Yahoo! Music. Great Selection - Lousy Support!

Contributing Writer's Viewpoint - by graham

As a Roger's customer (Canadian Data Service provider) I receive the occasional promotional email. Sometimes I even read them. This spring Rogers offered a Yahoo! Music Unlimited trial, and so I did a little research against other online music services (notably Napster). Based on their larger song database I gave the Y! Music engine a whirl.

After reading some posts on the Internet about junkware installed by the Rogers package, I downloaded and installed directly from Yahoo. The process was trouble-free (and it's just as well, as you'll soon read about my multiple re-installs). My free month required me to submit credit card info, but I didn't mind, as I planned to continue my service if it was as good as promised.

I fell in love with the service. Anything recent was easy to find, and a lot of older stuff was also on file. I was humming along with local DRM copies of the stuff I'd listen to more than once (just to save bandwidth) and plenty of "tagged favorites". LAUNCHcast radio developed strong playlists for various themes, learning from my listening and ratings quite quickly. Sure, the odd Bon Jovi song crept in and had to be 'banned', but overall I was a happy camper.

When my free month was up I was happy to enter billing mode. At ten bucks I felt like I was getting great value - I was as giddy as a school girl with a My Little Pony collection.

Somewhere in month two I received a notification for Yahoo Music Engine upgrade to v1.1. I upgraded. From then on, none of my downloaded songs would play. I received a message saying I needed to be an Unlimited subscriber. The radio wouldn't play, saying I needed to be either a LAUNCHcast Plus or Yahoo! Music Unlimited customer.

Yahoo's phone support said I needed to email Yahoo Email support. They gave me the easy-to-remember email address "yahoomusicengine-feedback@cc.yahoo-inc.com". Two days later I received a message saying I needed to enable and then clear cookies in IE. I went a step further and uninstalled the music engine, cleared all caches and cookies, and reinstalled IE and then the engine. No luck. Future responses started coming from launchtrax-feedback@yahoo-inc.com. Hereafter the pattern of communications went like this:

  1. Told to reinstall the engine
  2. Did as told and responded not working
  3. Receive a message saying my case has been "escalated to a senior Care representative who specializes in resolving issues" and "the representative will respond to you within 24 hours"
  4. Wait 3 days
  5. Send another note, go to step 3.

In between each round of mailing and waiting, and trying to find the old engine, and trying various re-installs and cleaning outs, I would receive an invitation to provide feedback on the Customer Care. I filled them in diligently and accurately (though somewhat caustically) over a two-week period. As my paid month was ending, and having had only a few days of actual working service, I terminated my account with prejudice.

This experience left me with such a bad taste that I haven't joined another music subscription service. I played nice with DRM and found some albums to buy. Now I find other means to sample music. Argh.

Read more about Online Music in Canada at DigitalHomeCanada

- graham

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16 comments
Posted by oscar shannon on August 9,2007 at 1:43 PM

my yahoo music juke box will not play albums only 30 sec i get license error detected and i am paying for the services

Posted by Bill on May 27,2007 at 4:23 PM

Yahoo is great when it works.  I also get IE unable to connect when trying to access Y Unlimited from Yahoo Music Jukebox.  Of course, then I am unable to validate the licenses and can't play all the music I went to a lot of trouble to download.  The bottom line is, the software is seriously buggy, but Yahoo seems unwilling or unable to correct.  I love the concept but the sw sucks.

Posted by jim on March 12,2007 at 7:06 PM
I am unable to sign on to my music jukebox.

i get a notice that says this application has requested the run time to terminate it in an unusual way. Please contact the applications support team for more information.
Posted by ricardo woodley on March 10,2007 at 2:16 PM
realmotherforya@sbcglobal.net you are charging me for serve, I am not getting. the 14 of the month you are taking payment. I have not receive serve in weeks. you don't have a phone number to call.  my account is active
Posted by jim on March 6,2007 at 11:08 AM
Question,why can't i play songs that i have downloaded from a CD?? Other songs that i download from Juke box i am able to play???
Posted by realmotherforya@sbcglobal.net on February 20,2007 at 1:12 PM
I'm being stop from use my yahoo jukebox, because I was charge for two account & I stop one unlimiled, not the jukebox
Posted by John Barry on February 19,2007 at 9:37 AM
Greg i have the same thought about a CLASS ACTION LAWSUIT. LET'S HEAR FROM YOU OTHER PEOPLE WHO ARE BEING RIPPED-OFF BY YAHOO!!!!!!
Posted by John Barry on February 19,2007 at 9:32 AM
Once again: WHY CAN'T I PLAY AN ALBUM ON MY STATION;ALL I GET IS 30 SECONDS SAMPLE OF ANY SONG ON ALBLUM!!!!!!!
Posted by John Barry on January 27,2007 at 12:56 PM
Why can't i play albums that i have on my STATION?Just paid $71/changeFOR WHAT???????
Posted by Greg on January 19,2007 at 8:21 PM
I made the bigest mistake in my comp. days when i paid for one year in advance for launchcast pluss! My station worked for a couple of weeks, probablly less than ten. Then i started getting error messages,i tried some times for72 hours straight doing what they told me to do to get the player running again. I even had a tech. on the phone going through the steps with with me one at a time,it diddent take long until that i realized that i knew more about what we were tring to do than yahoos tech. He agreed with me that they were telling me to do things that couldent be done!  
Every time i go the help site and give them the error code, they dont know the answer so they just say "we think you are asking about yahoo ID" ERRGH!!!!!!!!!!!! In my opinion they are charging for a service they cant provide and or maintain. I feel i have been ripped off they are a fradulent provider! Today is 1-19-07 my station hasent worked for months,the only recorse i can think of is a class action lawsuit.
The time i spent tring to fix things that can not be fixed is worth a lot more money than yahoo ripped me off for,yahoo you are criminals your day will come.
Posted by jim on January 14,2007 at 8:43 PM
dont bother with yahoo music service is poor,songs iwant are never available and they bill youwithout telling you that your subscripton was over, iwould suggest using either napster or limewire.com if you want rare music y music just plain sucks!!!
Posted by Tracy Brown on January 3,2007 at 8:23 PM
I could not download one song but I don't think it was the site because I have had the trouble with many music sites since this incident. I have a new computer and I am thinking it has something to do with my internet provider after speaking with some colleagues and our computer department. I would like a refund. thanks.
Posted by tang on December 2,2006 at 6:51 PM
My yahoo music says error 15 everytime I try to listen to music. My yahoo news want allow me to watch the news online.  I have contacted yahoo a few times and they are giving me the run around and the services is terrible and they even lie to thier customers about contacting them in 24 hours that turned into days and I had to contact them still with answer to why my yahoo features aren't working.  If I can't use the features on yahoo I don't need it.
Posted by stephanie on October 27,2006 at 3:01 PM
I need to know why we can not download jukebox music onto our computer. I sign
on with my e-mail address  and my husband is the administrative user.  What do we do!
Posted by Juan Martinez on October 20,2006 at 9:23 PM
my music isn't working and cant get it to play for the past two weeks. It keeps on sayong that i need to connect it to the internet but i checked everything and it all seems right!. What can i do?
Posted by Milamber on August 25,2006 at 9:12 AM
Well I haven't tried Yahoo! Music but I do use launchcast on a daily basis as a paid subscriber and I haven't had any issues with it.  As for customer service, it's generally not the first thing on the minds of tech companies :(