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Slacker Any Song only worked in the beginning [Confirmed - pending resolution]

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lolachampcar

lolachampcar

Well-Known Member
Nov 26, 2012
6,472
9,378
WPB Florida
#1
My DS suggested I do a screen reboot to get favorites to show. When I did, I lost my Slacker ID and Password. I was already hooked so I just bought a subscription knowing I was going to do it anyway when the trial ran out.

What I have noticed is that Slacker would play any song I mentioned when I first got the car. Now it opens a radio station with the song's name when asked (just like it did before) but the song I was looking for may be 3, 5, 10 or more songs down the "radio playlist".

Are there any Slacker experts out there that can shed some light on this issue? Did I just get the wrong subscription or did Tesla have some fancy deal with Slacker?

Thanks,
Bill
 
#3
I get the "radio station" idea. The thing I've been scratching my head about is that, when I got the car from Tesla, the song I asked for then selected from the pop up list was the very first song that played. Basically, you ask for it and you get it. Now I ask for it, select it from the pop up list (just like before) and the song I am looking for may be ten songs down the play list. I just keep hitting skip till I find it. It really kills the neat Slacker demo feature where you just ask for any song.....
 
#5
lolachampcar said:
My DS suggested I do a screen reboot to get favorites to show. When I did, I lost my Slacker ID and Password. I was already hooked so I just bought a subscription knowing I was going to do it anyway when the trial ran out.

What I have noticed is that Slacker would play any song I mentioned when I first got the car. Now it opens a radio station with the song's name when asked (just like it did before) but the song I was looking for may be 3, 5, 10 or more songs down the "radio playlist".

Are there any Slacker experts out there that can shed some light on this issue? Did I just get the wrong subscription or did Tesla have some fancy deal with Slacker?

Thanks,
Bill
Click to expand...

Slacker is only on a trial? Bummer, I though I had it for good with the tech package. When can I expect to lose access?
 
#9
dsm363 said:
Didn't someone post something before about the premium slacker accounts purchased through Slacker not working on the Model S the same they do on other devices?
Click to expand...

They do work differently, but no one knows why.

Premium accounts on the Model S fail to play the requested song frequently, unless you're using a Tesla account. Try the same song on the desktop or Android or iOS and it will play just fine.

Example to test: "Listen to The Pretender by Foo Fighters"
It'll play fine with a Tesla account, but will fail in Model S only with a personal premium account.
 
#12
I'm the one who's been banging the gong about this issue whenever it pops up. Slacker in the Tesla behaves as a standard account whether you use the Tesla provided trial (which is Standard by design) but also if you use your own Premium paid account. NO premium feature will work. One of the Premium features is additional songs that can be played on demand. In other words, some songs can be accessed directly through a premium account (anywhere but in the Tesla) but not through a Standard account. So if you have a Premium account, you might be able to access a song directly on your smartphone but not be able to access that same song using the same account in your Tesla. This is somewhat lame in my opinion, especially when Elon touted this feature publicly to the press and either didn't mention or doesn't understand that the feature is hobbled. I have written to George B about this issue (after trying to explain it to many other people at Tesla who seemed to not understand the issue) but never received any response. I'd like to believe this will be solved, but certainly won't be until they're aware and I'm not so sure that they are.
 
#13
SigGuy, I think they may not understand the issue well because different cars are working differently. My car will do the advertised: slacker search, type in "electric car" and a pick list appears from which I choose They Might Be Giants. The car then plays the selected song once then repeats it every 5-15 songs. If I speak: "Play Electric Car," the slacker( lower case pun intended) pops up the words "electric car." a pick list usually ensues, though not always. If I choose They Might Be Giants, similar genre songs play with the requested song popping up 5-15 songs later.
 
#14
SigGuy said:
Slacker in the Tesla behaves as a standard account whether you use the Tesla provided trial (which is Standard by design) but also if you use your own Premium paid account. NO premium feature will work.
Click to expand...

This is completely wrong. Based on testing I just did on my own premium account in my car 5 minutes ago:

Slacker Premium features (as listed @ https://store.slacker.com/store/Subscriptions.do)

No Ads - Yes. Ads were ever played
Unlimited Song Skips - Yes. No limit to skips was encountered
Mobile Station Caching - ???
ABC News - Did not test
ESPN Radio - Did not test
Complete Song Lyrics - N/A
Play Songs On Demand - Yes, but does not work as well as teslamotors.com Model S accounts
Play Albums On Demand - Yes
Play Single Artist Stations - Yes. Cannot save in the car, but you can listen to the ones you have created elsewhere or search for new ones on the fly (e.g. Doing "Listen to Foo Fighters", then selecting "Foo Fighters" under the "Artist" heading from the search results will play a Foo Fighters only station)
Cache Albums & Playlists - ???
Create Playlists - Yes. Cannot create in the car, but you can listen to the ones you have created elsewhere

So in reality, nearly all premium features work on Model S. The one oddity I encountered had to do with favoriting at single artists station. Single Artist "San Cisco" worked fine, playing only tracks from that band. After setting it as a favorite and switching back to it, it would only play a single track from them ("Awkward"). Going into my "Recent Searches" in Slacker and listening again from their played all tracks again.
 
