Onkyo TX-NR686 and TuneIn issue

Vladman

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Hi,

To distract myself from all this Coronavirus madness, I thought I'd post here with an annoying little issue I've had some time, just to see if anyone has any tips...

I use TuneIn on my Onkyo receiver and it used to work fine. Recently, there are two stations that refuse to play, says error, or can't play, or something like that. However, they play fine if I try to play them either in the app on my android phone, or in a web page. They just stop playing on the receiver (but were fine until a month or two ago). I've updated the firmware (which is set to notify me when there's an update, but never does), logged out and back in from TuneIn on the receiver, all to no avail.

Any ideas?

Many thanks folks.
 
Hi,

To distract myself from all this Coronavirus madness, I thought I'd post here with an annoying little issue I've had some time, just to see if anyone has any tips...

I use TuneIn on my Onkyo receiver and it used to work fine. Recently, there are two stations that refuse to play, says error, or can't play, or something like that. However, they play fine if I try to play them either in the app on my android phone, or in a web page. They just stop playing on the receiver (but were fine until a month or two ago). I've updated the firmware (which is set to notify me when there's an update, but never does), logged out and back in from TuneIn on the receiver, all to no avail.

Any ideas?

Many thanks folks.
I'm having the exact same issue. Onkyo I has not responded to my complaints.
 
It's because Tunein have lost a law suit and the stations are now blocked in the UK. I have complained to Onkyo about it too. Not much else you can do. Tunein is a complete waste of space.
 
One way around this Tunein issue is the Hifi Cast app in Google Playstore. It Chromecasts radio streams to your receiver and has Shoutcast built-in. You can also add custom url's too. Works better than Tunein because of this.
 
Hi!

I had the same problem with one of my favorite radio station using Onkyo TX-8150. I think i found the cause of the problem and I found a workaround which works for me.
How does it work?
Radio stations use 3rd party streaming service provider (or their own software service) to distribute their radio audio stream.
Like other similar Internet sites, TuneIn provides catalog of many radio stations and some other services of their own (user account, favorites, phone app, service for 3rd Party manufactures etc.). But, in regards to audio streaming, it just provides link to original stream provided by original audio stream provider. It does not re-encode audio stream nor does it changes streaming protocol. At least, this is how it works on TuneIn web page. You can see that by studying network traffic of your Internet browser.
So, the fact that stream does not work with Onkyo device, but works on a web page and using TuneIn app supports the thesis that issue should not be related to TuneIn service, but to Onkyo receiver.
So it should be either because of not-supported audio stream encoding, transmission protocol or something else.
Luckily, Onkyo supports all major audio encoding formats including aac which is used for encoding of my favorite station, Yammath FM, Naslovnica - Yammat FM.
This station distributes audio stream on address "https://streaming.radio.co/s5ad4b474a/listen". I've tried to add this URL to Onkyos "My favorites" list and it didn't work. But, it worked after I removed 's' (secure) from the link and use "http://..."! The same workaround worked for another radio station stream that I tried (different audio stream provider).
This lead me to conclude that my Onkyo receiver TX-8150 does not support https protocol, only http.
Luckily in my case, audio stream providers do provide both https and http streams!
So, try the following:
1
Open web site of your favorite radio station
Open it on your desktop computer. Open either radio station web page or TuneIn web site with selected your favorite radio station, both should work. Page should have player controls (play/resume button).

2
Find web address of audio stream
Using Google Chrome, right click inside page and choose "Inspect" to open DevTools window. Switch to "Network" tab. Refresh web page. Start audio stream playback. Check "Waterfall" column inside DevTools window and find the longest duration file, it will continue to grow as audio playback continues. Click on the item, it will show you resource info including "Request URL"
Copy URL.
There are other articles on how to find stream URL, see on youtube.

3
Setup your radio station in Onkyo "My Favorites" section
Find IP address of your Onkyo device. You can see it by browsing device display menu or using Onkyo Remote phone app. In your Internet browser enter that IP address to open web page of your Onkyo devices. Switch to "My Favorites" tab.
Enter the name of radio station and paste URL to "URL" field. Make sure to remove 's' from https.
Click Save button.
Make sure changes are applied, switch to other audio source, then back to "My Favorites".
Try.
I hope it will work for you too.
 
Thanks for posting this Mr Jordan. Sounds promising and I'll try it. Thanks again for taking the trouble.
 
Unfortunately I couldn't do this as upon opening the IP address web page, there isn't a favourites tab (TX8250). I did suspect this would be an issue because I didn't remember seeing "Favourites" in the menu on device. Probably work for others though, a great idea.
 
Hi,

Since my initial post, I found TuneIn stopped working with ANY non-UK station for me, it now doesn't work on my phone either and definitely not on the receiver, so it's effectively become totally useless. However, most (if not all) stations work, if I turn on VPN and connect to any continental Europe country (I didn't try them all, just a few). Which leads me to believe, this has something to do with the UK and TuneIn specifically. Would be interesting to find out what exactly has happened - @Ficklefinger earlier mentioned a lawsuit?

I'm having a look at this Hifi Cast app you mention, but am a little lost. Also, even though I've heard of Shoutcast, I don't really understand/know what it is.

