topic STR-DN1050 Tunein favourites deletion? in Home Cinema, Projectors & Players

STR-DN1050 Tunein favourites deletion?

BollyDave — Thu, 19 Oct 2017 15:15:00 GMT

So, for whatever reason, Tunein stations that used to work now show as "station name - not supported" and selecting them results in an annoying series of beeps and the helpful announcement it's not supported. OK fine, but how do I delete stations that are now cluttering my favourites list?

Obviously there's no such thing as a sideways cursor or other handset button that immediately offers a "delete" option, that would be far too simple. So I found the option under Station options which offers a prompt to remove favourite (oh the excitement, this looks hopeful) but when the option is selected it merely returns a one word message "Fail" and the station is still listed.

So what dark art is needed to remove defunct station names? Is there an option buried somewhere else that I've been stupid enough to overlook, or is this another Sony "we've messed up, and now you've got to live with it" issue?

As you may be able to tell, I am increasingly disenchanted with Sony's habit of selling all singing all dancing product, and then dumping features which leave the customer high and dry.

If it weren't for the cost of this amp, and what I'd get for it on the used market now, I'd happily punt it.

Re: STR-DN1050 Tunein favourites deletion?

Anonymous — Fri, 20 Oct 2017 11:13:41 GMT

Hi BollyDave,

Have you been in contact with Sony Support about this yet? You can reach them via this contact form.

Re: STR-DN1050 Tunein favourites deletion?

BollyDave — Fri, 20 Oct 2017 12:04:47 GMT

Yes I've had a reply on this one. Despite being very clear about the source (internet/Tunein) I've been asked what type of antenna is connected....

I've repeated the query emphasising the source and the fact that an option is offered which appears to be the correct approach, but gives a meaningless error.

I despair at times...

Re: STR-DN1050 Tunein favourites deletion?

cass_n — Mon, 23 Oct 2017 15:15:46 GMT

Hi @BollyDave - I'm sorry to hear about the issues you've been experincing. I am going to check this directly with one of our product experts and will update this thread as soon as I have an update for you.

Cheers,
C

Re: STR-DN1050 Tunein favourites deletion?

BollyDave — Mon, 23 Oct 2017 22:52:34 GMT

Not made any progress here, but I'm beginning to see Sony in a whole new light. I should have learned from the previous shoddy handling of the vTuner issue.

So for the Tunein favourites editing, the response is pretty much that it's the responsibility of Tunein, not Sony. So I need to contact them instead.

And for good measure the other frustration surrounding the total farce of the Sony Music Centre app no longer supporting my receiver...Sony lay responsibility at the hands of 3rd party app developers.

It would appear that once kit is sold, they are happy to slopey shoulder ongoing responsibility regarding problems. Perhaps I'm old fashioned, but when I've been involved in the design and delivery of customer facing products and services, top of my list was ensuring a 1 stop shop for problem management, even if multiple organisations were involved. As part of that its vital that someone owns a problem through to resolution, whereas all I feel I'm getting is lots of standard apologies, which in consideration of lack of progress is pretty damned insulting.

I find it quite bizarre that Sony utterly fail to grasp that the issues I'm having (notably the app problem) stand to affect thousands of owners, yet they feel it perfectly reasonable to point fingers elsewhere on a case by case basis, instead of consolidating problem tickets, realising they've got a sizeable problem,on their hands, and working directly with the 3rd parties they are blaming. I can only assume they've never head of ITIL, or more likely just don't give a *****.

I do however take my hat off to Sony for a masterclass in passing the buck.

Re: STR-DN1050 Tunein favourites deletion?

BollyDave — Tue, 24 Oct 2017 19:23:51 GMT

Oh I nearly forgot. For some reason they are interested in seeing my "VAT receipt" for the product. I presume by that they mean some proof of purchase. No reason given but I've sent a copy anyway.

In various correspondence they've also:

-been quick to remind me that the vTuner wasn't their problem, thanks, again.

-suggested I cart the bl00dy thing to a Sony centre to be checked, on the issue of favourites management. I mean, really?! What the hell will they do there? Look, and shrug shoulders? Given nothing else has misbehaved I really cannot be bothered spending an hour or more de-plumbing it from the rest of my system, finding the original packaging and carting it round town for a salesman to prod it a bit.

-and of course there's the knee jerk suggestion of software version. Of course it's up to date, though admittedly I waited a few weeks to see if there were reports of it bricking the system. I guess I am learning, slowly.

