STR-DN1050 Tunein favourites deletion?

[BollyDave]

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.

[Anonymous]

Hi BollyDave,

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

[BollyDave]

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...

[cass_n]

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

[BollyDave]

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.

[BollyDave]

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.

[cass_n]

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.

C

[BollyDave]

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. 

[cass_n · Accepted solution]

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:

1. Get the product Registration Code (In the TuneIn menu, scroll down to “Sign In”)
2. Register to the TuneIn website (https://tunein.com/)
3. In the settings in “My Profile”, select “Devices”
4. Press “Add Devices” and fill in the Registration code.
5. 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.

[BollyDave]

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!