John Galt wrote:
...
I can find no correlation to this behavior to any iTunes version. There
is a correlation to general internet slowness, though, so I don't believe it's a problem that Apple can fix.
I'd just like to confirm that this behaviour is not unfamiliar to me at all, as my household has used iTunes to stream radio every day for quite some time now (about the past 2 years). This particular issue has reared its ugly head more and more often in recent months and has finally spurred me to Google the problem, and thus I came across this thread.
I'd like to point out that this happened across multiple operating systems (Mac OS X Snow Leopard, Lion, Windows Vista, Windows XP), different hardware (MacBook Pro, Toshiba laptop, Acer netbook), different ISPs (a DSL provider in BC, Canada, as well as a completely different DSL provider in Ontario with a different backbone), and different router setups (from Linksys to Siemens to direct connection to DSL modem). This is mostly what makes me suspect it is an iTunes software problem, and not an Internet connection or other problem.
Furthermore, as many users have already noted, VLC is not prone to "giving up" the way iTunes curiously is. Even with gaps spanning minutes of zero Internet connectivity, VLC will patiently wait until it can continue streaming again, and when connectivity has been restored, VLC resumes streaming. iTunes tends to give up relatively easily, and unfortunately there are no options to tell it to retry or anything like that.
Since it seems Apple has - as yet - no interest in doing anything to correct this behaviour, it seems other people have. I just came across an AppleScript at Doug's AppleScripts for iTunes that seems to have been written to address just this issue: Nudge Stream URL. Most unfortunately, however, my home's current music hub that runs iTunes for streaming radio is an Acer netbook running Windows XP, and Doug's AppleScripts are not compatible with Windows. Alas!
I implore Apple to take this issue seriously so that we can continue using our favourite media player to enjoy streaming radio.