This whole thing is now even more complicated in my particular case. That's because when I'm behind a VPN, my phone is no longer able to cast (Chromecast) to the receiver, as it no longer sees it on the network. What's really interesting, I used to have an old Ipad and that would successfully connect with the receiver through Airplay, even when behind the VPN, which Chromecast doesn't seem to be able to do.

The only way I've found around this to use direct Bluetooth connection, which frequently (don't know why) disconnects.

So unnecessarily complicated, just trying to play an Internet radio station... 🙄

@Mr Jordan ,

Thanks very much for your exhaustive post. That's a great workaround, and I'm glad it worked for you. Sadly though, I also don't have a My Favourites tab when I go to the IP address of my receiver in a browser page.
 
Shoutcast.com is a website with many but not all internet radio stations. You can go to their website and click on the listen tab to display the stations. Hifi Cast has this built in and will chromecast the station to your receiver. There is a place to enter a custom station URL too, if it's not in Shoutcast.
 
Shoutcast.com is a website with many but not all internet radio stations. You can go to their website and click on the listen tab to display the stations. Hifi Cast has this built in and will chromecast the station to your receiver. There is a place to enter a custom station URL too, if it's not in Shoutcast.

Thanks.

I've downloaded HiFi Cast, but can't figure out where/how to add a custom URL (as Shoutcast doesn't list the particular station I'm after after I do a search on it).

Thanks for your help.
 
Sorry guys, I didn't check User manual of TX-NR686 before writing my post. I assumed, because it is more versatile device than my 8150, that it also has a feature to play arbitrary network audio stream and that you can save it to "My Favorites".
Now I see in https://www.intl.onkyo.com/downloads/manuals/pdf/tx-nr686_manual_en.pdf that there isn't feature like that... I don't understand why they removed it. sry
TX-8150
https://www.intl.onkyo.com/downloads/manuals/pdf/tx-8150_manual_en.pdf, page 19.
And this is how it looks on TX-8150
1604846907446.png
 
Vladman, open Hifi Cast and select music sources, then radio and then below click internet radio. Now click favourites and then click the 3 dots menu, you'll see add custom station.
 
Hi-Fi Cast looks OK. I don't use Chromcast, but it is good to know about it. Thank you!
In addition, there is VLC player for Android which also should be able to play and chromecast network stream. IMO, Android app interface is not user friendly. it will be better to prepare list of network radio streams on computer as classic m3u file and than load it into VLC.
 
Vladman, open Hifi Cast and select music sources, then radio and then below click internet radio. Now click favourites and then click the 3 dots menu, you'll see add custom station.

Wow, thanks so much, this works! I don't understand how though, as trying to use this station's app, or TuneIn, neither works (unless I connect to VPN for that or another European country), and says it can't play because of regional restrictions.

But your way seems to bypass it all, and all without the need to go through a VPN.

Thanks again! :thumbsup:
 
Hi,

Some further info, if you guys are interested.

So I was just setting up my custom stations in HiFi Cast as per @Ficklefinger's excellent advice, and I came across some stations that refuse to work.

I followed all the same steps as before, finding the stream URL (thanks @Mr Jordan!), then creating the custom station in HiFi cast but they refuse to play, with a message "Resource not found". 🤔 The stream URL is definitely correct, if I click on details of the created station in HiFi cast, I can see the link, and if I tap it, it opens in a browser page and the music starts.

I tried playing with the URL, removing the "s" from HTTPS, and a few other things, but to no avail.

Then I managed (quite accidentally!) to find a way to get it to work.

At the bottom of the screen in HiFi cast I see the standard Android "cast" icon, and then the text Playing to (device). If I tap that, I get a list in which I see three things, with my particular setup (see attached screenshot)

Screenshot_20201109-135455.png


I was playing with this and realised that the second entry (Onkyo with the headphones icon) actually uses Chromecast to send contents to my receiver, whereas the third entry (Onkyo with the proper icon) uses "Media Server" (which I've never used before). I don't actually fully understand how this works, but it seems it's a different method of streaming from Chromecast.

And the stations I was having issues with don't work when trying to use Media Server, but DO WORK, when using Chromecast. The other stations I added don't seem to mind, and work with either.

Interesting, eh! 🙃
 
This thread was the most valuable in helping me solve my (different) issue so I thought I would post here my solution to chip-in...

Cause:
Tunein got new "streams" for the radio I was listening to since years (FIP 105.1 a real gem!).
Probably the new streams propose higher quality (higher bitrate, etc) or an https URL instead of http (like mentioned earlier in this thread, thank you guys!).
As a result my player (Onkyo CR-N775) started failing with PLAYBACK ERROR.

Solution:
When selecting the stream (FIP in my case) there is a small delay during which the "..." button can be pressed ("Enter" button on the remote control or face panel); this gives you access to the "Choose stream" menu. Then just try one of the stream (for FIP there were 5 streams now, instead of only 2 the last time I checked a long time ago). You can repeat the same operations if the stream is not the one you want (if it failed with same error or if it is a low-bandwidth stream and you want a better one).

[EDIT] Trying to apply my solution above, I was unable to get my CR-N775 to "remember" which stream I had selected, so it worked but I had to select the stream again each time... Bummer.
But I found that the latest firmware upgrade from Onkyo resolves it all. Everything works great with Tunein now! :clap:
Onkyo Firmware Updates (all models)

Enjoy!
 
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