Slacker Not Playing Song Requested Through Voice Command

[sorka]

It's been that way since June 2015 when I hit my first model S and is still that way today on my 100D. Completely used my paid for Slacker Premium account. I don't care if you don't believe because I get to use it every day

I purchased a Premium Slacker account in November 2nd 2016, entered my login credentials to the Tesla Slacker app only to discover that none of the premium features worked. Here's a copy of the transcript from Slacker customer service:

Chat transcript



Name: Alan XXXXXXX

E-mail: [email protected]




Charles Blackwell Wed, 11/02/16 11:33:08 am America/Los_Angeles

Hello Alan XXXXXXX. How may I help you?




Alan XXXXXXX 11:34:43 am

Hi. I just upgraded my personal account from basic to premium to use in my Tesla but some important premium features aren't working. For instance, I can't jump to any part of the song and a request for a specific song only works the first time within a 24 hour which is the same as I get now on my free TeslaSlacker account.




Charles Blackwell 11:36:40 am

Tesla does not currently support Premium features through the dash app, it was a decision made on their side




Alan XXXXXXX 11:37:11 am

Ahh. So will the high bitrate setting work on the tesla plus account?




Charles Blackwell 11:37:25 am

They have requested to be the starting point for all questions related to the Slacker app through the Tesla Dash Audio system.


You can reach them at 1-(877)-798-3752.




Alan XXXXXXX 11:37:33 am

BTW, this should be made clear prior to purchase.




Charles Blackwell 11:37:37 am

The higher audio setting is new to this firmware as well




Alan XXXXXXX 11:37:45 am

They told me to contact Slacker with that question.




Charles Blackwell 11:37:54 am

The bitrate question?




Alan XXXXXXX 11:37:59 am

Yes.




Charles Blackwell 11:38:49 am

higher bitrates are supported for Tesla on our side, it has to be done through the Dash app




Alan XXXXXXX 11:41:25 am

They removed the setting from the app with the recent upgrade to 8.0. There is a "high bitrate" setting when you login with a personal account. Tesla said that with the the Tesla plus account, that the bitrate setting can be modified on the slacker settings on the website. So I made that change but it didn't fix the issue. The app is still using the low quality setting based on how bad and compressed the audio quality is.
This is why they told me to contact you.




Charles Blackwell 11:42:01 am

Did you speak with the store you bought it from or did you speak to their Customer Support Call Center team?




Alan XXXXXXX 11:42:10 am

BTW, the forums are complaining about this in general so this is not just an issue with my account.
Yes. They told me to contact you.
In the meantime, how can I undo my upgrade since I did it only to get those features on the Model S.




Charles Blackwell 11:42:57 am

We can only tell you for sure what is supported through us at this time. Tesladesigns their app themselves and have the ability to allow for the higher audio bitrate if they wish up to 320
What is the email address you upgraded on? 11:43:07 am




Alan XXXXXXX 11:43:20 am

[email protected]
I'm fine if it runs it's course for the first month.
i.e. can I just cancel any time I want on the website?




Charles Blackwell 11:44:18 am

It is now cancelled and will end on 11/2/2016




Alan XXXXXXX 11:44:22 am

Also, why doesn't request by song work repeatedly on the same song? That's not a Tesla issue.




Charles Blackwell 11:44:26 am

I mean 12/2, sorry




Alan XXXXXXX 11:44:31 am

Thanks.




Charles Blackwell 11:44:52 am

Request by Song is a Premium feature and is not supported by their Slackerapp through Tesla
They have our full API's to design the app to full function and have chose not to do any Premium features at this time 11:45:24 am




Alan XXXXXXX 11:45:44 am

Sure, but that's a backend issue, not an app issue. The app makes it's song selection and slacker sends something else.




Charles Blackwell 11:45:55 am

If you use our app you can do this fine, correct?




Alan XXXXXXX 11:46:21 am

And they do and the play by song works the first time on any song but then doesn't unless you wait 24 hours. Not a tesla thing. This is a slacker account issue.




Charles Blackwell 11:46:52 am

We have DMCA rules we have to follow on non Premium feature enabled devices/accounts




Alan XXXXXXX 11:47:15 am

I see, so you treat the account as non premium even if it is if the app is the Tesla app. Nice




Charles Blackwell 11:47:29 am

It is Tesla doing this, not Slacker
If you contact the Tesla number above they will let you know they do not currently support Premium
It is their decision solely




Alan XXXXXXX 11:48:16 am

So basically wha't the benefit of singing in with a personal account on a Teslarather than using the free plus account they give you??????




Charles Blackwell 11:48:50 am

If you have Stations and favorites you want to listen to on a previous personal account then you have the option to sign in
They give you a "courtesy" Plus account to use the service in the car 11:49:06 am




Alan XXXXXXX 11:49:10 am

Um, not that didn't work either.




Charles Blackwell 11:50:28 am

All of the complaints can be forwarded to Tesla by us, but not to namedrop but Elon Musk himself made sure it was designed this way.

They have chosen from Elon Musk on down to currently not support Premium features, calling them can get you a personalized reason they do not for the car you purchased
We apologize you feel slacker is shorting you in any way as we are not and our app and site fully support Premium,




Alan XXXXXXX 11:51:06 am

OK. Thanks.