Re: STR-DN1050 Tunein favourites deletion?

cass_n — Thu, 26 Oct 2017 09:22:09 GMT

Hi @BollyDave - as promised I checked this with our product expert and was told the following:

"Tune In no longer provide any service to Sony products and therein lies the problem. If you create a favourites list of your stations, it is stored on the service providers server, not on the product, or by Sony. As a result, if the connection is no longer supported by the service provider (in this case Tune In), you cannot get access to the favourites list and delete them. In this case the service provider would need to delete, or provide access for deletion."

I'm afraid this is essentially what Support has already fedback to you.

If you haven't already, the other thing you could try is a factory reset (details here) as this may resolve the issue.

Re: STR-DN1050 Tunein favourites deletion?

BollyDave — Thu, 26 Oct 2017 12:03:46 GMT

Thanks for that information, which in itself raises yet more questions....

-If Tunein no longer provide a service to Sony, why is is that I can still use Tunein on my receiver for other stations?

-If the relationship has been terminated, why is is that in correspondence with both Sony and Tunein, neither have mentioned this?

-If the relationship has ceased leading the service to become unavailable or unstable, then why can't Sony issue or make available, a software udpdate to remove that function from the menu system, thus cleaning up their mess?

-If the service has ceased, why haven't Sony advised customers proactively? I mean, they make a song and dance about product registration, which includes customer name, email, model number, serial number (thus allowing for identification of batches that may be prone to known problems) If that data resided in a Configuration Management database, it's there to make support activities more efficient. Conversely if they don't use such useful information to aid ongoing support, what are they using it for and why did I bother supplying the info?

In the most recent response from the so called support team, I quote the following (this is after they insisted I provide a copy of receipt which I did):

"We have the reply from the team investigating the case for yourself, and we are afraid that they cannot offer any goodwill gesture regarding the termination of the third party application, as there is no fault in the design of our product.

We repeat the apology for the inconvenience."

In emails leading up to this they've also basically implied that they let 3rd party developers do what the hell they like in terms of ongoing development (this one is more applicable to the comedy known as Sony Music Centre)

Even though I have pointed out to Sony, that this dumbass appoach means they are giving 3rd parties free reign to undermine their products, it's like banging your head on a brick wall. Come to think of it, I also asked that my case(s) be escalated (to someone higher than a call script reader) and I didn't even get a response to that.

I also said my next step would be to dispense with wasting my time with so called support, and will be writing to someone at CEO level. I really don't care any more as I have definitely bought my last Sony product. Anyone reading this sorry saga, which has a feel of deja vu about it would do well to learn from my purchase mistakes.

The bottom line is quite clear, once Sony have sold product, they do not care, and whatever dialogue you enter into with their woeful support people is nothing more than time wasting b/s. Their approach is nothing short of ensuring premature product obsolescence, presumably to drive more sales.

Re: STR-DN1050 Tunein favourites deletion?

cass_n — Fri, 27 Oct 2017 13:28:21 GMT

Thanks for you feedback @BollyDave. Some of your points are spot on (like there not being information on our support pages about this and the resulting confusion this has caused, which needs to be addressed) - I have forwarded it all on to the relevant team.

After some further investigation, I also have the following steps you can try:

Get the product Registration Code (In the TuneIn menu, scroll down to “Sign In”)
Register to the TuneIn website (https://tunein.com/)
In the settings in “My Profile”, select “Devices”
Press “Add Devices” and fill in the Registration code.
Once registered, you can manage your favourites from the favourite list in your profile.

I'm hoping this might resolve the issue for you - please let me know if it works.

Re: STR-DN1050 Tunein favourites deletion?

BollyDave — Fri, 27 Oct 2017 14:01:05 GMT

Thankyou!

That actually worked.

I did the registration thing and used a browser to remove one of the offending favourites, bang, gone from the Sony!

Went to the next one, but it didn't clear immediately, so I tried adding a new one via the browser, then deleting on the Sony, and I saw a message I'd not seen before "success" !

then it seemed there was some sort of catch up and the other "not supported" station went away too.

Thanks hugely for this help. So is is the case that Sony and Tunein services are still an ongoing thing then?

If you could somehow sort out the issue with Music Centre app support dropping the 1050 too, I'd be most impressed!

Re: STR-DN1050 Tunein favourites deletion?

cass_n — Fri, 27 Oct 2017 15:47:24 GMT

Glad to hear it! And yes - TuneIn do still provide a service to Sony products, so I'm sorry about all the confusion with that (it took some time to get to the bottom of it).

Regarding the Music Centre app, I'm afraid the only thing I can suggest is to try downloading the previous version and then turn off automatic updates.

