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Slacker Premium Playlists and Touchscreen crashes

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gg_got_a_tesla

Model S: VIN 65513, Model 3: VIN 1913
Jan 29, 2010
6,534
789
Redwood Shores, CA
Anyone using a Slacker Premium account (instead of the Tesla-provided Slacker Basic/Radio Plus account) actively in the Model S?

Multiple pain points:

1) Each time I add/modify a playlist, I have to manually go to the Media Player app settings and explicitly logout and log back into Slacker to get the playlists to refresh in the Slacker app.

2) After refreshing a playlist thus, the moment I pick a song from a playlist, the touchscreen freezes up. Need to reboot to get it going again; the playlists work then. This has been my experience with 5.9 through 5.11. Very annoying to say the least if I actively change playlists on a regular basis.

3) Minor annoyance: unlike when playing a song outside of a playlist, the app shows no song duration/current time point indicator when playing a song from a playlist.

4) This is not really Playlists-related but, on a couple of occasions (not during any software update process), the Slacker account credentials mysteriously reverted to the one provided by Tesla! I was wondering why I couldn't see the Playlists option in the app only to find that the credentials had changed in the settings.

The monthly $9.99 for Slacker Premium has been worth it for the ability to play playlists (and single artist stations, etc.) in the car but, these bugs have been a pain to live with.

It's almost as if the Tesla software engineers who worked on the Slacker app didn't bother to refine the Playlists feature enough given that the default Tesla-provisioned Slacker Basic accounts don't provide the Playlists feature...
 
Got this response from Tesla support:

Thank you for contacting Tesla Motors Technical Support regarding your comments related to using the Slacker Premium Radio service in your Model S. I have recorded your concerns and notified our Engineering team of this. I have been advised that the user interface on the Model S touchscreen is designed specifically for the included Slacker Basic / Radio Plus account only, but I will open a request on your behalf to have the user interface upgraded to be fully functioning with the Slacker Premium account. We appreciate that you took the time to provide this feedback; I’m sure our engineering team will find it helpful in modifying the Model S software to be compatible with a better functioning Slacker app.
 
I have noticed if you use Slacker long enough you will get a song that "skips" like a CD player repeating. You can move to the next song but eventually Slacker will crash and you will need to reboot the system. When you reboot you will lose all the "Previous searches". I wonder if Slacker has memory leaks which eventually crash the system?
 
I would like to upgrade to Premium, but can't bring myself to do so just yet since I'm getting the "free" service from Tesla. I do have a Tunein login and I have noticed the same behavior when I add a new favorite from the web. Have to log out and in to get it to show up most times (sometimes new favorites will automatically show, but it seems to be hit and miss).
 
I too have sent emails about them enabling the premium features. I don't use custom playlists a lot, but I will try them out to see if I have the same problems.

One of the things I personally would like to see is the offline mode. I'm sure there is enough HDD space to store the songs for a few lists and it would be awesome for when I lose signal.
 
It's almost as if the Tesla software engineers who worked on the Slacker app didn't bother to refine the Playlists feature enough given that the default Tesla-provisioned Slacker Basic accounts don't provide the Playlists feature...

From their response it sounds like you're right, gg. But they'd better address this by the time Tesla stops providing our 3G and Slacker (how many years was that again?)