Rhapsody cutting songs

[dalgety]

Hi everyone,

 

My name is Ross Livingston. I work for Control4. My group is responsible for all of our Listen and Watch products and experiences, including Rhapsody. This is only my second post here. I'm far from a regular. I'm gunning for the highest signal-to-noise ratio. :-) You'll have to be the judge of that though.

 

I do lurk from time-to-time. I have been following this thread. I have also been in close touch with our social media folks and our customer advocacy team, who have been in contact with some of you about this issue. But most importantly (in getting this resolved), me and my team have been in very close contact with Rhapsody - on a daily basis. 

 

Some of you have reported that Rhapsody tech support didn't know about this issue. While I suspect that may be true, I want to assure all of you that this issue was indeed well known at Control4 and Rhapsody - at the highest levels of both companies. And it has received a great deal of our attention and focus, as it should.

 

I also want to explain that while this issue was fairly easy to describe (some tracks get cut off, some of the time, for some users), isolating and correcting the issue required a great deal of work and collaboration between my team, the good folks at Rhapsody, and Rhapsody's CDN partner. Also, this issue did not just impact Control4's implementation, but other embedded systems which use the same servers as ours (I'm not authorized to disclose the particulars).

 

Ultimately, the issue was found to be related to how data was cached at the CDN. Before adjustments were made to resolve the issue, sometimes the CDN would prematurely close the network connection with a Control4 controller. Subsequent requests to retrieve data would also fail. Once this was all understood (and I'm greatly simplifying the matter), the caching process was updated to prevent this problem from happening. This fix went into production on the servers Control4 clients hit last Friday. Since then, we have done extensive testing in our homes and offices and have found that the adjustments have completely resolved this problem. We have not been able to reproduce the track cut out issue since Friday evening.

 

This change should resolve this problem regardless of Control OS version. Some of you have reported that the problem went away when you upgraded to 2.6. That was coincidental. You should not have to update to 2.6 to eliminate this problem. Of course, in my opinion, you should ask your dealer to update you to 2.6 because of all the awesome new goodness in that release! I am particularly proud of the work my team did to improve the Listen experience - whether you are listening to Rhapsody, Napster, or TuneIn - native on your system, or whether you are listening to other streaming services via 3rd party streaming devices from Control4 partners. The new UI is cleaner, more intuitive, more graphical, and easier to use. I think you'll like it. And there are lots of other great updates in 2.6.

 

In closing, I want to express my regret for the inconvenience this issue has caused many of you. I know how frustrating it is to have songs cut off. And it's frustrating to not have answers. I appreciate your patience and your feedback - especially those who provided specific tracks that were failing. Your input was very helpful in tracking this issue down. Thank you. And thank you for being our customers.

 

Kind Regards,

 

Ross Livingston

Control4

[Tokead]

Thanks rRoss. I know you don't want to post, nor should you, whenever a potential issue comes up, but I'm glad that you took the time to post, acknowledge and explain. Kudos.

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

[digitaltrader]

 

Hi everyone,

 

My name is Ross Livingston. I work for Control4. My group is responsible for all of our Listen and Watch products and experiences, including Rhapsody. This is only my second post here. I'm far from a regular. I'm gunning for the highest signal-to-noise ratio. :-) You'll have to be the judge of that though.

 

I do lurk from time-to-time. I have been following this thread. I have also been in close touch with our social media folks and our customer advocacy team, who have been in contact with some of you about this issue. But most importantly (in getting this resolved), me and my team have been in very close contact with Rhapsody - on a daily basis. 

 

Some of you have reported that Rhapsody tech support didn't know about this issue. While I suspect that may be true, I want to assure all of you that this issue was indeed well known at Control4 and Rhapsody - at the highest levels of both companies. And it has received a great deal of our attention and focus, as it should.

 

I also want to explain that while this issue was fairly easy to describe (some tracks get cut off, some of the time, for some users), isolating and correcting the issue required a great deal of work and collaboration between my team, the good folks at Rhapsody, and Rhapsody's CDN partner. Also, this issue did not just impact Control4's implementation, but other embedded systems which use the same servers as ours (I'm not authorized to disclose the particulars).