Charles Blackwell 11:51:24 am

We would appreciate if you would rate your experience with our LiveChat today. Please Click on the Thumbs up or Thumbs down to let us know how we did.

Thank You for using Slacker LiveChat!
Have A Great Day!

 

[boonedocks]

Works for me

 

[boonedocks]

My premium account on Slacker showing in my Tesla and on my iPhone. Note the sign in on the Tesla screen is my premium account

 

[sorka]

I'm going once again upgrade my free non tesla slacker to premium and see if it works. Thanks for the screen shots.

 

[bak_phy]

I can also confirm that when I first upgraded to Slacker premium on February 3rd, 2017, it would allow me to play a specific album by searching for it using the search box. It doesn't seem to do that anymore, but rather plays a "station" named after the album I reques

I thought the whole purpose of paying up for slacker premium would be to get access to whole albums.

 

[boonedocks]

You do and can access whole albums. I have whole albums in my playlists. We also be enjoy live concerts and create the set lists and listen to them a bit before going to the concert.

 

[sdorn]

I thought the whole purpose of paying up for slacker premium would be to get access to whole albums.

Yes, I figured out that my issue was trying to play an album Slacker didn't have "on demand" rights to play. Every music service has certain licensing rights, and for whatever reason Slacker didn't have the licensing rights to play the album I requested "on demand". If you request something it doesn't have the rights to play, it creates a "station" based on that request instead and plays something similar, and will likely play the song you requested eventually, just not "on demand".

It does play other albums and songs on demand without issue, which I was able to subsequently confirm. It also provides access to all my Slacker playlists which you have to create on your phone or in a web browser, but once you do the playlist is available in your Tesla. It takes a while for changes to sync though, and there doesn't seem to be a way to force a refresh.

 

[boonedocks]

Sdorn I am pretty sure that my wife added a song to my playlist right before my daughter and I left the house. Once in the car it was already there, literally just a couple of minutes.

 

[sdorn]

Sdorn I am pretty sure that my wife added a song to my playlist right before my daughter and I left the house. Once in the car it was already there, literally just a couple of minutes.

I've made changes on my phone while driving and it didn't show up in the car until the next day. Something triggers the refresh, but I don't know what.

 

[Sawyer8888]

I enjoy the voice command feature - a song title pops into my head and then I press the button, say what my brain is thinking, then the song starts up. Great feature. I have had a slacker account in the past, but haven't used it in forever since I generally default to Pandora or in some rare instances, Amazon Prime. So far over the course of a few days, I am impressed with Slacker in the Tesla. I imagine this is the non-premium version.

I find that it usually takes many skips, between 5 and 10, to finally get the requested song. A few weeks ago it would play the requested song immediately. Something has definitely changed.

I wanted to hear Can't Get You Out of My Head. A full list of artists and their songs popped up for me to scroll through. No, not Kylie Minogue (started playing anyway), not Inkubus, not Shawn Lee's Ping Pong Orchestra, not... you get the point. What I wanted was not in the list. I was finally successful when I managed to barely squeeze in, "Play, Can't Get You Out of My Head by Electric Light Orchestra". I will repeat this formula for other common song titles: "Play...[ ] by ...[ ]". Hoping this works out going forward.

 

[Kenx008]

I was able to play any song before as well. For instance "play baby beluga" since my little toddler loves it. After the song was over or I could forward to next song and say play baby beluga again and it would play. Now it just goes to that songs radio station and the song rarely pops up. This all changed a couple a weeks ago.

 

[Anaki01]

Some promising news. I called Tesla support and they said they are aware of the issue and it should be fixed on a new update that is rolling out today!

She also mentioned Spotify was part of the release. She didn't have any additional info on it but said Spotify is part of it.

If you get the update, please share what your findings are!

 

[jeffro01]

FWIW, I am experiencing the same problem...

Jeff

 

[boonedocks]

Some promising news. I called Tesla support and they said they are aware of the issue and it should be fixed on a new update that is rolling out today!

She also mentioned Spotify was part of the release. She didn't have any additional info on it but said Spotify is part of it.

If you get the update, please share what your findings are!

I received 8.1 today abs have regularly used my premium Slacker account. After reading your post I signed out of my Slacker account and looked every to see any signs of Spotify. It is NOT a part of the latest 8.1 update. Someone misled you at Tesla.

 

[Anaki01]

Are you able to search/voice activate songs on demand via the new update; without logging in to your Slacker premium account?

 

[Anaki01]

UPDATE:

I updated my software to 17.11.xx a few weeks ago and the search/voice activate a song feature started to working again!

Unfortunately, it only worked up until about 2-3 days ago. It seems like although downloading the software changed something initially that allowed me to start playing songs on the fly, but then something else changed within Slacker.

Yesterday I received notification of a software update (17.16.35). I downloaded it, with hopes that it'll be fixed, but it's still the same thing; I'm only able to play songs of that genre.

What is the damn point of being able to search for songs if it doesn't play them??

Anyone else have any insights or would like to share anything??

 

[MarcusMaximus]

Unless I'm crazy(possible), I think they just allow you to search for a specific song for some number of plays and then it starts just making a station based on that song. My wife complained about this happening with her songs, but if she just requests ones she doesn't listen to very often, they come up perfectly.