Ads randomly playing - Githubissues

Matthew9170 commented 10 years ago

As of late ads have been playing in my Pianobar and it is using the name of the song that is next in the list to be played as the track title.

PromyLOPh commented 10 years ago

Can you press '$' while the ad plays and post the debug output? How often does this happen?

rye commented 10 years ago

I just started getting the same issue. ~~It seems to happen every time Pianobar grabs a new playlist.~~

EDIT: Turns out that it happens, it seems, at least once every four songs for me. I've been getting some obviously foreign ads, as well (some ones in ~~Brazilian~~ Portuguese, for example).

EDIT 1: Brazilian isn't a language. My fault for being ignorant.

rye commented 10 years ago

Here's my debug output:

album:0:White Ladder
artist: David Gray
audioFormat:    1
audioUrl:   http://mediaserver-sv5-rt-1.pandora.com/access/4334981356347053567.mp4?version=4&lid=919772208&token=RkAfroIzhdUced2ipEhS1xN50woYosaTvVVjqaR5Skhtq7z1XP%2Bc6kdGNIkjph1Cbvr98qQbtATvUIosyhaPFbUTbAh2dCOS0i8w9IvbctZV5USFZ56ilQxRVHnRxWMR1Ur86iT9NflGa02VEz%2FNhYyx9cGR9KxxSUq3o8kriBdq%2Fn0tdFnjn%2B5iqzP8uCmvG8TbOKGZeINIRZk%2BXceigOcndIHiyoMNNCYLjArCAggKPNc0TzEKdvUIwOVy0qy9z21p7KSdaek6EK7%2F50PPSxx3Zl7gR7djh2i74MG59ZZ7OTBvGwXhFb1CuR%2FqX7%2Bvu%2FKH343r8UI6IAN2wroe2E2RaqCqFMCBMZg%2F3K%2B%2Bkj7lU1HZFTDC9EEdvsOJV2lpyieRJ0crPFgcYbMNfH0PdjAEFIKnZWfgOXSOi3bOZ238MK46vjstWw6ik7amSr2bwo%2B9TvfyTTmGa0KiwFZAYz0xa8SljWWK2P3M6x4kvmB6SJ27adPFG8gPFiPDXTKw3as31uFNvw90w%2F8swVYfwTUAJy1%2FPNxEKG7j9MUNT0rlzOdY7JvYZzwk%2FQGLC2tkTqPQSoyBygLN461JRe%2FlfQ%3D%3D
coverArt:   http://cont-sjl-1.pandora.com/images/public/amz/6/2/1/5/078636935126_500W_500H.jpg
detailUrl:  http://www.pandora.com/david-gray/white-ladder/this-years-love?dc=232&ad=1:16:1:47906::0:0:0:0:582:595:IN:18157:2:0:0:0:0:1
fileGain:   -0.910000
musicId:    (null)
rating: 0
stationId:  1764108610311461936
title:  This Years Love
trackToken: fa4192c8c237a78d9d1cff08552efc07aa87b578bbefe4f74babd54d6ca91fca7742079e0a5164717ae1fbc2fde70543f006    9fbfb9caa198ac07d0a7c31890fc

To me, it looks like this debug output is the output for the previous song, not the ad itself. I'm no expert, however.

