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Tika1524

Q: My iTunes Radio station keeps cutting out

MY iTunes Radio station keeps cutting out

Posted on Aug 17, 2015 11:12 AM

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Q: My iTunes Radio station keeps cutting out

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  • by pedal_pusher,

    pedal_pusher pedal_pusher Aug 17, 2015 11:42 AM in response to Tika1524
    Level 1 (6 points)
    Desktops
    Aug 17, 2015 11:42 AM in response to Tika1524

    I have tried several different stations, devices and even connections.  Whether on my iPhone, iPad or Mac: connected to Wifi or hardwire to my router, the music repeatedly 'stutters'.  Oh, except for the ads which play with no problem!    Whats up?

  • by Doug Eldred,

    Doug Eldred Doug Eldred Aug 17, 2015 11:56 AM in response to Tika1524
    Level 4 (3,271 points)
    Aug 17, 2015 11:56 AM in response to Tika1524

    Me, too, and it's clearly something related specifically to Apple/iTunes, since everything else (iHeartRadio, streaming video to my iPad from local TV station, audio from web sites, etc.) are fine.  Last week I thought it might be overload from the iOS/Mac OS updates, but it hasn't improved several days after that crush.

     

    Doug

  • by Doug Eldred,

    Doug Eldred Doug Eldred Aug 18, 2015 9:25 AM in response to Tika1524
    Level 4 (3,271 points)
    Aug 18, 2015 9:25 AM in response to Tika1524

    And yes, it does seem odd - no conspiracy theories, but maybe a big CLUE to what's wrong - that ads don't seem to stutter at all.  On my iPhone, it actually drops out of play and doesn't pick up again until I tap on the "play" icon.  Very strange!

  • by Doug Eldred,

    Doug Eldred Doug Eldred Aug 18, 2015 10:39 AM in response to Doug Eldred
    Level 4 (3,271 points)
    Aug 18, 2015 10:39 AM in response to Doug Eldred

    And it's not just iTunes Radio - even Software Update downloads are glacially slow.  It's as though everything streaming from Apple, to Macs or iOS devices, is extremely slow or throttled for some reason.

  • by pedal_pusher,

    pedal_pusher pedal_pusher Aug 18, 2015 12:30 PM in response to Doug Eldred
    Level 1 (6 points)
    Desktops
    Aug 18, 2015 12:30 PM in response to Doug Eldred

    Same experience here.  My latest i-Tunes and iOS downloads took over 24 hours....

     

    So, what now?

  • by 1jbossert,

    1jbossert 1jbossert Aug 18, 2015 2:11 PM in response to Tika1524
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Aug 18, 2015 2:11 PM in response to Tika1524

    Good luck.  Apple has no clue what is causing this, as well as a total failure to stream almost all content having to do with iTunes.  I can't stream my own music on my Apple TV, nor can I stream my music to my computer.  Their clueless support staff keeps suggesting reboots, replacing the network, etc., etc, etc.  Apple has become incapable of putting out a product that actually works.  Look at all the "communities" that they rely on to solve problems that they can't figure out on their own.  As a music service, Apple is about to die.

  • by Maestro1827,Solvedanswer

    Maestro1827 Maestro1827 Aug 21, 2015 3:06 PM in response to Tika1524
    Level 1 (19 points)
    Aug 21, 2015 3:06 PM in response to Tika1524

    For me apple music stream its out constantly on the computer, ipad, iPhone, etc. Internet connection is fine. I think apple should restart the 2

    3 month trial period once they have apple music working.

  • by dagooche,

    dagooche dagooche Aug 22, 2015 10:35 PM in response to Tika1524
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Aug 22, 2015 10:35 PM in response to Tika1524

    Same problem in Honolulu. We are stuck with TIme-Warner here so that might be the problem with radio streaming being constantly interrupted. Sorry to see this happening but I trust Apple will get it corrected (he said with a wink).

  • by Doug Eldred,

    Doug Eldred Doug Eldred Aug 25, 2015 8:15 AM in response to dagooche
    Level 4 (3,271 points)
    Aug 25, 2015 8:15 AM in response to dagooche

    Whatever my problem was, it seems to be fine today.  iTunes Radio is fine, downloads are fine, etc.

  • by oscarboykin,

    oscarboykin oscarboykin Aug 27, 2015 12:25 AM in response to dagooche
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Aug 27, 2015 12:25 AM in response to dagooche

    I'm seeing this same issue for the past 2 weeks maybe on Maui (Oceanic Time Warner).

     

    I've tried everything. My main symptom was stuttering music on apple music. No problem with Pandora or Rdio. I ran down all kinds of theories (bluetooth interference, new router firmware, tried opendns & google dns).

     

    What was puzzling me is that speedtest.net shows great performance, so I assumed it was a problem that test didn't surface (I don't know what that might be, but I just assumed).

