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Official TIDAL HIFI Streaming Issues Thread


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I have been a customer since the (pre JayZ) introduction to the USA in October. I finally dropped Tidal this morning. I really wanted them to succeed, but while their service has improved, the intermittent dropouts continued.

 

I always said I would give them 6 months. I gave them 7. Speaking as an audiophile, I think the JayZ purchase was a setback.

What do you think has changed since the Jay Z purchase?

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What do you think has changed since the Jay Z purchase?

 

Focus on high definition streaming. I'm not sure what their focus is now.

 

"The function of music is to release us from the tyranny of conscious thought", Sir Thomas Beecham. 

 

 

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From my perspective, the main issue with Tidal is: They are trying to manage a large music library, and they have not used qualified librarians to catalog it. This makes a mess when you are trying to find classical pieces, know who is playing (other than a single "artist") on a piece, or even look for an artist, whose name may appear in various forms. Instead of thinking the problem out, they're simply followed the lead of that moneygrubber Steve Jobs, whose mess in cataloging music for iEverything has left us all in a cesspool. Respect for the artists? Forget it!

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I've spent all day trying to make Tidal work and am utterly frustrated. Any help or ideas would be welcome. My music server is an old Powerbook G4. It cannot use Chrome Version 39, specified by Tidal for HiFi streaming. OS is 10.5.8 and can't be upgraded.

 

My workaround is: Install Chrome on my iMac. Install Airfoil on my iMac and the legacy version of Airfoil on my Powerbook. So far so good. I tested it with Rdio, playing from my iMac to my Powerbook and into my stereo system connected to the Powerbook. Everything worked and sound was as good as I can get from Rdio.

 

BUT...when I try to play Tidal over the Chrome browser, streaming to the Powerbook the very same way, I got one song to play and then...repeated Tidal error messages that say: "HiFi streaming unfortunately failed. Click here to reload and try again." I've done so, over and over with no success.

 

Any suggestions or thoughts? Many thanks!

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As far as I know the company is much more focussed on high definition streaming now than it has ever been, especially with MQA.

 

Their service failed to deliver reliable high definition streaming to me for 7 months. If Tidal was focused on hi def streaming, I would be a satisfied customer.

 

"The function of music is to release us from the tyranny of conscious thought", Sir Thomas Beecham. 

 

 

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From my perspective, the main issue with Tidal is: They are trying to manage a large music library, and they have not used qualified librarians to catalog it. This makes a mess when you are trying to find classical pieces, know who is playing (other than a single "artist") on a piece, or even look for an artist, whose name may appear in various forms. Instead of thinking the problem out, they're simply followed the lead of that moneygrubber Steve Jobs, whose mess in cataloging music for iEverything has left us all in a cesspool. Respect for the artists? Forget it!

 

This is probably my biggest complaint, now that I've been using it for a month or so. I have to search three times for many of the recordings I am looking for, and I have very little sense of how big their catalogue actually is. Searching with standard spellings often returns only one CD, but searching by a movement title, say, returns three CDs, and then searching for specific artists often reveals yet more recordings, all of the same composition.

It's not a problem I ever encountered with Spotify.

An 'advanced search' option would be useful, but so too would a much better search algorithm, and, as you say, a thorough approach to library management.

 

I am also finding quite a few recordings that are not hifi, and I don't know why they aren't hifi. There seems very little pattern to this. Generally, I'm noticing more and more that recordings have slight static, which is entirely absent from the CD copies that I own.

I haven't had any dropouts, and my internet connection is very fast and very stable (major university), so it's not a problem at my end.

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I was confused. I though you were talking about Tidal's focus on higher definition audio that cd quality. Sorry.

 

Red book streaming quality was good enough for me. Of course, I would have been happier if higher definition than 16/44.1 was available. I would have paid a higher premium for it. But the continued dropouts and technical problems on their end killed it for me.

 

"The function of music is to release us from the tyranny of conscious thought", Sir Thomas Beecham. 

 

 

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I agree that TIDAL's reliability is a major frustration. One day things work well and the next day it's a mess. I never had any problems prior to the changes to their content delivery network.

 

Sometimes music simply stops playing until I reselect the track and start over. It's not just a temporary dropout. Then sometimes that track will play through to the end, and sometimes it will just stop again. Sometimes the player will automatically advance to the next track after the previous track is finished, and sometimes it will just sit there until I manually select the next track. It drives me totally nuts.

 

Their search function is really, really bad. TIDAL needs a more robust client, period. I often get the Album Not Available message, but if I retry the operation it opens up the list of tracks.

 

The main problem is that there is no way to effectively communicate with TIDAL technical support and to escalate issues. Erik at TIDAL just sends me a link to a form to report dropouts when I try to document my issues. He says this is the only way they have of passing feedback along to their network infrastructure service provider. Clearly this is inadequate, so I don't know how they expect to fix these problems.