Matthew9170 commented 10 years ago

I just got another ad and was able to get the debug output for. |> "Hey Jude (Love Version)" by "The Beatles" on "Love" album:0:Love0:30 artist: The Beatles audioFormat: 1 audioUrl: http://mediaserver-sv5-rt-1.pandora.com/access/5301148938087702787.mp4?version=4&lid=1046294704&token=l7FQrBL7yODjN7nkIrBnCcijnluLMSS4ikf0O0EXY7PGHRgVvnUOBL8lc1KGCroQVLOtU6cN%2BSHaxlNpYLDLAivvwfVLV4r9PWxxREmC4pboQCLQJu0eIL1rDlrCZdDbs1gOJF1sJQQ6zs%2B5aIbbofjXXExdJ%2B3OkCj8DuWwlJoqGPQgy%2B8djW6pAMbVauNJn7ObuWc2PqbAr%2ByfLlAeEF8r4brXpZd9E2r%2FB8ZcSX0QpLv1M83aPbi6bBTJ0ehXhfjwIdLn3dlyGpRQYZzyvbCDz0uA9b2N8mCQVRNE6C9jQAiE75mcKIm6%2F9nj15xgGBduJYMbUkYkscnxhdTNm3UjhENmwljfnHYIbeGcLRI2pz2EUaw5tjpZ1cP11c78n8gvcBafr%2FbO50tghHqZbGNIA1LXzVR9uoasTnr0id8t481YLUr4Sq7EvCQJfbDezFB0UXanvXXyIh5F2qQ8uxZWhFi%2FamW16v2wQNffj2LimNhqG1PUN9IE0dfgK1%2FoGtFF3Q4JcU0n6LlEHbKg73Ot52sZMczi0sdncwcU5MB71hJaXH1mDtwvTnhoxIdKobHtcDVVpOG%2FlPom6EQvScyp6HlLrqG%2BGOu18NLLiBeDkmjIauI2AQ%3D%3D coverArt: http://cont-2.p-cdn.com/images/public/amz/8/2/8/0/094637980828_500W_500H.jpg detailUrl: http://www.pandora.com/beatles/love/hey-jude-love-version?dc=232&ad=1:23:1:04238::0:0:0:0:500:197:ME:23017:2:0:0:0:0:1 fileGain: -3.190000 musicId: (null) rating: 0 stationId: 1359465946046869680 title: Hey Jude (Love Version) trackToken: 1e5a7f5d29d0d297f4f0bc515b8fb10f978261e0940239dd413536d8719605254698433af225c35614279f1e0d97a725554bba77f7882885c3742dcc40e4a271 It was a 30sec ad that played instead of the song listed (Hey Jude by The Beatles). It happens on occasion, some days more than other but it started about a week or 2 ago.

Edit: Just got another one in less than an hour on a different station. |> "Clocks" by "Dallas String Quartet" on "Eclectric" album:0:Eclectric artist: Dallas String Quartet audioFormat: 1 audioUrl: http://mediaserver-sv5-rt-1.pandora.com/access/6079783325139117550.mp4?version=4&lid=1046294704&token=xI4cm3CfEV3EbhtH7ZBCTby2kvWsc2eFoWLV688h9SLjZdMG5OQl7BPg96%2Bfk220gGGfCTNYpgO6C%2FZX923cwf8HeYbIj%2FznZ70ppmgz1ym9jhaUWEcCT7aoK7ZHDKS1SVWz%2FK8yzRpDhQU%2BL8NOz9uasvNofX1kWCAQkkmWB97z8mctVJ7Mdnwp6KlxVLb%2BOFlTFufmGqlC%2Bb%2F%2FPXrCR5wQYAE2fXt6EBSqG%2BFlULozN%2BxplClo87y0w7h7yhAmQvwiwspBGy6HhaQRN1tO5fmP7WM4x4cEbR23IPYPtnMUDsjhJVXex5R2dJ7u9XnfhCo4zFcnCr4lh%2Fu84KjHAbO3U3ubLFKmOO4QNaYbXb%2Ftt227YTrSkHAbhT1rdM7gzLQWVBIRamFJb17glh7wlS3axQlP8X1P%2FaXhEEp3woYh5VyHO3322yrczXuH8%2Bs6adbrwVD9RN%2FOmHHX82KpYEQYLVJIPAmmon7v3d%2Fb%2F05zMg7PdkQNRRTz1ER38YAwAGJLcfpdyr9S1%2FCO0jgXpu4rbRdLBxbHmh%2FePS74Y4Y%2FHoC13Xh5XaU1ZQcMj8v1Jle83qMdJKe7%2FNTLlE8uehfk%2FNO1bzjV coverArt: http://cont-ch1-1.pandora.com/images/public/amz/7/2/3/2/735885882327_500W_500H.jpg detailUrl: http://www.pandora.com/dallas-string-quartet/eclectric/clocks?dc=232&ad=1:23:1:04238::0:0:0:0:500:197:ME:23017:2:0:0:0:0:1 fileGain: -2.690000 musicId: (null) rating: 0 stationId: 1417281883797794992 title: Clocks trackToken: 1f6329368b458192d00b2a8b38cff209edbae1b07e9d08afac9bd452ce2a047089189932f852d768ec42f22d94af18d23d6aa1a1958db41bb0ecff5769a92fda

