slacker radio question

Oct 29, 2008
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Give the set up of the radio a better chance. The Slacker online chat is very helpful. Get in contact with them right away if you have more problems. Read the Slacker forums to educate yourself. On issues, tricks, etc. That way you will have a good feel for what to do when you get another player. I recall you having a refreshing issue......
 

Kevin2500

Member
Nov 12, 2008
114
1
18
clinton ohio
Give the set up of the radio a better chance. The Slacker online chat is very helpful. Get in contact with them right away if you have more problems. Read the Slacker forums to educate yourself. On issues, tricks, etc. That way you will have a good feel for what to do when you get another player. I recall you having a refreshing issue......




I think it was a refreshing issue and i got my computer refreshed today so everything is back to normal.
 

styckx

Member
Nov 11, 2008
250
4
18
Dug around, I'll just use this thread.

My Slacker doesn't seem to actually refresh anymore. I listened all day at work yesterday (over 8hrs same station) and refreshed when I got home. That channels refresh took all of a minute. This usually takes a long time after playing such a large amount of songs from 1 channel.

Just tested it again. Left it playing all night when I went to bed. Just woke up and refreshed, and again, the refresh just flew through the channel. Highly doubting it added anything.
 

styckx

Member
Nov 11, 2008
250
4
18
Forum guy said this is definitely not normal and email support and see what they say.

It's only doing it for this one channel. All the rest on my G2 refresh normally. I will be annoyed if I have to remove the channel from the G2 then re-add it. Will lose all the songs I've accumulated on it.
 
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DAB

Mod Emeritus
Oct 9, 2008
9,434
149
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Louisiana
Yes, but that is likely what you will have to do if it isn't refreshing it.

Last night I removed 4 channels because the music on them had become somewhat stale. I couldn't figure it out. It would appear to take several minutes updating them. But I had made a lot of changes to those stations, adding artist, removing artist. I will still hearing artist I had removed weeks later and yet not hearing but one or maybe two songs from new artist. So, I resisted just like you are, but last night I decided the hell with it, I have to do this. So, I did and WOW, I am blown away I am hearing songs I've never heard and all my new artist are now playing and all the removed artist are finally gone.

I am beginning to wonder how well it removes and adds, but will continue to monitor this situation going forward.
 

styckx

Member
Nov 11, 2008
250
4
18
Yes, but that is likely what you will have to do if it isn't refreshing it.

Last night I removed 4 channels because the music on them had become somewhat stale. I couldn't figure it out. It would appear to take several minutes updating them. But I had made a lot of changes to those stations, adding artist, removing artist. I will still hearing artist I had removed weeks later and yet not hearing but one or maybe two songs from new artist. So, I resisted just like you are, but last night I decided the hell with it, I have to do this. So, I did and WOW, I am blown away I am hearing songs I've never heard and all my new artist are now playing and all the removed artist are finally gone.

I am beginning to wonder how well it removes and adds, but will continue to monitor this situation going forward.

Ever since I got it. I often wondered how well (if at all) the fine tuning a channel translates over to the G2 and refreshing. I've experienced similar things w/ my custom channels. Added a lot, fined tuned, yet the songs and playlist rotation on the G2 seemed to stay the same many refreshes later.
 

DAB

Mod Emeritus
Oct 9, 2008
9,434
149
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Louisiana
Ever since I got it. I often wondered how well (if at all) the fine tuning a channel translates over to the G2 and refreshing. I've experienced similar things w/ my custom channels. Added a lot, fined tuned, yet the songs and playlist rotation on the G2 seemed to stay the same many refreshes later.

Well my experience with the fine tuning seems to indicate that it does make changes, but they exclaim (slacker support) that you must completely listen to or at least allow it to play completely through all songs in a given channel before you get a total refresh where it replaces most songs etc. I have found that it does add new music, but just not as many as I would think it should. I think it keeps a lot more of the music than it removes.

The problem with totally removing a station is that it does of course remove your additional songs so your stations is now smaller. I've got a couple of stations right now that I am really monitoring closely. Last nights total removal and re-add is what is should be doing through normal refreshing in my opinion, but it clearly is not.
 

styckx

Member
Nov 11, 2008
250
4
18
Yeah. It's ok though, despite some of the shortcomings of Slacker, it's still a fantastic music delivery service. Money well spent.

I also tend to remember, the average user of the G2/G1 won't be as nit picky w/ it like we are. We love exploring and digging deep into sat/music delivery services and tend to notice small things that most people would never notice.
 

DAB

Mod Emeritus
Oct 9, 2008
9,434
149
63
Louisiana
Yeah. It's ok though, despite some of the shortcomings of Slacker, it's still a fantastic music delivery service. Money well spent.

I also tend to remember, the average user of the G2/G1 won't be as nit picky w/ it like we are. We love exploring and digging deep into sat/music delivery services and tend to notice small things that most people would never notice.


I agree with you on all account! :)
 

styckx

Member
Nov 11, 2008
250
4
18
I'm highly dissapointed w/ my answer from Slacker.