 

Ultimately, the issue was found to be related to how data was cached at the CDN. Before adjustments were made to resolve the issue, sometimes the CDN would prematurely close the network connection with a Control4 controller. Subsequent requests to retrieve data would also fail. Once this was all understood (and I'm greatly simplifying the matter), the caching process was updated to prevent this problem from happening. This fix went into production on the servers Control4 clients hit last Friday. Since then, we have done extensive testing in our homes and offices and have found that the adjustments have completely resolved this problem. We have not been able to reproduce the track cut out issue since Friday evening.

 

This change should resolve this problem regardless of Control OS version. Some of you have reported that the problem went away when you upgraded to 2.6. That was coincidental. You should not have to update to 2.6 to eliminate this problem. Of course, in my opinion, you should ask your dealer to update you to 2.6 because of all the awesome new goodness in that release! I am particularly proud of the work my team did to improve the Listen experience - whether you are listening to Rhapsody, Napster, or TuneIn - native on your system, or whether you are listening to other streaming services via 3rd party streaming devices from Control4 partners. The new UI is cleaner, more intuitive, more graphical, and easier to use. I think you'll like it. And there are lots of other great updates in 2.6.

 

In closing, I want to express my regret for the inconvenience this issue has caused many of you. I know how frustrating it is to have songs cut off. And it's frustrating to not have answers. I appreciate your patience and your feedback - especially those who provided specific tracks that were failing. Your input was very helpful in tracking this issue down. Thank you. And thank you for being our customers.

 

Kind Regards,

 

Ross Livingston

Control4

 

 

Ross,

 

Thank You for your hard work and and perseverance in getting this resolved!  In the future it would be great if someone like you within Control4 could have a direct presence here in order help clarify that C4 is indeed diligently working to get things resolved.  When we as customers have to rely on dealers and get information 2nd and 3rd hand it can create a sense of frustration.  Especially in this case when we would contact Rhapsody to only be informed that such an issue was the 1st they heard.  

 

Your work on the new listen interface is exactly what I have been wanting in a music interface.  Hopefully you have plans to make a similar update in look and function within the movie database as well!

 

Thanks

[Chosen]

It is so nice to finally be able to listen to a full song on Rhapsody again. 

[Jaffacree]

Delete

[Trollark]

Closing the loop on this one, mainly cuz I said I would, even though the point is fairly moot now. The social media gal from C4 dropped me a note this weekend (may be a good email to hold onto):

 

//////

Hello,

 

After diligent work between Control4 and Rhapsody, we think we have solved the streaming issues. If you are still experiencing any issues, please don’t hesitate to contact us at socialmedia@control4.com.

 

Thank you for your patience!

 

Amber Mansfield

Control4 | Utah • California • United Kingdom • China

 

////

Don't know if I agree with the "diligent" part, especially seeing how far back this issue went for most of you - but at this point, I'm just glad it's fixed.

 

I streamed Rhapsody all weekend with no dropouts. 

 

Oh happy day!

 

-Trollark

(madly knocking on wood)

[Jaffacree]

Saturday morning Rhapsody was working just fine on 2.6, Saturday afternooon, Rhapsody would play between 7 to 45 seconds of a song then stop.  Not skip to the next song, just stop.  The song would still be in the queue and the speakers would still be humming.  No matter what, any song, at any time this happens now.  All day sunday and this morning, this is still happening.  Any thoughts?

[Trollark]

Saturday morning Rhapsody was working just fine on 2.6, Saturday afternooon, Rhapsody would play between 7 to 45 seconds of a song then stop.  Not skip to the next song, just stop.  The song would still be in the queue and the speakers would still be humming.  No matter what, any song, at any time this happens now.  All day sunday and this morning, this is still happening.  Any thoughts?

UGH! That sounds all-too-familiar. If the problem continues, reach out to Amber Mansfield <amansfield@control4.com> and/or socialmedia@control4.com.

 

I've moved on to Spotify via the SONOS Bridge. BEGONE VILE RHAPSODY!

[Jaffacree]

Thanks, I'll give it until Thursday, if it's still doing it I'll shoot her an email.