Pandora, Last.fm, Slacker, etc keep stopping.

[cydewaze]

So I'm in my 2nd week of Droid 2 ownership, and I love the thing. I've loaded all my mp3s onto it, and listen to them using Winamp. No problem whatsoever. But sometimes I like a bit of variety, and since I've been a Last.fm member for a while, I decided to install their app so I can listen using my phone.

Unfortunately, Last.fm seems to stop a lot. Sometimes it cuts off mid-song, sometimes between songs. My wife uses Pandora, so I decided to try that. It never cuts off mid-song, but it refuses to move to the next song once the current one is finished. I have to "wake" the phone up and click on the Pandora icon to get it to keep going.

I also gave Slacker a shot, with similar issues. After each song, I have to wake the phone up and hit the Slacker icon, at which point I'm greeted with a "press play to restart station" message.

It shouldn't be a signal problem, as it happens in a large metro area (Washington DC) where I have max signal strength at pretty much all times.

What gives? Why won't any of these stations play music continuously?

 

[sitlet]

First question, are you using a task killer?

Second, you may not have enough bandwidth to stream music. Download Xtremelabs Speedtest from the market, and do a speed test from the same area you are having problem.s

 

[cydewaze]

Good call on the task killer. I installed "File Manager" from the Adao Team, and their Task manager. But I've disabled Auto Kill and Automatic Startup.

I downloaded and ran the speed test. Results:

Download speed: 1931.9 Kbit/s
Max speed: 1956.9 Kbit/s

Upload speed: 669.4 Kbit/s
Max speed: 993.1 Kbit/s

Keeping in mind that I'm inside a big building.

How do I look?

 

[RichieHD]

That's bout 1.9 MB a second, you should be fine. I use LastFM on my Vibrant and it's hit or miss, same on my old G1. I wish they put more time developing it. The app for my iPod is amazing. I attribute it to a combination of the app and the fact that you're in a building.

 

[cydewaze]

I attribute it to a combination of the app and the fact that you're in a building.

Well the thing is, it happens when I'm walking to work, so I'm not in the building when the problem occurs. I think I'll see if my wife has the same problem, since she uses Pandora all the time and only works a few miles away.

Maybe the apps will get better with time.

 

[cydewaze]

Ok, I've decided that this is a signal problem. Well, maybe.

Pandora played fine yesterday while mowing my lawn, but I get pretty decent service at home.

It also played fine on my 1 hr train ride in even though service is spotty. However, I was playing Angry Birds during the ride, so the phone never went to "sleep".

But in my walk from the train station to my office, I kept losing it. "Waiting for Coverage" it would say when I'd "wake" the phone. Either service in the middle of Washington DC is really bad, or it has something to do with the screen turning off on idle.