Re: STR-DN1050 Tunein favourites deletion?

BollyDave — Sat, 28 Oct 2017 10:30:15 GMT

Cheers for clarifying the position wrt ongoing Tunein service, that's also good news!

I'd like to focus some more on the Sony Music Centre app issue if I may, as I think there's some flawed thinking on the part of Sony and/or an unnamed 3rd party developer.

The facts - the last update to this app (via the Apple app store) dumped support for the STR-DN1050 amongst others. The app has an ongoing lifetime, but for reasons nobody has explained if you have certain receivers, the latest version of the app will not support them. You could call it discriminatory support.

The user impact. It's my view that this range of receivers was marketed partly on the convenience of using a handheld device such as phone or tablet to access what I'd call detail settings. Stuff such as equaliser, speaker details such as position and levels etc.

Given the diverse range of sources I use, and I guess it's the same for most owners, otherwise why would you have a receiver with the range of inputs available (I have the following inputs: DVD, BluRay, console, satellite, local network and internet streaming) it's to be expected that tweaking various levels to achieve preferred audio presentation will be needed, as not every source is the same. This can even be true within one input device, say CD, DVD or BluRay, just as a result of varying recording approaches. It's always been the way and always will be.

How does one make these changes on the fly? Well the remote control does not have dedicated buttons, nor a display to show what levels are set to, so a visual guide is needed. There are 2 ways of doing that, either using a handheld device plus the app, or using the TV as a monitor. Now the TV approach may be acceptable when viewing a movie, as you're "already there" but for sources that are solely audio it does not make sense to crank up a dirty great TV purely to view various setting sliders. Not only does this involve the avoidable extra energy usage, but for certain TVs e.g. plasma it is not a good idea to leave the TV on all the time, to avoid screen burn.

Equally, turning the TV on and off every few minutes to make those tweaks is simply annoying.

Now the app change, as I think there are a few points to consider. Sony certainly don't seem to either understand the impact of these, or don't care.

-It is not possible to "reload" the "old" version of the app, which supported more devices including the STR-DN1050. The Apple store only offers one variant of the app, the latest.

-If you do accidentally update to the new version, there is only one way to fix it, and that depends upon the customer having created a backup of their device BEFORE the app got updated. If you don't have that backup you're screwed. Even following this approach is a hassle. It takes a good amount of time to reset an Apple tablet/phone, then load your backup, then bring all other apps up to date, except Sony Music Centre. Of course th time for this will vary and factors such as how much stuff you've got in the cloud that has to replicate down to your device again. Not really acceptable.

-Other scenarios of pain and inconvenience revolve around device change. Let's say you are in a phone contract, and the phone is how you manage your receiver via the app. New phone arrives, with no apps. You load all your favourite apps, go to load Music Centre, oh dear, only the new version, so you can't use phone to control things. Ditto if you change your tablet. The other factor to consider, particularly with Apple products is their marketing view is that an iPad/iPhone only has a TWO year lifecycle in terms of ownership. They would claim this is due to people wanting the latest processor/display spec etc but as many owners know, the reality is hardware change can often be also driven by IOS updates. Once again, you change your hardware, no old app to reload.

-Finally it is my understanding that Apple are on a crusade to move to 64 bit apps only. Once more this will flush out older but perfectly usable hardware, and once in the hands of the owner they will find they don't have the right version of the app to install.

A point I've failed to get across to Sony is that they could fix this in one fell swoop, by ensuring co-existence of both versions of the app for the benefit of ALL customers. not just a select audience. Just make it clear in the app blurb which version for which device. Surely it cannot cost that much to host both versions. One that is still developed as needed, the "old" one remaining static. It may not have been the fastest app, but it did at least work.

So, apologies for the long post but I think it important to get this out in the open. I suspect there are still many owners that are in for a nasty surprise if they choose to update all apps on their device without considering the impact of doing so, and to be fair, why should the owner need to worry about that? At the time of marketing devices such as the STR-DN1050 nobody told me that an app you'd rely on might just disappear without a substitute being made available.

The responses from Sony Support I've had have been dismissive and to be honest somewhat insulting. Sure, they've apologised, lots but that's no good to me. They can't reasonably use the excuse that the contract they have with developers let's them do what they like (and that's pretty much the implication) Are they so short sighted they cannot see that if this is true, a 3rd party is undermining the out of the box functionality of their hardware? It's practically obsolescence by design, or negligence.

I'd appreciate any insight anyone can offer on this, or even better, if someone can get the points I've made in front of someone from Sony, and get a response from them as to how they think this is acceptable.

