vTuner Offline on Some Devices [Nov 2014]

[MK_Slinky]

Hi all,

It looks as though vTuner is now off-line again on some devices. My own STR-DN1040 Receiver remains unaffected at this time however my BDP-S7200 Blu-ray is displaying the following message:

“This service cannot be accessed at this time because the server replied with incorrect or invalid information”.

Please report any other affected devices here for simplicity of colaborating the information, kindly do not start a new thread.

Thanks in advance!

[MK_Slinky]

It's not quite as straight forward as that! One of the experts here called 'Quinnicus' explained this in great detail earlier on in this thread. Read it from the start and I'm sure you will find it.

No advertising your concerns through social media won't work either, it's been tried many times on Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, and a number of other channels.

I think you will have to just get used to it, you're not the only person affected by this problem.

As I write this I don't know which particular device you are having issues with but I'm sure it still has other uses besides vTuner radio. I appreciate that you might feel let down by Sony but this is happening with other services on many manufacturers products lately. Take for instance the YouTube app, the list is not exhaustive and no doubt there will be other services that cease to function in the future. Service providers change the rules all the time and ocassionally when they implement software updates it sadly renders some products unable to use those services.

[wimvandewater]

It is strange to read in this forum that Peter Johnson CEO of vTuner has said: "Sony only pays for 4,000 stations so they only get 4,000 stations. It is in the contract".
I still have the box in wich I bought my Sony CMT-G2NiP and it says in big letters on the front "Enjoy over more than 5000 internet radiostations"!
That's not the same number of internet stations!
Wether Sony is doing business with a third party to provide the internetstations (vTuner) or not: I bought my device from Sony and they made a promise on the box (more than 5000 internetstations) and in the users manual.
At this moment all of my favourite internetstations are still gone (cannot play) for months.
I used to be a Sony fan, but I made myself a promise to never buy a Sony device again!

[MK_Slinky]

@wimvandewater 

Hi there,

The alleged statement you refer to from Peter Johnson is a work of fiction, you shouldn't believe everything that gets posted here. Most of us are in agreement that the statement is a 'troll statement' and nothing more. An additional alleged email was also posted in this thread last week claiming to have been received by one member but again that member has failed to provide evidence of authenticity. Therefore the claim that Sony only pays for 4,000 stations cannot be verified.

As I write this email I have just received a telephone call from a foreign lady who sounded like she was maybe Malaysian and she tells me that for my particular devices BDP-S7200 BD Player & STRD-N1040 Av/Receiver service is now operational. I can confirm this to be true. However she also said that on some products (she didn't mention which) vTuner has now been discontinued.

With regards to your favourite stations being absent, have you tried looking for them again in the station lists (ALL STATIONS)?? I do know from my own experience that some stations have since moved and your favourites may need to be re-added.

[wimvandewater]

@MK_Slinky 

Thank you very much for your respons on my post.

Yes, I have tried several times to look for my favourite internetstations on my Sony device in the list "All Stations". I had about 15 internetstations as preset on my Sony device and none of them are at this moment appearing in the list "All Stations".

About the number of stations on the Sony devices: it doesn´t really matter wether the number is 4000 or 5000. When you are a company (Sony) and you print ir in big letters on the boxes in wich you are selling your devices than - in my opinion - that is a promise to your customers. And Sony doesn´t live up to that promis and therfore letting their customers down!

[MK_Slinky]

@wimvandewater 

Yes I do understand your concerns. It saddens me that Sony UK have maintained such a prolonged spell of silence on this issue. We were promised in their last statement to be kept informed but as yet Sony UK continues to be silent.

It's quite likely that the customer will be the last one to find out the real truth. Lots of people have their own take on the issue, of course none of them can be verified as being accurate or true. The best any of us can do is check back from time to time in the hope Sony update their statement as promised and finally lay the issue to rest.

[mypointofview]

Has anybody an idea on how to start a class action law suit? This possibili4y exists in Europe and certainly in the US. I wonder how to start the process.

[chrisdowen]

This has happened to me several times now. All my presets worked for about two or three weeks, then overnight, none of them play AND they've disappeared from the list of available stations. Sony say it's a vTuner problem, vTuner don't replyy to my messages to their support people. Dead loss!

[foldvari]

Yes, I experienced the same. It is not only that we have a limited set of stations available, but also that the list of stations available is changing time by time making it even more painful for us.

But who cares? We are just customers who already paid for something.

[teinob]

As I posted a few days ago:

So here we are, answer of Peter Johnson CEO of vTuner per e-mail:

"Sony only pays for 4,000 stations so they only get 4,000 stations. It is in the contract.

vTuner used to be very nice to Sony but then Sony decided to go use vTuner competition (TuneIn). TuneIn is a company who enjoys ripping off vTuner's station listing and then selling it back to Sony. Sony knew that TuneIn did this before they switched to TuneIn from vTuner.

That is the reason frankly!"

[MK_Slinky]

---

@teinob wrote:

As I posted a few days ago:

So here we are, answer of Peter Johnson CEO of vTuner per e-mail:

"Sony only pays for 4,000 stations so they only get 4,000 stations. It is in the contract.

vTuner used to be very nice to Sony but then Sony decided to go use vTuner competition (TuneIn). TuneIn is a company who enjoys ripping off vTuner's station listing and then selling it back to Sony. Sony knew that TuneIn did this before they switched to TuneIn from vTuner.

That is the reason frankly!"

---

Previously when you posted this alleged email you were asked by Quinnicus if you could provide proof of authenticity, after that request you went strangely quiet and yet here you are making the same statement again!

As per the original request can you please provide proof i.e. a screenshot with FULL email headers - Just edit your own email address out of it (MS Paint - Black line etc)?  Because it would be interesting indeed - Mainly because its not an email one would expect from a CEO of a company. 

Cheers

[MK_Slinky]

Cheers