Re: Pandora not available

I've captured all of the debug information, but I'm not quite sure what's relevant. I can upload the log file somewhere if you like, or I can post a snippet here. Is the pertinent information all going to be found at the time the alarm was set for, forward? I set up the logging before I went to bed, so the log file extends from 10pm or so last night to shortly after 7:30am this morning.

- I was playing a simple channel consisting of 6 widgets: SuperClock, Weather by The Weather Channel, LCARS Clock, Boston Globe (The), Built In Clock, and Facebook Status. No music.

- I'm using the current Beta control panel, 2.9.20.

- Since the alarm set was my wakeup alarm, I really don't know what happened right at 7:30am (the time the alarm was set for). I'm hoping the log will tell you that. The beep woke me up, and the alarm screen was displaying when I rolled over and looked at it.

Re: Pandora not available

One thing we're finding in our testing is that Pandora's servers seems to be sluggish to respond to the authentication requests when the alarm goes off.

What you're hearing is the first-level backup alarm - it fires if the main alarm doesn't work within 15 seconds.  It seems that Pandora's servers are taking at least that long to go through the authentication and stream setup.

If you can send the log from about 7:25 to 7:35, that would probably give us some clue what happened in your case.  You can email it to me at duane (at) chumby.com. Thanks!

28 (edited by Dodge DeBoulet 2009-05-16 08:14:12)

Re: Pandora not available

I just sent you the log, Duane. It ends at 7:31 . . . I can try again tomorrow morning if needed. I didn't attempt to edit the alarm to reproduce the "credentials not found" issue, and I probably should have.

Re: Pandora not available

Thanks - that log is very helpful.  I'll pass it on to the right people.

It appears in your case, the failure wasn't related to timing - it correctly launched Pandora, figured out what stream to use, but immediately decided that it failed, and triggered the beep.  Hopefully the developer will be able to figure out what went wrong.

If you capture the other behavior, that would be great, too.

Re: Pandora not available

Hi again Duane,

I just emailed you the log file generated during a "Credentials not found" incident when editing the alarm settings for a Pandora alarm. Hope it helps.

Re: Pandora not available

Ok, I think I've identified the problematic scenario and can even offer a workaround for the time being. 

To keep a long story short, I am betting that you've never authenticated your chumby with pandora using a username/password but instead are using the activation code method.  This is completely acceptable but a subtle timing bug seems to exist related to alarms when authenticating in this manner.   (btw, you can look at the /psp/pandora_* files to verify that the pandora_user and pandora_pass files are (I'm betting) empty while the pandora_act file has an 8 character string in it)

So, a likely workaround:
0. make sure you know your pandora.com credentials (email/username and password)
1. goto Control Panel > Music > Pandora and load Pandora.
2. smack the 'Options' button and then drag/scroll/flick the list and smack 'Log out'
3. smack the 'Existing User' button at the next screen presented
4. follow the directions and then reboot the chumby just be safe.

Now, there always remains a possibility that you may hear a backup beep as Duane mentions in comment #27 but this is much less likely.  The workaround should address the scenario that Dodge provided us.  Thanks Dodge for your help!

Re: Pandora not available

I've logged out of Pandora on my Chumby and re-logged in using my user ID and password (I was using the activation code previously). Haven't rebooted yet but will momentarily. I'll report back if I encounter any problems.

Thanks for the workaround!

Re: Pandora not available

Just a quick update . . . no problems at all since changing the authentication method to userid/password. So nice to have Pandora back as my wake-up alarm!!!!

Re: Pandora not available

We're working on a fix for the "activation code" method.

Re: Pandora not available

Worked for me as well. Thanks very much!