 

I primarily listen to classical music, and classical seems to be a second class citizen at TIDAL. Sure they give priority to popular material that's more in demand, that makes sense. So these problems may not be happening with material that is more mass market. But it is taking them forever to get their classical music onto a stable delivery network, and it's taking them forever to come out with an updated OSX desktop app.

 

TIDAL does acknowledge they have problems, and gave me a credit for my most recent payment. I just got TIDAL working with Geoffrey Armstrong's TIDAL add-on for Kodi. I'm playing TIDAL through A+ V2.1.1 now and it sounds much better than the TIDAL OSX desktop app ... when TIDAL actually works properly.

 

I'll give TIDAL a little more time, but I've been a subscriber since the launch and my patience is pretty much exhausted. I'm going to try ClassicsOnline HD and switch if I find it more reliable. Hopefully, Geoffrey can figure out how to get that service to work with A+.

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i7-6700K/Windows 10  --> EVGA Nu Audio Card --> Focal CMS50's 

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Well I am actually playing tidal with Amarra Sq with no glitches for about an hour!!

 

First time ever this has happened so maybe just maybe the new Tidal mac app has resolved the problem.

WHAH? WHAH? Jimmmmmy??? Are you using anything other than Aries???

 

PS: Sorry couldn't help it!!!

NUC10i7 + Roon ROCK > dCS Rossini APEX DAC + dCS Rossini Master Clock 

SME 20/3 + SME V + Dynavector XV-1s or ANUK IO Gold > vdH The Grail or Kondo KSL-SFz + ANK L3 Phono 

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WHAH? WHAH? Jimmmmmy??? Are you using anything other than Aries???

 

PS: Sorry couldn't help it!!!

 

Haha Miggy . Using Tidal with the Aries has never been a problem but with my iMac and Mac mini using Amarra SQ there were constant glitches and hiccups .

 

I downloaded the new Mac app and zero issues for the hour I played Tidal with Amarra SQ . First time ever I can say that .

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I also have downloaded the new (Beta) version of the Mac TIDAL player, and it works very well with Amarra sQ. Also, as Chris pointed out, the player mirrors the web version. This means it includes the new TIDAL Rising and TIDAL Discovery features that allow young, unestablished artists a shot at hooking the brass ring. I wish they had had these features up and running before the bizarre video news conference that made it sound like TIDAL was merely a way to make the rich richer.

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I downloaded the Windows version this morning and got a message "cannot open this file or device" . Posted to Tidal, suggestion was to try it again. Same thing. I sent them the error log that popped up after the install failed. I hope they can figure this out, or if someone here can be of assistance. Tried to install for the third time, no luck. Would posting the error log here be of any assistance?

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Tried to use the native app on mac. Downloaded it and tried to run it but I get a message like "unverified developer". However, I do have my security settings such that I can run any software. I even toggled to the mode where it asks you in the preferences, and I authorized TIDAL to run, without any luck. The old TIDAL native app run fine.

NUC10i7 + Roon ROCK > dCS Rossini APEX DAC + dCS Rossini Master Clock 

SME 20/3 + SME V + Dynavector XV-1s or ANUK IO Gold > vdH The Grail or Kondo KSL-SFz + ANK L3 Phono 

Audio Note Kondo Ongaku > Avantgarde Duo Mezzo

Signal cables: Kondo Silver, Crystal Cable phono

Power cables: Kondo, Shunyata, van den Hul

system pics

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Tried to use the native app on mac. Downloaded it and tried to run it but I get a message like "unverified developer". However, I do have my security settings such that I can run any software. I even toggled to the mode where it asks you in the preferences, and I authorized TIDAL to run, without any luck. The old TIDAL native app run fine.

 

Runs fine here :/

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Home Theater / Music -SonicTransporter i9 running Roon Server > Netgear Orbi > Blue Jeans Cable HDMI > Denon X3700h > Anthem Amp for front channels > Revel F208-based 5.2.4 Atmos speaker system

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The new OS X beta desktop app runs smoothly for me so far. Now that's it's finally arrived, I probably won't be using it because I now use Geoffrey Armstrong's TIDAL add-on for Kodi with A+ V2.

 

TIDAL may have finally gotten around to moving classical music onto its new content distribution network. I'm getting better reliability recently with fewer instances of albums failing to advance to the next track. Let's hope it stays this way.

Pareto Audio AMD 7700 Server --> Berkeley Alpha USB --> Jeff Rowland Aeris --> Jeff Rowland 625 S2 --> Focal Utopia 3 Diablos with 2 x Focal Electra SW 1000 BE subs

 

i7-6700K/Windows 10  --> EVGA Nu Audio Card --> Focal CMS50's 

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