PromyLOPh commented 10 years ago

Hm, looks like standard song url’s to me. I have not heard a single ad myself – thus I’m gonna need help from those who have: Can someone apply the patch below and post (or send me via email: lars@6xq.net) the file debug.json and the song/artist name which got replaced by an ad. The file is created by pianobar and contains Pandora’s responses to API calls, so remove sensitive data like authentication token, username, etc. Thanks. https://gist.github.com/8151643

gitvertiser commented 10 years ago

The ad was in place of song "Simple Man": Welcome to pianobar (2013.09.15)! Press ? for a list of commands. (i) Control fifo at /home/spot/.config/pianobar/ctl opened (i) Login... Ok. (i) Get stations... Ok. |> Station "Pink Floyd Radio" (1043281135054489434) (i) Receiving new playlist... Ok. |> "Tears In Heaven (Unplugged Live)" by "Eric Clapton" on "Unplugged (Live)" |> "Can't You See" by "The Marshall Tucker Band" on "The Best Of The Marshall Tucker Band - The Capricorn Years" |> "Simple Man" by "Lynyrd Skynyrd" on "Pronounced Leh-nerd Skin-nerd" |> "Sunshine Of Your Love" by "Cream" on "Disraeli Gears"

PromyLOPh commented 10 years ago

Thanks for the debug output. As I expected there’s no flag identifying the track as advertising. I guess the track is dynamically replaced by an ad, based on geo-location and whether the client fetched ads previously.

Here’s a patch that calls ad.getAdMetadata: https://gist.github.com/8220159 Does it return anything for those of you, who receive ads? For me the response is empty: {"stat":"ok","result":{}}

caravone commented 10 years ago

I tried your patch. Everything song printed {"stat":"ok","result":{}}, even one that played an ad instead of a real song.

But one interesting thing I noticed was that the playing time of the ad/fake song showed the actual 30 seconds, much shorter than the actual playing time of a real song. Maybe that's a way to tell when an ad is playing?

PromyLOPh commented 10 years ago

Maybe that's a way to tell when an ad is playing? Sure, you could do that. But it’s a dirty hack that’ll flag songs regardless of the actual content (assuming there are “real” songs, like prelude/interlude/…, with that length too).

My guess it that the ads “go away” if we’d implement whatever the mobile client is doing to fetch ads. (See adToken in the playlist response.) Is there anyone who got a disassembled/decompiled version of the current official Android client?

mdc4115 commented 10 years ago

I have sent you an email regarding the source.

ghost commented 10 years ago

I too am starting to hear ads when using pianobar. I am fairly certain this is a change on the part of Pandora, as I am starting to see this issue in other pandora clients as well, specifically Hermes for OSX.

As mentioned earlier, I used $ to capture the debug information from pianobar. The results are as follows:

album:0:Disraeli Gears
artist: Cream
audioFormat:    1
audioUrl:       http://mediaserver-sv5-rt-1.pandora.com/access/1141152615591629351.mp4?version=4&lid=1219396138&token=7c7qm95UzEg5kn7JfDGGnVwocvuWKcjY978%2BZdYzGXIBemzzxS8YlWVvzKUbkQeUj%2BHlwn60YageinBdgJh9p48OQFoIBmj81osTmO0KoEZF3ZM5IcZA%2B7mpLPa9xgdnm%2Br%2Bp6iQ1r8%2BbZBJ2D4cIdEB0GTs6lv2hTCRJvSIf3VLjy0YikVSn4l8oPYS3H5iGqHc%2ByxzijLsvan%2FuXFaAH2Li8Bly39kqWcoTd49KYdxDHCaPvDgI0KmvihDjTQjq1cDjYqNWvnl36C0cn1q0s0o2IO7UtZVbv5yNXYTLfV%2Bs0ngbhuft3OQrgP4HLUd3%2Bmg04YsLcvKDeN39mbY6Jzc1nq8HUqwAxPuFQColonlmIB765qlOEds9K9nlk1NjS8wiEIE03g7O8vnXC463cZcz4V4nqfnnEsn6pCTG8HZpbA9AE7RY8G%2FwSBTfTAi%2B77JzUPvsl3%2FL%2F0LFF8EOklloaYbcYWdR07A6XPLatx94o66u%2FDGgf4gzBjsnAVqG1me9hWTvm1yf6khwyLDybLNMxrrGJayFefc3sTTSo8bxFzEFVmohzoNqIyVz4%2Fxhs%2FFnNHOVLW07ep79Sx3eA%3D%3D
coverArt:       http://cont-sjl-1.pandora.com/images/public/amz/0/2/1/1/731453181120_500W_500H.jpg
detailUrl:      http://www.pandora.com/cream/disraeli-gears/sunshine-of-your-love?dc=232&ad=1:19:1:97225::0:0:0:0:820:051:OR:41067:2:0:0:0:0:1
fileGain:       0.080000
musicId:        (null)
rating: 0
stationId:      1671779363641524778
title:  Sunshine Of Your Love
trackToken:     d0586cdf2e99b4750225059ecff7ba2fca6621aee0bf67cc77d9ab34909505ef2cfff77e162359d7f48dd657f85f97455de86ef2dba5ac81