My question

My Slacker doesn't seem to actually refresh anymore. I listened
all day at work yesterday (over 8hrs same station) and refreshed when I
got home. That channels refresh took all of a minute. This usually took
a long time after playing such a large amount of songs from 1 channel.

Tested it again. Left it playing all night when I went to bed. Just woke
up and refreshed, and again, the refresh just flew through the channel.
Highly doubting it added or removed anything. This is a custom channel I
made w/ 500+ artists on it.

I tested this out on another channel. 90's Rock.

Refreshed unit. Listened to 90's for a 1/2 hour, then listened to my
custom channel for a 1/2 hour.. Then refreshed

90's rock took a bit of time (like normal) to refresh the channel. While
my custom station again just flew through the refresh process. Progress
bar jumps right to about 25%, a few songs go by, 75%, a few more seconds
100% and it's done.

Their answer
The stations can download a max of 500 songs to the station and at this
time it may be close to filling that up.

Best Regards,
Charles B.
Slacker Support
Official Slacker Forums • Index page


So you mean to tell me when this thing gets 500 songs it decided to stop deleting and refreshing the channel? How much more clear could I have written it that isn't not refreshing the channel?
 

DAB

Mod Emeritus
Oct 9, 2008
9,434
149
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Louisiana
Styckx, I understand what you mean that doesn't seem like a very logical response.

I can tell you that I and at least another person I know has had dealing with CharlesB and honestly the results were less than expected.

I eventually did talk with Frank about a problem I was having and of course he gave me a real solution. It may not have been what I wanted, but at least he gave me something.

Anyway I find it hard to believe that once the device reaches the 500 songs that it quits refreshing. Why would it still not remove songs and add newer songs from their huge library? Oh its filled up isn't a very good answer. So what is the solution? Deleting the channel and starting over? That doesn't seem very good either.
 

styckx

Member
Nov 11, 2008
250
4
18
Styckx, I understand what you mean that doesn't seem like a very logical response.

I can tell you that I and at least another person I know has had dealing with CharlesB and honestly the results were less than expected.

I eventually did talk with Frank about a problem I was having and of course he gave me a real solution. It may not have been what I wanted, but at least he gave me something.

Anyway I find it hard to believe that once the device reaches the 500 songs that it quits refreshing. Why would it still not remove songs and add newer songs from their huge library? Oh its filled up isn't a very good answer. So what is the solution? Deleting the channel and starting over? That doesn't seem very good either.


Which is exactly what I ended up doing. The turn around for the email was 52hrs. Sorry, I got impatient waiting around for an answer and just deleted and reapplied the channel.

Sorta disappointing, they aren't unlike any other company when it comes to customer service. 52hr turn around time for a 1/2 assed answer.
 

styckx

Member
Nov 11, 2008
250
4
18
I dug a few pages into the slacker g2 forum and found I'm not the only one this has happened to.

Official Slacker Forums • G2 doesn't take *enough* time to refresh?

This seems weird, and I might be paranoid....

I have an 8GB G2, I've loaded 5 stations on it. I used the radio for ~5 hours straight the other day, then went to refresh.

It took less than 2 minutes.

I also haven't heard a new song in awhile. But I do have confirmation that it's connecting to the internet when it refreshes.

Some random guy had a more logical answer.. But it still makes no sense to me why it would operate like this.

After the station is loaded on the portable, it doesn't refresh the whole station, it may refresh 15 songs or so, I'm not sure how many songs it replaces out of how many songs played. It may take awhile to hear new songs being played on that station as it may spread out the songs. The more you listen to it and refresh it, the larger your station will grow.
 

DAB

Mod Emeritus
Oct 9, 2008
9,434
149
63
Louisiana
Interesting stuff you've come across. I also agree that I think when it refreshes it only adds so many new songs, but basically just reshuffles or reorders the playlist for a given station. This is how it continues to grow a station. If it actually removed and added the station would likely stay the same size. However, it seems that ideally once it reaches the 500 song cap that it should at that point remove songs and then add songs, this would allow a large station to remain fresh. But apparently that simply isn't how it is working.

The only solution for a station where you've made a lot of changes such as artist adds and removes, would be to pull the station from the G2 and then re-add it thereby matching what the web player is showing as current for you. This also brings into question how effective is the fine tuning unless you totally remove and re-add the station when make a big change there too.
 

ibprtazpolpcp

New Member
Dec 10, 2008
28
4
3
I haven't had a chance to test a theory, but I think I've observed something. Preface every sentence with maybe...

When more than one station aren't too different, they "share" songs. Say you wanna see how the "Fine Tuning" sliders affect your custom station, so you make three copies. Each has one "Fine Tuning" attribute set different. It (the computer on the slacker server) tends to inordinately weight songs it's able to "share". This could be a design consideration. For example, one of their design goals would be to minimize refresh times.

Another way to test it would be something like this. Set up your portable to have only three stations. All custom. No artist discovery. 15 artists each. So let's say the three are Rock, Country, and Hip Hop. Now also add "The Chipmunks" artist to all three. You would think you'd hear The Chipmunks 1/16 of the time, no matter which station you're playing. If it's significantly more often, you've found a way to accidentally corrupt a stations ability to refresh.

Just brainstorming...