Tunein dropouts?

[Kwackers]

Does anyone have any issues playing the radio via tunein?

It plays for 30-60 mins then starts rapidly dropping in and out. If I tell Alexa to stop and then immediately play the station again it fixes the issue until the next round of drop outs.

I can play the same radio station on my Sonos and have no issues, slightly more bizarrely I have an Echo and several dots and if I play the radio station on a few of them then when one starts dropping out the others continue playing fine - although eventually they'll all start dropping out.

Given it doesn't affect my Sonos and that it doesn't affect all the Echo's at the same time the problem would seem to be something to do with the Echo.

Anyone have any experience of this? Any suggestions?

[strayfish]

Yes, same thing and not all devices at the same time always. Stopping and restarting usually fixes it as you've said. Someone on another thread has suggested it's a Tunein streaming issue rather than the Echo/Dot. Same happens with Radioplayer. Just out of interest, if you're in the UK, is it mainly BBC stations that drop out? That's my impression at the moment as the one internet station I use never seems to be affected, but I don't use it as much so it's hard to tell.

[Kwackers]

Yep, it's mainly the BBC stations (I've not tried any others for any length of time so can't be sure).
Just bizarre that if it's a streaming issue it doesn't affect all the devices at the same time and it doesn't affect my Sonos at all...
Seems to be some sort of compatibility thing. They never used to do this, used to be fine up until a week or so ago.

(I hope they fix it soon, my other half likes to listen to the radio whilst she's doing stuff and I used the radio as a selling point "why pay £100 for a radio / speaker when we can go all high tech with voice operated stuff for the same price?"
A statement not lost on her when it doesn't work...  )

[strayfish]

Does Sonos use Tunein as well or is it streaming via another source?

I wonder if the fact they drop out at different times is linked to the lack of streaming synchrony? Dot in one room, Echo in another, one a little (sometimes quite a lot) ahead of the other.

I suppose if it's to do with a third party mediator between the BBC and Tunein, that's where complaints should be directed. These devices haven't been available in the UK for long so there's bound to be some bedding in. In the meantime, might be worth trying some of Echo's other little tricks to keep your wife on board. Audio books maybe? Or just asking it daft questions to see what comes back. Mine just heard something on the TV and announced, 'I don't have any money on me'! It sounded like it thought it was being held to ransom!

[Kwackers]

Sorry, should have said. Yep, Sonos uses Tunein.

It doesn't matter whether you listen to just one or more at the same time.
 
Initially I thought the Echo was playing up then tried a dot, that also did the same, so I tried another. After they all failed one after the other I tried playing a couple at the same time and that's when I discovered they don't fail together.

(Then I moved one of my Sonos speakers and started using that instead.)

When the Sonos plugin appears (and the Logitech Harmony one) she'll be happy enough. She already uses it for cooking timers and checking spelling etc (and the odd 'dad' joke)

[strayfish]

Curioser and curioser
Still, it's early days so I imagine things will move on in due course and soon we'll be expecting it to monitor the cat flap for invaders and lock them out! Hm, there's a thought ...

[mindmagic]

Only BBC stations cause problems for me. It's not just a TuneIn issue - I also get dropouts on a Roberts internet radio, which goes through Frontier Silicon. I found RadioPlayer was even worse.

[mat]

Ah, I guess I should have searched the forums before posting the exact same problem.

My Echo and Echo Dot both suffer drop-outs on TuneIn (mostly on BBC stations, but problem also affects LBC). No problems with the same streams on SONOS.

Same 'wife problem'... I moved one of the SONOS speakers out of the kitchen and now she's not happy about her beloved Radio 2 constantly stopping.

It may be unrelated, but my Echo Dot sometimes flashes red and tells me there's no internet when I issue a command. It does this while its happily streaming from Amazon Music, so there clearly IS an internet connection. Odd!

[strayfish]

It may be unrelated, but my Echo Dot sometimes flashes red and tells me there's no internet when I issue a command. It does this while its happily streaming from Amazon Music, so there clearly IS an internet connection. Odd!

Mine does that too. I've wondered if it's changing wifi channels and now I'm wondering if, when it does that, it can maintain Amazon streaming from an account but not a radio station via a third party app. What amused me was the unexpected finding that asking 'are you back online?' gets me 'yes, I'm connected to the internet' (if it is) and I can restart the radio.

[jwlv]

It may be unrelated, but my Echo Dot sometimes flashes red and tells me there's no internet when I issue a command. It does this while its happily streaming from Amazon Music, so there clearly IS an internet connection. Odd!

Mine does that too. I've wondered if it's changing wifi channels and now I'm wondering if, when it does that, it can maintain Amazon streaming from an account but not a radio station via a third party app. What amused me was the unexpected finding that asking 'are you back online?' gets me 'yes, I'm connected to the internet' (if it is) and I can restart the radio.

There is quite a large buffer in the Echo/Dot. Try this experiment. Play a song from Prime. Then pull the plug on your Wifi router. Your Echo/Dot will keep playing for a while even though there's no internet connection.

[mike27oct]

Dropout are a "feature" of tunein, either via Echo or direct connect.

[davfox]

This is currently a massive problem for me. Found this thread and it's quite old, i'm surprised!

There are over 50 bad reviews of the TuneIn app here - many recent, so it's far from solved.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/TuneIn-BBC-from/dp/B01N4GNNYZ

Are others here still suffering from this?

[mike27oct]

Tunein dropouts are made by the usual suspects.  Most always the same stations.  Some seem to never dropont.  Get used to it. or try playing tunein on a smartphone and send to Alexa device via BT.