As was also mentioned above, each ad I hear, while labeled as a normal song, has a duration of 30 seconds or less.

rye commented 10 years ago

Does anyone know if there are any ads on Pandora itself that are longer than 30 seconds?

brianpipa commented 10 years ago

data point - I hear them now using pithos... discussion here: https://github.com/pithos/pithos/issues/39

maltfield commented 10 years ago

I've been getting ads this year too :(

audioFormat: 1 audioUrl: http://mediaserver-sv5-rt-1.pandora.com/access/3147761520767267619.mp4?version=4&lid=1145898573&token=QUyQoAEb4qDLhjnr5%2FwjFSYlWuR4mjJW29FaDKf5STG5GJWDgRUpYmF5FvXnAOC7E1AXR1xGxQAr%2FlGiux%2FKXMgZnsCcStMDJIN4aUmpmysEencbC1urL2ukbXArHmEx0tbVmNEW4C%2B7hq3eTk9k6YWCEGPIcgwpxUedFltus4t7QYnT%2FV8%2BGl4uDbn48yFpHZQ98LAAj1Eay3PR9FxARzz1UKlAE%2FuGd7BbTEfU6Kr5FxgEBzRI7g5juNz0MZyPxLf2iijMSNmexLr0vi75CE0279bKtGHr3s%2Bj2ONUrQReD5n1wXCM53WkfHQhZfo3iAQllbw%2ByFyFGcl9mCttOQZevnxRwvXms2hT4hM8jr6nHr3YuoKh0wFnRdNuq%2FteDLmmxBCfHz86KpSkL7SYEBSWwH1FZcIRkVdFNHYMiG3WArGGuXcLaH9TDacbl5WXjDtf4E7Ejbpit6FSPdxmZViJUjYqCLxmN4nlj3DZlOn7G8bFjDjl5%2BvyFcZ82HjpGOGLuNkynnBCE%2FQKffXy0E9MWI6ZQjKYGdIKhY02zPiIUe8GvH3XzFLBaLbwEqGdhT7a7lCOtG16A2CWDzG9bpIm%2BGtNXSgx coverArt: http://cont-dc6-1.pandora.com/images/public/amz/2/2/0/0/724357880022_300W_300H.jpg detailUrl: http://www.pandora.com/ok-go/oh-no/here-it-goes-again?dc=232&ad=1:24:1:94710::0:0:0:0:807:009:CA:06001:0:0:0:0:0:1 fileGain: -8.480000 musicId: (null) rating: 0 stationId: 1619304196174841421 title: Here It Goes Again trackToken: 692776140070aa74bf5981be5f9b78efa39f94a2a6f458f91830cac0ac6acdaddc4bdffa5a63c96c9124e3f7be0be1e7732d1d4f730cf43a14e67715c42ba13b

I'd rather a dirty hack that skips 30 second songs than listen to ads..

PromyLOPh commented 10 years ago

I had a look at the decompiled source code of the mobile client. As far as I understand it ads work like this: If the playlist contains a track without trackToken (usually its a track without any useful data and just an adToken, which pianobar currently ignores) ad.getAdMetadata is called. This returns various data, including an audioUrlMap with stream URL’s for the ad. Starting an ad track results in another API call to ad.registerAd.

Obviously pianobar does not fetch these special ad tracks, nor does it register them, so Pandora knows who uses pianobar and can serve them ads by replacing regular tracks instead. The remaining question is: Who is served audio ads and why? (As I said earlier I don’t get any audio ads, so it’s unlikely that adding flags to API calls here and there is going to make the them disappear.)

So here are a few questions for you. I’m hoping for a pattern in your answers ;)

Is pianobar playing audio ads? How often (every n tracks)?
Are you subscribed to Pandora One?
Are you residing in the US or using a (control) proxy to access Pandora?
How many hours a month do you listen to Pandora (estimate, “heavy user” or not)?

