Pandora/Roku won't run on my ISP


elDucko

Still Fresh
Joined
Jun 11, 2011
Messages
1
Roku users, please forgive the duplication of much of what follows. (Posted on Roku forum earlier.)


I can't get Pandora running consistently on Roku. At present, my ISP points at Roku, who points at Pandora, who points at my ISP, and they are all mad at me for pestering them to death. If you have solved a similar problem, please help.


My Roku XD plays everything except Pandora. With Pandora, it gets to the "ad" page after selecting a radio station, then says that Pandora is taking too long to pick a song and to try again later. Pressing enter, it goes to a "retrieving" screen and stays there for hours.


I have a Linksys "G" router and a ComTrend modem supplied by the ISP. (The ISP does not support "N" routers.) Connecting wirelessly, or wired to the router, or wired to the modem, all give the same (lack of) results. HDMI as well as the red/white/yellow RCA jacks have been tried, with no change.


Working with the ISP, we have replaced the modem three times (they have special code in there, so a factory reset "kills" it), run with and without the router, gone across the street to a neighbor's house and run on her account/modem with and without her router. No change, no joy.


I have reset Roku, factory-reset Roku, removed and re-installed Pandora, all without change. I have run the account at DSL lite speed (0.8 Mbps) and speeds up to 5.0 Mbps download rate. The ISP bought a Roku, ran at rates from 0.8 Mbps to 80 Mbps fiber optic, and could not get Pandora to work properly. Interestingly, if I hook my Roku to a neighbor's Time-Warner ISP, or if I hook to my daughter's Grande Communications ISP, Pandora works fine on Roku. However, on my own ISP (Guadalupe Valley Telephone Cooperative, "GVTC," in central Texas), I have all these problems.


The other afternoon, Pandora started working. Later, it quit. Later that night, it ran again. Then it quit. ...no luck since.


Note that Pandora runs on my PC, but not on the Roku. Lately, ocasionally it won't run on PC, but it usually does.


Additional information regarding possible port filtering: The ISP filters incoming ports 80 and 443, which Pandora says it uses. They claim that this is routinely done by many ISPs. The fact that Pandora runs okay (most of the time) on PCs suggests that port filtering is not the problem.


Note that


...this problem is ISP-wide, not just my account.


...this is just GVTC, not rival ISPs


...other Roku channels work fine, even video streaming


...this problem may be intermittent. ...overall Internet load, perhaps? Could the way GVTC connects to the larger internet be the problem?


...a couple of quick tests (Max Planck Institute GLASNOST tests for BitTorrent [no limit detected] and HTTP transfer [no limit detected] both came out okay. NPAD (Network Path and Diagnostics) from Measurement Labs indicated no problems with the "last mile and user systems" portion. Georgia Tech's ShaperProbe did not detect any bandwidth shaping, either. ...so that may not be the problem.


...Yes, I wish I could switch Internet Service Providers, but unfortunately no other internet service is available at our home. (We would welcome competition. Their rates are too high!)


Thanks in advance for your help. Brainstorming welcomed.
 
Back
Top