For completeness here's my other thread on this one:
https://community.sony.co.uk/t5/home-cinema-projectors-players/sony-songpal/td-p/2297225

Re: STR-DN1050 Tunein favourites deletion?

cass_n — Tue, 31 Oct 2017 16:29:52 GMT

Hi @BollyDave - sorry about the delay. I'm just waiting for clarification on something and hopefully will get back to you shortly. Thanks, C

Re: STR-DN1050 Tunein favourites deletion?

BollyDave — Tue, 31 Oct 2017 16:37:32 GMT

No worries at all, I actually feel I've made more progress with your help here, which is most appreciated!

Re: STR-DN1050 Tunein favourites deletion?

cass_n — Wed, 01 Nov 2017 16:05:25 GMT

Hi again @BollyDave - I'm afraid that unlike the TuneIn issue, I do not have a solution for the Music Centre App issue. Downloading the previous version (as I mentioned before) is only an option for Android users - not Apple users as you rightly pointed out. I have, however, made sure that your feedback has been shared with the relevant teams - but no solution to give you unfortunately.

Re: STR-DN1050 Tunein favourites deletion?

V_jamese — Sat, 08 Jan 2022 18:35:34 GMT

I was getting the same messages as the user in the Original post "Cannot Play" and "unavailble" for music I had always listened to and in my Favorites (I'm in the U.S.)

On my Sony STR-DN1050 Receiver, I Signed Out / Entered the Registration Code successfully on TuneIn.com / Devices.

I still get the same error messages even after hitting REFRESH on my Receiver. Also to NOT see any of my Favorites I ha on the Receiver under the TuneIN website.

Whatis going on?? and why did they STOP playing? no one has Explained that !!! T.I.A.

I followed your instructions

Re: STR-DN1050 Tunein favourites deletion?

V_jamese — Sun, 09 Jan 2022 22:56:02 GMT

Thank for all the above info. Iwas able to Login TuneIN.com and go under DEVICES and add the Registration number of my STR-DN1050.

As a Test I created a Favorites flder on TuneIN and added 2 of my Station in there. I refeshed my Receiver after removing and Signing inot the Account on it.

I DO see a GENERAL Folder and a FAVORITES folder that I have on the TuneIN account, however I am not able to remove the Stations that say "Not Supported" or "Cannot Play", so there is still a FLaw in the communication.

An added note that I can still use EARLIER versions of SONGPAL and TV/ Video Sideview ---they both work.. I dare NOT upgrade them as I tried Sonpal upgrade one and it did not support my Receiver!!

Re: STR-DN1050 Tunein favourites deletion?

Anonymous — Thu, 13 Jan 2022 15:21:11 GMT

As you said, sadly I think the more you update every single service, the more issues it'll create, cause of the different software and due to the age of the devices and services, and the fact that you also can't delete or remove and update is kinda annoying.

Re: STR-DN1050 Tunein favourites deletion?

BollyDave — Fri, 14 Jan 2022 12:16:18 GMT

I'm actually pretty surprised to see this discussion continuing, but guess that's a sign of how frustrated some are by these issues vs. the lack of support by Sony. I admire anyone for persevering.

Based on my customer service experiences with Sony, which got me precisely nowhere, it seems clear to me that they simply do not care.

The issue I, and others have experienced - where apps used to either deliver service content, or control the audio environment, are "upgraded" to the point whereby existing hardware loses functionality is a damned disgrace.

If owners were given the choice, fine, but the last straw for me was the dropping of app support for the 1050. No alternate path with equal functionality, it's their way or the highway.

I've said before that as I make any new purchases, Sony won't even get a sniff.

A few weeks ago I bought a new TV. The salespeople recommended I consider Sony kit on my shortlist.

I didn't even entertain the thought. Why? Because Sony's after sales attitude stinks, and in my mind I could only foresee that following that purchase, some aspect of functionality would be degraded, and that's easily done with internet connected TV kit.

Yes my case could have been an exception in terms of customer service experience, but I think not, and given the efforts I made to seek help, they had their chance.

So my new (non Sony) TV is now in place and I was happy to hand over £1500 to another brand. Sony can do one as far as I'm concerned. Utterly unprofessional at several levels. And I'll continue to recommend others avoid them too.

Re: STR-DN1050 Tunein favourites deletion?

Anonymous — Mon, 17 Jan 2022 18:24:33 GMT

What a feedback!

Hopefully it gets noticed, and they don't make the same mistakes again!

Cheers buddy.