Matthew9170 commented 10 years ago

If the ads are anything like what I am getting for other people it is almost random, some days I would get them every 15-20 minutes and others I would almost never get them, today in around 11 songs I only got 1 ad, and they are some long songs as well. As for Pandora One - nope, residing in the US with no proxy enabled, and I would say Heavy user - for hours on end every day.

Can we get a quick dirty patch that always shows total song length next to the song title even after the song is over?

caravone commented 10 years ago

I have an account that I created about a month ago that started playing ads about the same time the original issue was reported. That account plays straight all day 6-8 hours three days a week. Each day we'll get 5 or 6 ads, maybe. I wrote a hacky script to skip ads (< 1 minutes duration), and now we get periods where there are 4 or 5 ads in a row (that is, when the script keeps skipping them). This account has just one station where I haven't added any seeds or +/- any songs.

On the other hand, I have another account that I have had for years, with 5 or 6 stations, where I have added lots of feedback to tailor the songs played. I listen to that one from time to time, a few hours at a time, and I have never heard an ad there.

Neither account has Pandora One, US with no proxy.

On Sat, Jan 11, 2014 at 10:16 AM, PromyLOPh notifications@github.comwrote:

I had a look at the decompiled source code of the mobile client. As far as I understand it ads work like this: If the playlist contains a track without trackToken (usually its a track without any useful data and just an adToken, which pianobar currently ignores) ad.getAdMetadata is called. This returns various data, including an audioUrlMap with stream URL’s for the ad. Starting an ad track results in another API call to ad.registerAd.

Obviously pianobar does not fetch these special ad tracks, nor does it register them, so Pandora knows who uses pianobar and can serve them ads by replacing regular tracks instead. The remaining question is: Who is served audio ads and why? (As I said earlier I don’t get any audio ads, so it’s unlikely that adding flags to API calls here and there is going to make the them disappear.)

So here are a few questions for you. I’m hoping for a pattern in your answers ;)

Is pianobar playing audio ads? How often (every n tracks)?

Are you subscribed to Pandora One?

Are you residing in the US or using a (control) proxy to access Pandora?

How many hours a month do you listen to Pandora (estimate, “heavy user” or not)?

— Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHubhttps://github.com/PromyLOPh/pianobar/issues/415#issuecomment-32101407 .

master131 commented 10 years ago

I started using Pianobar yesterday and listened for many hours without a single ad (I haven't used Pandora in almost a year). I was shocked this morning to start it up and find that songs were replaced with US audio ads (I live in Australia). Sometimes there would be 3 ads in a row even. Anyway, it seems to happen every couple of tracks, I haven't been keeping track of an exact number. I'm not subscribed to Pandora One and I'm not using a proxy.

I'm not sure why we're being targetted but maybe excessive skipping is a possible cause? Has anyone else here been skipping more songs than they normally would be able to?

EDIT - Just listened to 1 song through Pianobar and then got 10 ads in a row (after continuously skipping them). On the web client, it works normally with no audio ads for me (I have Adblock Plus enabled).

PromyLOPh commented 10 years ago

As I expected there seems to be a high correlation between heavy usage – about 6 hours a day? – and ad injection.

Can we get a quick dirty patch that always shows total song length next to the song title even after the song is over? The (real) song duration is unknown at that point.

On the web client, it works normally with no audio ads for me (I have Adblock Plus enabled). The web client uses a different API.

brianpipa commented 10 years ago

My data: long time Pandora user. never been subscribed to Pandora One. US, no proxy. I get ads in pithos (which, from what I understand, uses pianobar) every now and then and just like other Pandora clients, they are more frequent if I interact with the app (especially skipping a song). I use Pithos/Pandora ~5-6 hours every weekday.

schelcj commented 10 years ago

Is pianobar playing audio ads? How often (every n tracks)?

Thus far I have heard no ads

Are you subscribed to Pandora One?

Not currently but have been in the past, several years ago.

Are you residing in the US or using a (control) proxy to access Pandora?

In the US
No proxies.

How many hours a month do you listen to Pandora (estimate, “heavy user” or not)?

Definitely "heavy user" but no idea total hours played a month, stats might be a nice feature :)
Don't know that it matters but my pandora account goes back to like 2006/7.
I run on three different systems, all various versions of ubuntu, no less than 13.04
I tend to use quickmix a lot
I generally do not skip songs all that much

PromyLOPh commented 10 years ago

Not currently but have been in the past, several years ago. Interesting point. I had a gifted subscription some time ago too.

codyps commented 10 years ago

Is pianobar playing audio ads? How often (every n tracks)?

