Friday, February 11, 2011

I Fucking Hate The New Sirius XM Online Radio Player

I often don't shut my computer down.  Instead, I put it on hibernate.  Does everybody do that?  I don't know.  But if there's writing I want to get back to, or if there's something I want to read on the Internet later, that's what I do.  I think I hibernate more than shut down, even though I think it's not good for my laptop.

I also listen to my XM (now Sirius XM) Satellite Radio online.  All you have to do is give your e-mail and password, and they know if you're a subscriber or not.  I always put it on, so when I hibernate the laptop, I pause the radio player, but I don't logout or close or anything.

Well, I did that after having coffee late night Friday.  I come home, watch the rerun of Washington Week, and then do some more work and surfing on the Internet.  But when I hit the button of the station/channel to reactivate the online radio, bring up another window, then come back to the player because it's not playing anything, I was taken aback: The entire page was redesigned!

It used to look like this.  What do you think?  Yes, it seems basic, and there's one predominant color for each genre that might hurt some people's eyes, and there is a lot of words but no pictures.  It wasn't great formally.  But I miss it now.  And it took one or two spins with the new player for me to figure out why.

What it looks like now is a blue-and-white webpage that opens up to about half a full-screen size.  Instead of having huge horizontal bars with which to click on a new channel, there is now what they call a "spectrum" of small and tight vertical bars, each representing a channel.  You hover your mouse over one of these blips and you'll see the logo of the station and the name of the artist and song playing at that moment.  And when you click, information about the channel and a photo of the cover art of the album the current song comes from appears below this "spectrum."

The most bothersome thing about the redesign, and this really, really pisses me off, are these vertical bars for each station.  They are too small to click on.  You don't understand how many times in the past five-to-six days I try to hit a bar and I get the channel next to the one I want.  Also, previewing what's on each channel is limited only to the one your mouse is on.  You could see what's playing on all the other channels on the old design; all you had to do is scroll down.  Does Sirius XM know how frustrating it is to seek another station but being confined to hunt and peck for other options one at a time?  Do they really think I could just click on a random bar and listen to whatever I get?

Does Sirius XM have a Twitter?  Their homepage is so shitty, I don't think they're technologically savvy or willing to have one.  But my God, there has to be other people who thinks the new Sirius XM online radio player sucks big donkey dick.

23 comments:

  1. Not to mention it cuts out constantly.
    The old player was just fine why change it?

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  2. Exactly! I guess they needed to revamp everything to reflect the full merger of XM with Sirius. Still, they fucked this up, big-time.

    Thanks for looking at my blog!

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  3. I am losing online player signal for 2-3 seconds every 10 seconds for the last couple months! The new design and functionality sucks! I cancel the online bill.

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  4. Can you do that, cancel your online bill? I'm in my car so rarely that online is the only time I use it.

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  5. This is what I get when I login to the new "SIRIUS XM PLAYER" on my one computer:

    http://img138.imageshack.us/i/syriusxm.jpg/

    The player does not load any other features on the lower part of the page etc. It is all blank and the player does not play. I waited long enough and it does not play.

    And this is what I get on another computer when I try to login to the new player:

    http://img442.imageshack.us/i/siriusxm2.jpg/

    Sirius XM support was unable to resolve this problem. Their only argument was that Sirius XM Player does play on their computer.... I canceled the online service. Case closed (for me).

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  6. They will not cancel my service. I would call again and again and they would say they canceled it, yet the next time I called it was still not canceled and was up for renewal. Avoid SiriusXM! It's not worth it.

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  7. Crap, EniGma, sorry to hear that. I love my satellite radio, so they kind of have me by my balls, but that's just fucked up.

    Do they have a Twitter? Maybe if we start bitching about their poor customer service they'll let you cancel, or even better, fix that goddamn player.

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  8. I have been using SiriusXM too, and had the same problems as yours. I quit using it.

    radijas internete

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  9. I agree. I really wish they would have left the old player alone... Not that IT didn't cut out, but at least when I was running it through my WMP it would SAY it was timing out after 2 hours and continue to play... Sirius is garbage.

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  10. It's funny; I don't trust my modem at home to stay connected, yet I can hear my Siriux XM Player better at home than at my favorite coffeeshop, which usually has good to very good modem connection.