     

    Then my wife noticed that iTunes updates were also SUPER slow (switching to LTE seems to fix the issue). I've read articles about DNS settings causing this issue by playing havok with the geolocated caches:

     

    My current DNS servers are:

    24.25.227.55

     

    209.18.47.61
    I can only think of a few theories:
    1) some network bug is causing a small fraction of customers to be routed to very distant caches (basically the same issue as in the above article).
    2) there is some intermittent routing error between some ISPs and iTunes that is causing the same issue.
    3) ISP throttling
    4) ISP capacity limitations on some routes
    According to this:
    the names of the itunes servers are a1.phobos.apple.com - a1999.phobos.apple.com. When I do a ping -s 1480 a1000.phobos.apple.com I get pretty heavy packet loss:

    --- a1000.phobos.g.aaplimg.com ping statistics ---

    20 packets transmitted, 13 packets received, 35.0% packet loss

    round-trip min/avg/max/stddev = 79.500/84.346/90.703/3.136 ms


    but not with a1:

    --- a1.da1.akamai.net ping statistics ---

    16 packets transmitted, 16 packets received, 0.0% packet loss

    round-trip min/avg/max/stddev = 70.197/77.637/103.420/8.453 ms


    So, that seems to be something concrete that is going wrong. 35% packet loss is huge. That should not be happening and it would totally kill downloads.

  • by dagooche,

    dagooche dagooche Aug 27, 2015 1:14 AM in response to oscarboykin
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Aug 27, 2015 1:14 AM in response to oscarboykin

    I phoned Oceanic Time-Warner on Oahu Tuesday and asked if they had had any complaints re Apple radio. I'm a Mac user (with an Android smart phone).

     

    For what it's worth, the rep told me that he had never personally had the complaint -- nor was it in OTW's records when he tried to research it internally.

     

    Whereever the fault lies, it's costing Apple money and one might guess they know about the issue and are working to resolve it.

     

    I'm 72 and grew up loving technology and I call myself a power user; at least understand some of the lingo. Frankly I'm surprised most of this great stuff actually functions as well as it does. Thanks to all who have contributed to this unresolved discussion.

  • by oscarboykin,

    oscarboykin oscarboykin Aug 27, 2015 2:03 AM in response to dagooche
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Aug 27, 2015 2:03 AM in response to dagooche

    I just got off the phone with oceanic. He was pretty adamant it was not an issue on their end (he said they had alerts that would go off). I was skeptical. He also claimed he had not heard this complaint. He asked me to contact apple and share the same information.

     

    Just for completeness, here is the traceroute to a machine that is giving me 25% packet loss or so:

     

    1  dd-wrt (192.168.1.1)  3.708 ms  0.847 ms  0.829 ms

    2  cpe-76-88-160-1.hawaii.res.rr.com (76.88.160.1)  9.339 ms  9.639 ms  10.407 ms

    3  xe-0-0-1.kluihi2102h.hawaii.rr.com (24.25.233.13)  21.910 ms  21.693 ms  22.217 ms

    4  agg45.kmlahi0701r.hawaii.rr.com (72.129.47.152)  14.136 ms  13.020 ms  15.908 ms

    5  agg31.tustcaft01r.socal.rr.com (72.129.45.2)  64.852 ms  68.324 ms  67.913 ms

    6  bu-ether16.tustca4200w-bcr00.tbone.rr.com (66.109.6.64)  75.213 ms  71.774 ms  64.062 ms

    7  0.ae2.pr1.lax10.tbone.rr.com (107.14.19.54)  65.096 ms

        0.ae3.pr1.lax10.tbone.rr.com (107.14.19.56)  64.985 ms  68.207 ms

    8  216.156.65.225.ptr.us.xo.net (216.156.65.225)  66.912 ms  69.114 ms  65.401 ms

    9  207.88.13.82.ptr.us.xo.net (207.88.13.82)  79.992 ms  76.173 ms  84.362 ms

    10  207.88.14.234.ptr.us.xo.net (207.88.14.234)  72.560 ms  72.656 ms  74.400 ms

    11  216.156.84.186.ptr.us.xo.net (216.156.84.186)  76.375 ms  73.477 ms  72.591 ms

    12  ussjc2-vip-bx-008.aaplimg.com (17.253.5.208)  74.988 ms !Z  87.601 ms !Z  73.976 ms !Z

     

    Working backwards, I started pinging from the bottom down. Some of these machines don't respond to pings, but many do. As far as node 9 (207.88.13.82) I get a good connection:

    --- 207.88.13.82 ping statistics ---

    50 packets transmitted, 50 packets received, 0.0% packet loss

    round-trip min/avg/max/stddev = 69.763/74.137/82.181/2.025 ms

     

    node 10 in the path does not reply to pings, and by 11 we have the error:

     

    --- 216.156.84.186 ping statistics ---

    50 packets transmitted, 30 packets received, 40.0% packet loss

    round-trip min/avg/max/stddev = 77.480/83.229/102.746/5.000 ms

     

    So, the error looks like it is happening on the way, before it gets to the end point.

     

    It would be interesting to see if others seeing this issue saw the same problem. The commands I ran I typed into the "Terminal" application on OSX. If you hit command-space to get spotlight search and search for "Terminal" you should find it. Typing:

    "traceroute 17.253.5.208" it would be interesting to see if you are passing through the same machines on the way to apple.