Thus far I have heard no ads

Are you subscribed to Pandora One?

No, and I have never been

Are you residing in the US or using a (control) proxy to access Pandora?

In the US
No proxies.

How many hours a month do you listen to Pandora (estimate, “heavy user” or not)?

Definitely "heavy user" but no idea total hours played a month

Extra Info

I run on several different systems (ubuntu 12.04, gentoo), occasionally simultaneously.
I tend to run the same channel the majority of the time
I generally do not skip songs all that much
My account is relatively old (earliest record I can find is from 2005)

codyps commented 10 years ago

Also, it might be relevant that I have used the official android client at times.

PromyLOPh commented 10 years ago

I modified the patch posted earlier slightly to match the mobile client’s behavior more closely (see link below). Still no ads for me:

(i) Fetching ads with token 1811622870787436013-pod:1/1/2... ad.getAdMetadata returned: {"stat":"ok","result":{"adTrackingTokens":[]}}

Is there anyone who actually gets any meaningful data with the patch applied?

(Explanation: With this patch pianobar recognizes ad tracks and tries to fetch ad data with ad.getAdMetadata. The response is permitted to be empty, but that does not get me any further of course, as we’ll have to register the ad with the returned tracking tokens before it makes a difference. Yes, pianobar behaves strange/crashes if you try to interact with the ad tracks. Don’t do that just yet.)

https://gist.github.com/8505697

PromyLOPh commented 10 years ago

Sorry, wrong patch. Use this one instead: https://gist.github.com/8506110

Matthew9170 commented 10 years ago

I was just using the android app and Pandora did the exact same thing that pianobar did. It could be a coincidence but if it isn't that means we might be in for a fix from Pandora themselves. On Jan 19, 2014 10:09 AM, "PromyLOPh" notifications@github.com wrote:

Sorry, wrong patch. Use this one instead: https://gist.github.com/8506110

— Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHubhttps://github.com/PromyLOPh/pianobar/issues/415#issuecomment-32710327 .

PromyLOPh commented 10 years ago

Have you tried contacting Pandora’s support yet?

Matthew9170 commented 10 years ago

Yea I just sent sent them an email, now waiting on a reply back.

Matthew9170 commented 10 years ago

After some emailing they then sent me this,

I've discovered what has happened with your account. Our servers watch for Pandora players that are misbehaving, and when identified, we restrict that account for a little while. This could happen if you are using an unauthorized third party application.

When this happens, our system automatically blocks access to Pandora for a period of time, making the application temporarily unusable. The restriction is lifted after a day or two of normal behavior.

rye commented 10 years ago

Would you be able to email back and ask what kinds of actions are watched for? A certain number of failed logins? Outdated API calls?

PromyLOPh commented 10 years ago

Thanks for posting the response.

This could happen if you are using an unauthorized third party application. They denied my request for “authorization” a long time ago. “Not interested.” Looking at their attitude towards 3rd-party-clients over the past years I doubt it’s an option today.

A certain number of failed logins? Outdated API calls? No, the mobile app uses the same API. As for pianobar looking at the user-agent would be more than enough right now.

twof commented 10 years ago

Absolutely love pianobar so thanks for that!

Is pianobar playing audio ads? How often (every n tracks)? Yes it's playing audio ads. It's played 4 in the last hour. (See note at the bottom for more.)
Are you subscribed to Pandora One? No I am not. Nor have I ever been.
Are you residing in the US or using a (control) proxy to access Pandora? I'm located within the US and I am not using a proxy.
How many hours a month do you listen to Pandora (estimate, “heavy user” or not)? I listen to a couple hours in a day but my use is intermittent. I booted up pianobar for the first time in around a month about a week and a half ago and was surprised to hear ads within the first 10 or so songs.

NOTE: Ads can be skipped by hitting "n". I'm testing for patterns but this is what I've got so far: Two sets of 30 second ads in which I skipped one ad, that sent me to a second ad. When I skipped the second ad I got to a song. I was skipping a few seconds after the ads started.

Two ~15 second ads which when skipped, went directly to the next song.

Thanks for putting in all this work! If you need anything else from me, just let me know.