#15
lolachampcar said:
just checked
Slacker Premium $9.99 a month... Perhaps I need to contact Slacker to see if I am doing something wrong.
Click to expand...
I ended up getting Slacker Premium then attaching it to the car. The car doesn't have the full interface you get with web browser or iPhone app. Need to log out / log in to get custom channels and playlists to show up. Play album and the display is also a bit odd when using Premium on the car interface.

Slacker also doesn't have full licenses on all songs. Some you can't just call up. Those songs also can't be done on the play by album and playlist features too.
 
#16
scriptacus said:
This is completely wrong. Based on testing I just did on my own premium account in my car 5 minutes ago:
Click to expand...
Scriptacus, I don't want to get into an argument but what I said is not completely wrong. If you take a look at Slacker's subscription page that you linked to you will see that most every feature you named is in fact a PLUS feature. Yes, Premium features include Plus features but I assumed it was easily understood that when I said Premium features don't work I meant features that are exclusively Premium. C'mon now. The Slacker chart does say that playing songs on demand is a premium feature but I could always do that for some songs with Plus. And I challenge anyone who has a Premium account to pick 10 random songs and call them up via iOS or web. Then go into the Tesla and try calling up those same songs. There will be a difference.
And as for those exclusively premium features like playing an album on demand... I invite you to check again. It may SAY it's playing an album but can you get it to actually play any album from beginning to end? That's how Premium works outside of the Tesla. I understand that experiences vary in terms of what percentage of songs aren't accessible in the car-- but I believe everyone is basically getting Plus service for their Premium price when listening in the car. I invite anyone on this forum to check that and if anyone can get their Tesla to play an album, rewind, play an artist (and nothing but that artist)-- or any other exclusively premium feature, I'll accept that I'm wrong about this. Put another way, see if the Premium experience you can enjoy on your smartphone or via the web is equaled by what you can enjoy in the car.
 
#17
SigGuy said:
Scriptacus, I don't want to get into an argument but what I said is not completely wrong. If you take a look at Slacker's subscription page that you linked to you will see that most every feature you named is in fact a PLUS feature. Yes, Premium features include Plus features but I assumed it was easily understood that when I said Premium features don't work I meant features that are exclusively Premium. C'mon now. The Slacker chart does say that playing songs on demand is a premium feature but I could always do that for some songs with Plus. And I challenge anyone who has a Premium account to pick 10 random songs and call them up via iOS or web. Then go into the Tesla and try calling up those same songs. There will be a difference.
And as for those exclusively premium features like playing an album on demand... I invite you to check again. It may SAY it's playing an album but can you get it to actually play any album from beginning to end? That's how Premium works outside of the Tesla. I understand that experiences vary in terms of what percentage of songs aren't accessible in the car-- but I believe everyone is basically getting Plus service for their Premium price when listening in the car. I invite anyone on this forum to check that and if anyone can get their Tesla to play an album, rewind, play an artist (and nothing but that artist)-- or any other exclusively premium feature, I'll accept that I'm wrong about this. Put another way, see if the Premium experience you can enjoy on your smartphone or via the web is equaled by what you can enjoy in the car.
Click to expand...


But you said it behaves as a standard account, which is what scriptacus is saying is wrong. The provided Tesla account does behave as a Plus account. There is a huge difference between a standard account and a plus account.
 
#19
gregincal said:
But you said it behaves as a standard account, which is what scriptacus is saying is wrong. The provided Tesla account does behave as a Plus account. There is a huge difference between a standard account and a plus account.
Click to expand...

I used the word "standard" and not "plus" I apologize- I'm not sure what a Standard account is (the term doesn't exist on Slacker's site but I could see it would easily be interpreted as "unpaid") but I certainly meant to differentiate between "Plus" and "Premium". My point still stands however. Premium features don't work in a Tesla using a Premium account, only Plus ones do.

@Willian13-- my qualm isn't with how the play any song feature works in general. If that's all there is, then so be it. My qualm is with the fact that it works differently (worse) than using the same account on a different device. That's the part that I don't get. I agree, it should be improved and clearly it can be.
 
#20
SigGuy said:
If you take a look at Slacker's subscription page that you linked to you will see that most every feature you named is in fact a PLUS feature. Yes, Premium features include Plus features but I assumed it was easily understood that when I said Premium features don't work I meant features that are exclusively Premium.
Click to expand...
5 of the 11 features listed are Premium only features. 4 of those appear to work correctly on Model S, and the other one doesn't seem applicable.

The Slacker chart does say that playing songs on demand is a premium feature but I could always do that for some songs with Plus. And I challenge anyone who has a Premium account to pick 10 random songs and call them up via iOS or web. Then go into the Tesla and try calling up those same songs. There will be a difference.
Click to expand...
I mentioned this as well, it's a real issue. I would almost go as far as to say it's really the only issue.

And as for those exclusively premium features like playing an album on demand... I invite you to check again. It may SAY it's playing an album but can you get it to actually play any album from beginning to end?
Click to expand...

I tested it specifically. "Listen to In Your Honor by Foo Fighters" followed by repeated track skips will only play songs from "In Your Honor" by "Foo Fighters".

I'm don't want to argue with you either, but if you're going to "bang the gong" about an issue and say things that are simply not true ("Slacker in the Tesla behaves as a standard account...", "NO premium feature will work.") I'm going to call you out.
 
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