Rdio Help Center

Mike K. Rdio Employee Jun 21, 2012 11:50AM PDT

Hi Jason,

Thanks for writing in. We're not seeing this behavior in the office. Here are a few things to try:

- Colse all instances and re-open, and check if the behavior persists.
- Check the behavior between the Mac app and the web interface—same behavior?
- Try pausing the track from the 'Controls' menu option of the app that's in RC mode, and see if that works or not. If it does, retest the regular button afterwards.

If you're still seeing problems, try deleting and reinstalling the Mac app, and let me know if problems persist. I'll share your request for more Remote Control mode functionality with the rest of the team.

Best,
Mike

I have the same problem. Both computers are Chrome stable on Win7 32 PC's. Play/pause works fine if applied directly to playing machine, but not when applied to remote machine - everything else works fine.

I have not tried rebooting the machines because I have a lot going on on them - I'll try that when I'm able.

Okay, I decided that I shouldn't really report the problem w/o trying all the usual steps - so I've restarted Chrome on both PC's and now everything works normally. Problem solved. Didn't even have to reboot.

Not working again. So, restarting the browser fixes it, but only temporarily. Not sure what brought the problem back again.

One other observation - when I press the pause button on remote computer I hear a brief stutter in the music, so it seems that the request does get through to the playing computer.

Mike K. Rdio Employee Jul 31, 2012 05:39PM PDT

Hi Tom,

Thanks for following up. I haven't been able to reproduce this issue. Next time you see this, keep the following points in mind, and see if you can fill me in on any of these details:

- Do you have several instances open on each machine, or only one Rdio tab per computer?
- Do you notice any specific range of time after which the problem begins?
- Does reloading the page of either computer improve the problem?
- Do you notice the behavior after performing any particular action on the remote machine?

Let me know if you can discern any other patterns or rhythm to the issue, and I'll investigate further.

Best,
Mike

Hi -

I have had this happen repeatedly on my Mac devices since i first posted. Yes, restarting everything can fix the issue, but clearly that's not a sustainable way for this to work. I can't go through all the permutations of what's going on. I have a job doing UE in audio, so no time to debug your code as well....

I also suspect that the fundamental remote model you have implemented is a bit flawed when it comes to the user experience. I have found that the notion of what device is "now playing" Rdio is defined by an active stream. So if I pause play on one machine and then go to a second machine and play something, the second machine becomes the active player.

This means that the only way to initiate my desktop machine as remote control to the Mac at 2.0 system is to walk to the Mac at the 2.0 set up, play some music, then walk back to my desk and then pause that content and navigate to what I want. This is also not really a robust model, and not very convenient to have to physically interact with the machine I want to control every time I want to control it.

A cleaner approach would be to keep a device as the player until a second device takes that state FROM the first device. In my case, this would allow the Mac at the 2.0 system to ALWAYS be my player unless I decide to manually play at my desktop machine. This should be persistent between sessions.

A second capability that would really help would be to ASSIGN playback to another machine that is currently not the player. Right now you can only do that in the app window of the machine you want to play on. Why not let me assign play to my Mac at my 2.0 set up from my machine at my desk?

Thanks
Jason

Mike K. Rdio Employee Aug 13, 2012 04:09PM PDT

Hi Jason,

Thanks for taking the time to write in with your suggestions. I'll be sure to relay them to the rest of the team for consideration, and let you know if I hear any news of changes or developments with the Remote Control feature.

Best,
Mike

Hi -

I can confirm again that the Remote Control Mode still does not work properly.

I just went to my remote Mac and played their first to establish that as the current player. Then, when I come back to my desktop machine, the Rdio app does not show the "Play here instead" button to indicate it's in Remote Control Mode.

Sure enough, when I press play on the desktop Rdio app it starts playing on my desktop, not the remote Mac where I first played Rdio.

Then I return back to the remote Mac, play there, (it also doesn't show the Remote Control Mode at this point, so it didn't see that I played at my desk) and then when I return to my desk the Rdio app has now seen the remote player and does show the Remote Control Mode and it works properly.

So this is really not robust and consistent. I think you need to do more testing with this feature, as it's for sure not ready for prime time. At best it needs to be designated as "Beta" still.

Thx
Jason

Mike K. Rdio Employee Sep 06, 2012 12:44PM PDT

Hi Jason,

Thanks for writing in. We're having trouble reproducing this in the office, but I'll pass your report along to the team, and we'll continue investigating the issue and optimizing the remote control feature going forward.

Please do report any further issues you find.

Best,
Mike