, but that is perhaps not widely used these days, but I like to revisit some old playlists now and again (just nostalgia, I guess)).

If the source station has a web stream, there is always the setting up an internet radio station FAQ, then you should only get the ads from that radio station, assuming they aren’t just surfacing another streamer’s link. 

Userlevel 7
Badge +18

Hi @Glenmar 

Welcome to the Sonos Community!

Without seeing a diagnostic it’s hard to say for sure, but it sounds like the connection to the radio station is being lost and the speaker then re-establishes it to continue playback. This effectively starts a new session, according to the server, and it will therefore play the TuneIn preamble or ads again before continuing with the radio stream. 

I recommend you get in touch with our technical support team, who have tools at their disposal that will allow them to give you advice specific to your Sonos system and what it reports - if there are lost connections, we’ll hopefully find the cause and recommend actions for you to take (it may be as simple as rebooting your router, so I’d try that first - switch it off for 30 seconds).

I hope this helps.

I'm having the exact same issue as the original poster. Can't listen to CBC Radio One Toronto on my Sonos! I have tried streaming several other local radio stations on Sonos, all working perfectly. 

Userlevel 7
Badge +18

Hi @Buckleup75 

You could try adding myTuner or radio.net to your Sonos system - both provide that particular station, have nothing to do with TuneIn, and you do not need to sign up anywhere to add them.

How to add a music service to Sonos

Or, of course, get in touch with our technical support team, who have tools at their disposal that will allow them to give you advice specific to your Sonos system and what it reports.

I hope this helps.

Userlevel 1

Today was absolutely brutal, I would get 2 minutes of the news then the TuneIn song and same ad repeated 4 times, then back to the news for 2 minutes. Will try the rebooting, and the tech support when I have some time to devote to it. 

Thanks 

Userlevel 3
Badge +2

@Glenmar I have exactly the same issue. I agree today was particularly brutal. It was so brutal I stopped Sonos and instead listened using the iOS CBC Listen app - which streamed perfectly.

It’s been happening on and off for about a month. About 3 months ago there was a general issue with CBC Radio streaming, the CBC apparently changed a lot of streaming URLs, but that has supposedly been fixed. The CBC has acknowledged the general issue:

https://cbchelp.cbc.ca/hc/en-ca/articles/6640395359899--NEW-Issues-connection-to-CBC-Radio-networks-on-internet-devices

The current issue is only with CBC Radio 1 Toronto. All other CBC Radio streams (well over a dozen) work perfectly fine. Makes me suspect that the Toronto URLs haven’t been updated properly by Sonos/TuneIn. I am using Sonos Radio, not TuneIn, I don’t even have TuneIn configured in Sonos (yes I’m aware SR uses TI under the covers).

Don’t waste your time rebooting. I have two physically disjoint Sonos installations and they both exhibit the issue. The problem is not with your system per se.

@Corry P I reached out to CBC technical support recently and they asked me to ask you to contact them at audiencehelp@cbc.ca so they can diagnose the issue. Could you please do this? Surely you don’t need us to contact Sonos technical support for you to take action. Thanks.

 

It may actually need to be TuneIn’s CS that needs to reach out to them, unfortunately. 

Userlevel 3
Badge +2

It may actually need to be TuneIn’s CS that needs to reach out to them, unfortunately. 

You may be right about that since (as I understand it) Sonos Radio’s implementation leverages TuneIn. However as a Sonos Radio user Sonos’ internal implementation choices aren’t within my purview. 😀

Edit: I just realized I don’t have exactly the same issue as @glenmar as they are using TuneIn and I am using Sonos Radio. However in all other respects it’s identical. When I first encountered the issue I too was using TuneIn, but I switched to Sonos Radio, and deleted TuneIn as a service, in an attempt to fix the issue.

Userlevel 7
Badge +18

Hi @ings 

It may actually need to be TuneIn’s CS that needs to reach out to them, unfortunately. 

Airgetlam is correct - we don’t contact radio stations as we don’t maintain the list of stations available, nor can we change the entries on that list in order to fix things.

The reason I was asking you to contact technical support is so they can investigate if any of the lost connections are due to conditions local to you - no amount of cajoling radio broadcasters will fix those.

Looks like TuneIn is moving to a paid subscription.  myTuner works for me.  

update - there is a free tier but isn’t working in the browser version either, so there’s something wrong on the TuneIn side I would say.  

Userlevel 3
Badge +2

​Airgetlam is correct - we don’t contact radio stations as we don’t maintain the list of stations available, nor can we change the entries on that list in order to fix things.

Hi @Corry P 

Before you launched Sonos Radio, IMO this would have been a reasonable answer. After all TuneIn is just one of many services that Sonos allows you to add and use.

However I don’t use TuneIn - I’ve deleted it. Instead I use Sonos Radio. It’s yours, you own it, you maintain it, and IMO you need to take responsibility for fixing glitches when they arise. Otherwise why is it branded Sonos?

Finally, CBC Radio 1 Toronto is the flagship station for Canada’s national public broadcaster (similar to BBC or NPR). Problems with it are going to impact a lot of Canadian users.

That said, I’m willing to help troubleshoot this (it’s in my self-interest to get it fixed). Let me know.

 

 

Userlevel 7
Badge +18

Hi @ings 

“Sonos Radio” refers to the curated playlists shown at the top of the Sonos Radio container - that’s what we provide and maintain. The lower, separated section for local radio pulls from the TuneIn list of stations, and your system will access those stations via TuneIn - hence the TuneIn related ads. The number of stations around the world is huge and TuneIn have been collating them for a long time.

I do appreciate your point, but I have already provided a workaround to you - install myTuner or radio.com to your Sonos system and access the station you require from there instead. @bood has already said above that the station works on myTuner. If you mark the station as a favourite, it literally makes no difference where the link to the stream actually comes from - except for the TuneIn announcement at the start, which will be gone.

You probably won’t be aware, but the BBC recently removed all their stations from TuneIn - and most other collator services - which caused a fair amount of issues over here. UK users must now use BBC Sounds as a specialised service on Sonos to play any of them.

As you mentioned that all of your other stations play without issue, and the issue is repeated on another system of yours, it does seem much more likely to be an issue that you will be unable to resolve locally - unless Radio One Toronto plays at a higher bitrate than the others, in which case both local conditions may be just enough for other stations, but not this one. It is a bit more than a stretch though. If you do contact our technical support team after recreating the issue, they will be able to see the logs and at the very least assuage any concerns about the local conditions being the cause, and perhaps improve things locally such that you can be sure.

I hope this helps.

Userlevel 7
Badge +18

Hi @ings 

In addition, your creating a case with our technical support team will be the best way to for us to move forward and raise a ticket with TuneIn about this issue. 

Userlevel 3
Badge +2

Hi @Corry P 

Thank you for your professional responses above. When I have an opportunity I’ll open a ticket with technical support. Cheers!