alexa connects to my raido station then very quickly disconnects

[mikedoolin]

Hi - new to this forum - hoping to get some help. We bought an Echo some months ago and just loved it. It worked great until a few weeks ago, when it started disconnecting (or stop playing) almost as soon as it connected to one of our local radio stations. We'd say, "Alexa, play AM 1370 WXXI radio," it would connect, play the station for a few seconds, then go silent. This would happen a couple of times, and then it would not connect at all. We tried everything we could think of to no avail. Reset it, dumped the app and reloaded it, restarted both the wifi router and the modem, etc etc. Came to the conclusion that somehow the device got scrambled, maybe during a severe thunderstorm. So we bought a new one. I just tried to set that new one up today - went through the same routine: dumped and reloaded the app, reset the router and modem, etc etc. I get the same result with the new one! It still won't continue to play the station! So now we have TWO Echos that won't work!

I teach technical writing in a college engineering program and am a ham radio operator, been through Navy electronics and nuc schools, so I'm not a complete dunce when it comes to electronic devices, but this one is baffling me completely.

What are we doing wrong? Help!!

And thanks.

Mike

[garyyoung]

I've had a similar problem the last few weeks. When I play a local station (which Alexa accesses through iheartradio), it cuts out after a minute or so. Afterwards, no music will play, no matter the source. For instance, if I ask Alexa to "play the Beatles," Alexa will reply, "shuffling songs by the Beatles," but no music will play. Things go back to normal when I unplug the Dot, forcing a reboot.

This problem seemed to occur about the time Alexa began accessing the station through iheartradio (it's available on both TuneIn and iheartradio). I just unlinked my iheartradio account, forcing Alexa to access the station through TuneIn. It's been playing without interruption for 10 minutes or so.

I'm guessing iheartradio is the source of my problem. Is that how you get your local station?

[jwlv]

I've seen this type of behavior when the WiFi (or internet) connection is spotty. It also happens during those times when another device is hogging up all your bandwidth. This happens on iPhone and Android device when they decide to do a backup and uses up all of your upstream bandwidth, and thereby wiping out your downstream as well.
73's

[mike27oct]

First of all both of you w/problems need to tell us if the issue is with one particular station or quite a few.  Since I don't know the answer to this is it the other general "fix" for a lot of Alexa issues"  Turn it off and turn it on.  This means unplug it for FIVE minutes.  This gives the device ttime to completely clear any data stored and also your account at the mother ship as well.  After five minutes, plug it back in and try playing again once fully operational again.

As for low bandwidth issues, maybe but the Echo hardly uses any bandwidth when playing.  One has to have a pretty low bandwidth signal to start with like 5 Mbps - max.  More likely it is a weak wireless signal (which can reduce bandwidth, too) from router due to distance.

(PS, I also have electronics training from USAF where I once repaired a large system for over six years until I gladly left AF)

OK, let me know results and that you can receive other Tunein/iHeart stations other than the problematic one.

BTW, an iHeart account and turning it off is irrelevant; I do not have an iHeart account and both Alexa and Google Home will often select iHeart if I do not specify which radio I want played.  Also some stations are naturally flaky and often cut out.

Also branch out from local stations; you have all the radio stations in the world to select from!

[malliekm]

I'm currently able to pull up both the AM stations I listen to out of Dallas Texas. I was also able to listen to WXXI 1370.  Who knew there were seminars on bullfighting  . Sounds like you've done everything you can do. Have you contacted Amazon technical support? 

[SamA]

No problem connecting to 1370 WXXI here via TuneIn.

[garyyoung]

Mike27oct is correct that unlinking my iheartradio account didn't solve the problem -- Alexa can still call up the station on iheartradio unless I specify TuneIn.

When I say, "Play WRUR on Tunein," the station plays indefinitely.
When I say, "Play WRUR on iheartradio," the station cuts out after a minute or so. More disturbingly, no other music (for instance, another radio station or Amazon music) will play until I reboot.

This doesn't seem to be a general problem with iheartradio -- I can get a lot of their other stations without problems.

Would someone mind trying to play WRUR on iheartradio?

[malliekm]

The first time I tried it played a commercial and then stopped. I tried four other times to initiate the station but after it announced the station call letters, it stopped.

[mike27oct]

Same issue as above, with both iheart and tunein.  Even kind of hosed two Dots; they had trouble disconnecting from station and needed to unplug the power cord to reboot..

There are stations that are flaky, and WRUR is one of them, apparently.  Report issue to WRUR.

[malliekm]

SEVERAL minutes, maybe a half an hour went by and I'd forgotten about the attempt to play the station.  I was cooking dinner and had the vent-a-hood on.  I kept hearing something but couldn't figure out from where it was coming.  I finally traced it to the Dot.  It was playing that radio station LOL

[garyyoung]

Thanks to everyone who tried out WRUR.

I don't know why I didn't pick up on this earlier, but it just dawned on me that both the OP and I are listening to Rochester, NY PBS stations. Mikedoolin is having problems with the Rochester AM affiliate and I'm having troubles with the Rochester FM affiliate. Sounds like a message to the local station is in order.

Mikedoolin, you shouldn't have any trouble listening to AM 1370 if you insist that Alexa use TuneIn -- for instance, "Alexa, play AM 1370 on TuneIn" or "Alexa, play WXXI on TuneIn." I just tested this out and everything seems to work fine.

[TrickesSm]

Also having problems here with my iheartradio station. You're not alone. I'll update on if I find a temporary solution. I've ready through some of the ones posted here, so far no luck.

[dccircuit]

Hello, everyone.  I work for WXXI/WRUR and we found out from iHeartRadio that there's an incompatibility problem between our streaming provider's HLS formatted streams and their Amazon app.  So, they've switched to using one of our other stream formats until our streaming provider's HLS streams work better with their app.  Can you give these stations a try again (through the iHeart app) and see if they stay online longer?  Thanks for discussing this here and thanks to the person who sent us a link to this forum.

[mike27oct]

Thanks for working on this, although with an Echo, 4 Dots and 2 Google Homes running I get mixed results on both iHeart and Tunein for your stations. Google Homes cannot find them.  Dots can on iHeart and Tunein but sometimes when I stop the playing it takes a while for these stations to disconnect.  Then, I cannot play known stations and need to unplug the Dots to reset them so they work right again.

[garyyoung]

Hello, everyone.  I work for WXXI/WRUR and we found out from iHeartRadio that there's an incompatibility problem between our streaming provider's HLS formatted streams and their Amazon app.  So, they've switched to using one of our other stream formats until our streaming provider's HLS streams work better with their app.  Can you give these stations a try again (through the iHeart app) and see if they stay online longer?  Thanks for discussing this here and thanks to the person who sent us a link to this forum.

I'm still having the same problem. I'm not sure what you mean by the Amazon app. Perhaps you mean a "skill," the name Amazon gives to apps on Echo. But this behavior occurs on the stock Amazon echo (an Echo Dot, in my case), without any special iheartradio app.