    Again, thanks for reading!

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  11. SiriusXM Player crashes Google Chrome: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w3bo3oDJSFY

    SiriusXM.com simply has poor design standards:
    http://screencast.com/t/uimDowuJ

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  12. The new player is down AGAIN this morning! This is so fucking frustrating that I cannot even think straight! Come on Sirius/XM, go back to the old player until you work out the bugs on this piece of shit! (Also, please put a player in place that remembers my login info. This is the only regular site I visit that requires me to retype my email MANUALLY each time I login.)

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  13. Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes! I've hated this fucking piece of shit since day 1. What the hell were the XM/Sirius fuckwits thinking when they designed this load of fail? The maddening vertical bars, the inability to see what's playing on all other channels at once, and the total failure of the 'Favorites' feature...Oh! And as the last commenter pointed out, the failure to remember my log in info. Fail, fail, fail!! I'm ready to carpet bomb XM/Sirius with emails complaining about this enraging crapfest until they do something to make it workable. ARGH!!

    Thank you so much for expressing what I've been feeling for a while now.

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  14. Two more things maddening about all this.

    First, on the login page, there's a little note that says, "We're aware that some of you have been having problems, blah-blah-blah." Have you guys seen any fixes? I don't think so.

    Second, my renewal is coming up very soon. And you know what? They have over a barrel. I can't live without satellite radio anymore, either online or in my car. I'm going to renew, which sends the message that I'm still going to give them money no matter how confusing they make the player interface and regardless of whether they actually listen to our problems and do something about it. This is where I hate myself.

    Thanks for reading, guys.

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  15. Not to mention it absolutely sounds like ass!!! I can barely stand to listen to it!!!

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  16. I cannot stand the new SiriusXM player. I NEVER FUCKING WORKS. I cannot believe they are making us pay for this piece of shit. Do they seriously just not care that their customers are this dissatisfied? I have never experienced such horrible service in my life.

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  17. Totally agree! I don't understand how the Favorites function works either. So frustrating because I love the idea of listening to Sirius wherever I want, and it doesn't seem like it should be that difficult for them to make it happen.

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  18. The new Sirius Online player is shit as everyone knows. I unsubscribed and I advise you all to boycott them until they get their asses in gear.

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  19. I hate Sirius more than I hate anything in this world. I also hate IE but I found this page on their site to at least fix it to make it remember your name and password: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/834489

    It now shows back up when I open the page. What is odd, though, is I use firefox at home and it still has the old xm player in cache even through firefox updates and many restarts. It plays just like before with all the horizontal bars. I tried to copy the link to my work computer but the new version comes up. Even the icon for the internet page shows the new Sirius icon but the page is the old one so it's still being supported somehow.

    there is a class action lawsuit that claims siris raised the prices only after killing XM and everyone who is a customer before last year has a claim but no money, just allows you to re up at the current price or get a free month if you cancelled. I hope they just go bankrupt. XM was SO much better. even the songs on all the channels were better. Everything about XM was better and they ruined it. If you listen to the comedy channel now they stopped playing funny stuff. The DJ's are useless assholes too. I had to buy best of XM just to get the channels I wanted in my new car. I hate Sirius.

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  20. joefromga, 97360852- ..., thanks for continuing to beat the drum on this abomination. I love satellite radio, but I still hate this goddamn player.

    joefromga, I'm going to try playing this on Firefox. If it somehow gives me the old player, I think I'm set!

    Thanks for reading the blog, guys!

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  21. Holy f'ing shit! I just googled "sirius online radio player" to see if my browser just wasn't working with the media player and found this website. So it really is this bad?!?!?! Talk about incompetent company! That's what happens to publicly traded bullshit though.

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  22. It's october 31 2011 my Siriusxm online player still sucks. It cuts out every 15-20 seconds or so. There is always popping noises. Sometimes sounds like static. Often times sounds like its under water. I've tried different browsers and different computers in my home even different computer outside my home it's still just as shitty. I don't recall having these problems with the old player.

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  23. I second all these posts, it really is a pathetic offering given the amount of money involved, how many people use this service, and the promises they've made. I have all the issues stated above (and have for quite a while).

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