Magroid commented 10 years ago

caravone said : "I wrote a hacky script to skip ads (< 1 minutes duration), and now we get periods where there are 4 or 5 ads in a row (that is, when the script keeps skipping them)"

Any chance you can post said hacky script? :)

caravone commented 10 years ago

Hmmm, I think I lost my only copy, but the basic idea was something like:

pianobar | grep '/00' | sed 's/.*/n/' > /tmp/pianobar <--- the control fifo that you can set up in your pianobar config file

1) search for '/00' in the pianobar output (looking for the playing time indicator like 02:24/03:15, where the total time has '00' in the minutes place)

2) when we hit a match, convert that line to a 'n'

3) send the 'n' command (next song) to the control fifo so that pianobar will skip to the next song

This technique doesn't work very well, as there is some delay after the song starts playing before the output will show the minutes, so you get weird half-second bursts of ads before it skips.

I would be very surprised if what I wrote above actually works as is, so you would probably have to tweak it a bit.

On Fri, Jan 31, 2014 at 6:57 AM, Magroid notifications@github.com wrote:

caravone said : "I wrote a hacky script to skip ads (< 1 minutes duration), and

now we get periods where there are 4 or 5 ads in a row (that is, when the script keeps skipping them)"

Any chance you can post said hacky script? :)

Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHubhttps://github.com/PromyLOPh/pianobar/issues/415#issuecomment-33795529 .

Magroid commented 10 years ago

Weird, I can't get the grep to see the playing time indicator, it sees all text in the console except that, is there some trick for that? I'd sure like to get something working, sometimes I have to skip up to 10 ads in a row :(

ChaunceyHoover commented 10 years ago

Well I've been using pianobar for the past two or three days (obtained via pacman on Arch Linux), and I only just recently ran into this problem today (maybe a few hours ago?).

Info:

Is pianobar playing audio ads? How often (every n tracks)?

Yes; I'd say about every 5 or 6 songs (more or less)

Are you subscribed to Pandora One?

No; I've tried the free week that they offered one time (six months to a year ago), but that's it.

Are you residing in the US or using a (control) proxy to access Pandora?

Yes I'm in the US
No I'm not using a proxy

How many hours a month do you listen to Pandora (estimate, “heavy user” or not)?

Definitely a "heavy user"; at least 6 hours per day from Pandora (maybe 80% from pianobar)

Extra Info

I've only ran into this problem while I'm on Arch Linux, but I also haven't tried running pianobar on Windows; I assume it would be the same either way.

Just in case the debug information is needed, here it is:

|>  "Bueller" by "Etc! Etc!, Brillz & Diplo" on "Jeffree's Volume 5"
album:0:Jeffree's Volume 5
artist: Etc! Etc!, Brillz & Diplo
audioFormat:    1
audioUrl:   http://mediaserver-sv5-rt-1.pandora.com/access/7795200207511311779.mp4?version=4&lid=127874568&token=UOpkr%2F0XjSWAuYbqUTCzvMn9mIffZr8ZakmvEtv7iBrF8olmET6f3GVtIcJCTGbnwECo73imCs3kw%2FUW67EHoT9nTlLWm2mjsKebYc1KquZ1U3iferIo2Oa8pF891uqnYLiqwNCMgPWbcAneetYgE2uTPCpqT1j389mz2G9zgfN8nAVYdLGxxcuL13AmfAuavMZFkEezxjNLpXmoLwpRGjEbFcpxNIt7Mk795ql9ovrlHX6qzRV5EgR%2Br846pOTm%2BMygZ%2FXnp99Ln%2BOm%2BE9UHhwZffeyV8V1W%2Bf1WM4GgOOvG2j9wjVCKvmxGGDVDwc1%2F9FBsP0f60MxZ0E0GfgRQV8D3pPkAd7wLPqodl6dF7TU0%2FhiSVLeKdDK4KfS3nOrqHHac3bMAKERSxi7tDIWzYhxJWmCUdhkWbrje7C%2FkFUOhrebapNfrh0Y66t%2BwiLGBBWrdKOJpFJH%2FeUie9MvbzL5ZF0Wqtusw7ytQaPErqdtYU6gu4NL3CS80z6Kw8dTGRmJJ9AZ7FzRftGaKWGbhJOXA7d7VkA%2FMWpidPES7pfsyLp%2FlOuQtzs4%2Fz1t7TTcmwBKplheNVTSicyE6ZBiN3aCjSTzMYXOg7F5pZhTzAY%3D
coverArt:   http://cont-sv5-1.pandora.com/images/public/amz/0/2/2/3/859649003220_500W_500H.jpg
detailUrl:  http://www.pandora.com/etc-etc-brillz-diplo/jeffrees-volume-5/bueller?dc=232&ad=1:27:1:30114::0:pandorap1hq:0:1:524:047:GA:13057:1:0:0:0:0:1
fileGain:   -6.830000
musicId:    (null)
rating: 0
stationId:  1833580225223407112
title:  Bueller
trackToken: 10e0a8d3b60e07e0f16e034aa79edc68698d41ad182ec41a204fe968bbbbb98f757d2a5cc90088aede250106feb41bfc9c7a0f70ebb13ef6

codyps commented 10 years ago

Just heard my first audio ad (previously reported never hearing any)

