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iTunes radio stops streaming on its own

It seems to happen randomly. Usually an iTunes radio station will stream for hours, but sometimes it will simply stop for no apparent reason. When it stops it usually stops repeatedly after playing for only a few minutes. It's not the "rebuffering stream" message; it simply stops as though I pressed the stop button. Pressing play restarts the stream as though nothing had happened.

So is this an ISP issue, or the radio streaming source?

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Posted on Jul 27, 2009 5:47 PM

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69 replies

Oct 3, 2009 2:27 PM in response to tobor68

I've also noticed this occurring a lot recently. I'm not sure, but it may correspond with my updating to iTunes 9.0.1.

I have a playlist with two downloaded .pls streams for local radio stations, and one of them likes to frequently shut down. When it does, iTunes starts playing the next stream right away. Sometimes (but not as often) that one will stop on its own as well. When this problem occurs, it seems to occur fairly regularly.

I re-downloaded the stream file (.pls) that was giving me the most problems. It seems to be behaving better, but so far I haven't been able to nail down any consistency on why this may occur.

I have noticed an obvious slowdown in responsiveness with iTunes 9, so I'm not sure if that has something to do with it.

Oct 5, 2009 11:46 AM in response to John Galt

So, it seems like we're all on the same page with the problems we're having with iTunes inexplicably stopping streaming but has Apple or anyone else offered any fix suggestions? I'm on the edge of my seat.

I've been streaming radio ever since I got my last G5 PowerMac (before the name changed to MacPro) and I've never had any problems with it ever ...until this latest update (v 9.0.1).

To reiterate what everyone else had said, it will stream ok for 10 seconds one morning and then just stop working. Or another day it'll run fine for 2 hours and then stop. Sometimes I get a "rebuffering" message. Other times it'll just stop without saying anything.

Any updates would be appreciated.

Oct 8, 2009 6:19 AM in response to John Galt

Add me to the list of people having the same problem.

Some days I can listen to streaming radio for hours with no interruption. Recently, the stream simply stops, no error prompt, no rebuffering, nothing. When I press play, it works fine for about five minutes, then stops again.

I know it is not my ISP because I have very high bandwidth. Also, I have no problem if I navigate to the website of the radio station and launch the stream in Safari (*though this itself is tricky now that iTunes has made it impossible to TURN OFF the "use iTunes for streaming media" preference.)

Thus, the radio streaming problem seems to be iTunes specific. Hello Apple ... ? Any thoughts ...

Oct 8, 2009 4:49 PM in response to John Galt

Add me to the list... But that this happens at work too, I'm pretty sure it must be a iTunes 9.0 issue, as the problem began only after that upgrade. Hopefully apple will fix this problem soon. For now, I'm going directly to the online streams via Safari available for most you might want. For me it's NPR, which I can stream from my local station's site (OPB for me). A pain, but life goes on...

Rob

Oct 13, 2009 3:31 PM in response to jk in nyc

After months of uneventful happy streaming, this problem reared its ugly head again. There is no warning, after a minute or several minutes, it just stops.

I have not changed a thing with my setup, and I'm still using iTunes 8. This leads me to believe it's either an ISP issue, or an issue with the particular iTunes radio station. I don't think the problem lies with iTunes, I just wish it had a way of telling the station to resume playing on its own.

Oct 26, 2009 12:59 PM in response to John Galt

I have a similar problem. Mine is with an external station who use a file .pls. Since the last update of itunes i'll be listening to the station but after a couple of minuets it would skip to another track in my library. I've put it in a playlist of it's own and find that what will happen is it will skip back about 30s econds then play what you've already heard for about 5 seconds then jump forward to continue playing. This is very frustrating. I've got another mac which has a very old version of itunes which the radio station works fine. Any ideas??? I do believe this to be an issue with the latest update.

Oct 29, 2009 11:46 AM in response to ztefff

Welcome to the discussions forum ztefff.
Has anyone from apple read this thread? Please acknowledge (at least...)

Anyone can participate in the discussions, including Apple employees, but no one is obligated to reply. Those who do are usually volunteering their time. It's a user-to-user forum, nothing more. Read the fine print: Help & Terms of Use

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.

Oct 29, 2009 12:53 PM in response to John Galt

OK, point taken 🙂 Still, an earlier reply said "I've got another mac which has a very old version of itunes which the radio station works fine.". If this is true, it would seem to be related to a software bug, right? I would also think a slow connection would only mean that it stops for rebuffering once in a while...

-s

Oct 29, 2009 1:17 PM in response to ztefff

Yes, I wish I had a more concrete explanation. There seems to be a correlation between slow internet speed, similar to a correlation between high network activity and Airtunes streaming dropouts (another topic altogether).

It would make perfect sense if iTunes would simply display "rebuffering stream" as you pointed out. The behaviour manifests itself in the stream simply stopping, as if I pressed the Stop button. On the other hand, I've seen it start itself also, after mysteriously stopping on its own. It happens too rarely to report anything more specific than that.

I suspect there are a multitude of factors at work, which leads me to believe there isn't a quick fix to any of this.

iTunes radio stops streaming on its own

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