Sirus-XM charges for access to its Sirius Music Player, but for the past few days, some customers can’t get it to work. One of them in this forum says it only connects after Howard Stern is over, and speculates that some cost-cutting measures have reduced available bandwidth, leading to locked-out customers. In another thread customers are complaining that popular third-party streaming radio services have been sent cease-and-desist letters from Sirius, further limiting access to streaming Sirius programming online. Naturally, Sirius-XM hasn’t responded to customer queries about the issue.
Here’s what our tipster Andrew has to say:
Since Sirius-XM has started charging to use their internet streaming, the service has gone down hill. I’ve been having trouble even opening their media player on their website, with it usually saying “Sirius Internet Radio is Temporarily Unavailable”. If I do manage to get it to open and get to the log-in screen, I enter my info and attempt to log-in, then it says something like, “Gateway Timeout”. And now, if I do actually manage to log in and get it to play, the section of the player where you switch channels is now giving me the “Sirius Internet Radio is Temporarily Unavailable” message, despite the fact that I am still listening to the channel I was able to open upon logging in.
I have sent numerous e-mails to Sirius via their website and have gotten no response, and from I have read from other users, calling customer service has to been to no avail either. Maybe a consumerist article on the topic will help shed some light on the problem. This is extremely annoying seeing as when the internet streaming service was free, it worked perfectly fine. I never once had an issue until they switched to making customers pay for it seperately. Just another case of paying more and getting less. So much for that merger being good for consumers.
“Sirius Internet player not connecting” [Digital Radio Central]
“Starplayr & uSirius are no longer available” [Digital Radio Central]
(Thanks to Timothy for the screen shot!)
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I cant believe all the constant whining about the merger and now paying $2.99 per month for internet streaming. I had stopped listening too anything but sports talk radio for years until my daughter gave me Sirius for Father Day. I have one in the car and one in the house with the transmitter so I can listen in every room in the house. The music and other choices on Sirius is incredible including NFL Radio, Radio Classics and so many other choices. It is an amazing deal for the money and if they go under it will be a huge loss for us all. So stop the whining and enjoy the content.
@CatherineJibsy:
It’s kind of hard to “enjoy the content” when the FUCKING THING DOESN’T WORK!
I’m glad I canceled the very day of the merger. Ever since they started exploring the merger the service has gone downhill. Screwing with the good channels, censoring “uncensored” channels, and the like.
How the worst of the 2 companies could pull off the purchase of the best, is beyond me.
I refuse to subsidize a monopoly with my entertainment dollars. So now I just have found “underground syndication” of the shows I like.
Doesn’t surprise me…I canceled my Sirius subscription on March 12, when they started charging me for listening online. Sure, I miss Howard/etc, but charging me extra for something that I was already paying for its nuts.
I had the same issue…turns out you have to subscribe for the extra $3.00 a month for streaimng internet. March 24th was the last day you could access without the extra cash. I access through the yahoo widget btw. I love that Howard pretends he has no idea whats going on when callers phone in about this issue. Come on guys…let’s be honest. You were all about informing us about the merger but when it comes to an increase in fees, nobody seems to know whats goning on?
XM Player still works fine for me. No prob’s at all. Opie ‘n Anthony every morning. Spread the virus!
I have an Imac. XM radio will usually not log on, and when it does it usually quits after about 15 minutes and cannot be restarted, even closing the browser and trying 20 times. Their phone support does not pick up.