ChaunceyHoover commented 10 years ago

As a side note, I've found that if I skip the ad, another one plays. If I skip the second ad, it's (seemingly) random that another one will play or the playlist continues; I've had 3 ads play in a row maximum so far. But, if I just let the ad play and finish, it continues with the playlist.

Otto-G commented 10 years ago

Is pianobar playing audio ads? How often (every n tracks)?

I just started getting some ads

Are you subscribed to Pandora One?

No, and I have never been

Are you residing in the US or using a (control) proxy to access Pandora?

Yes, w/o using a proxy

How many hours a month do you listen to Pandora (estimate, “heavy user” or not)?

Definitely a heavy user, using pianobar at home and the web app at work

PromyLOPh commented 10 years ago

Did anyone try the patch I posted above (the changes are in the “ads” branch too if you prefer using git)? https://github.com/PromyLOPh/pianobar/issues/415#issuecomment-32710327

Magroid commented 10 years ago

I just tried it today (using the ads branch) and I am still getting ads. It seems like I'm getting less, but that may just be because I didn't listen at all yesterday, who knows.

Edit: Spoke too soon, I just got like 8 in a row while skipping them. Here's some console output: http://paste2.org/azjIsEy9

tenkarasu commented 10 years ago

I've just recently been getting ads...like about two weeks ago. They're totally random. If I skip them, another one will play. I have to let them play.

US, no proxies, using pianobar on OSX. I'm definitely a heavy user of pianobar. The ads just pop up and it's really annoying. I've been getting the same info/stuff as everyone else: <30 seconds, usually, a band/track listing... Whole thing, same deal.

I do have a thing, though: I've been changing up my playlist a lot. Not that it matters, just wanted to input that.

rye commented 10 years ago

Personally, I'd be fine with listening to advertisements if they're put through by Pandora, but I think it would be nice if Pianobar would recognize that it is playing an advertisement and would then at least let me know that it is. Rather than misleadingly telling me that it's playing the next song or whatever it does, it would be great if it would tell me that it's playing an advertisement.

tenkarasu commented 10 years ago

Now, see, I would agree with that, except I specifically got pianobar for the purpose of NO ads. You see the problem here?

Otto-G commented 10 years ago

Now, see, I would agree with that, except Pandora specifically uses ads to continue running. You see the problem here? They need either ads or Pandora one to keep running

rye commented 10 years ago

I think a small 30-second advertisement is just the proper sort of thing to deal with in exchange for letting Pandora keep running. After all, if Pandora isn't running, Pianobar isn't.

PromyLOPh commented 10 years ago

In contrast to @DealerNextDoor’s statement in #421 I believe things don’t look too bad right now.

A fix is being worked on in the “ads” branch, which I just updated. Please test it and report whether the changes fix the issue for you or change anything. As mentioned above I can’t test it myself because the problem does not exist for my account(s).

@Magroid: Yes, that’s only the first part of the fix. For the second part I need the output of the first one (which you already posted).

Magroid commented 10 years ago

Tested this morning and got an ad pretty quickly. You can see the output here: http://paste2.org/aNpDKD3E The Ratt song was a McDonald's ad and I hit $ to show the debug output, I let it play though. The next song was a real song. I'll try skipping some ads next time and update.

UPDATE: Behavior has definitely changed. I can see pianobar skipping many of the ads, but it does play a few of them. In this example (http://paste2.org/FPmbka5Z) the Scorpions song toward the end was an ad. I hit 'n' to skip it and it appears to have auto-skipped a few more before playing a proper song. At this point it's something I can definitely live with, but doesn't appear perfect. Please let me know if you need more output.

ratherDashing commented 10 years ago

@four04

problem is that pandora is lying to pianobar and saying that it's a song. piano bar isn't the one lying to you, its just relaying the message.

I just did a git pull, I'll test after I get home from work.

PromyLOPh / pianobar

Ads randomly playing #415