Last.FM problem: Streaming bufferring, slow streaming, audio skipping

[any ANONYMOUS forum user]

I was just wondering whether other people have noticed an increase in streaming buffering (slow streaming, audio skipping) lately?

When I first really started streaming from last.fm, my stream rarely had to pause to refill the buffer. But lately it seems to be happening much more frequently (sometimes between 1 and 5 times per five minute song).

I do have a paid account and I haven't changed anything with my internet/network connection since registering.

I just did a speed test (while I was experiencing buffer underrunning) and I got excellent results (10+ Mbps)

I was just wondering whether last.fm has been getting significantly more traffic lately that may be causing this (or whether my neighbor has been chewing on my cable line and I should look into my own infrastructure)

[any ANONYMOUS forum user]

Last.fm has been buffering like crazy. No problems with Pandora or streaming anything else on the web (for example, iTunes radio or quicktime movie trailers). My connection is very fast, 6mb/sec and the speed tests are good. Only having problems with Last.fm. Doesn't matter if I use the web-based Flash player or the OS X app. Same buffering issues. I upped the buffer from 16k to 512k and that seemed to help a litle bit (but shouldn't the "automatic" buffer just work?) Practically, I can't listen to it like this

Nobody knows how to fix this? I'd rather listen to Last.fm because I like the selection better than Pandora, but at least Pandora NEVER skips out. How can I get my Last.fm working skip-free again? This buffering thing is insane given how fast my connection is. I even tried both the wired and wireless connections and it skips with equal regularity on both. I have a D-Link router... is there any special thing I should set up there that can make it better?

[any ANONYMOUS forum user]

I have the same problem since a few weeks or so. Before that it was working fine both at work and at home. The two laptops are different, and use different OSs (XP and Vista), so OS is not the problem. My buffer settings also don't make a difference. I've set it to 10 MB in overkill mode, but still the stutter occurs once every 1-2 minutes. Both my work and home connections are very fast, so that can't be it.

[any ANONYMOUS forum user]

I have similar problems: For some songs (about every second or third) the client needs to buffer several times (I usually then skip those) and has some glitches in it. It's like it's only playing a second, then pausing for a fraction of a section. It's like the effect of a stroboscope, if you know what I mean. The player doesn't SKIP the music, it just pauses for a very brief period of time which makes the music sound slower-
With the client I've set the buffer to 128K, which should be quite decent for a audio-stream.
At the beginning, I first thought it might have something to do with the popularity of the songs, so that less often played songs need to be buffered more, but there was no real correlation there after observing the stuff for a while.

With the webclient, however, it seems to run more smoothly. while writing this post, I am skipping through about 10 or 15 songs to provoke the same behavior as I observed it with the client, but the web-player does not seem to be affected. But, to be honest, I'd rather listen with the client than with the ad-infested browser. (btw: are those advertisers really so stupid, to show me Kaiser Chief-ads while I'm listening to liquid funk?)

And: I newly installed my Windows a few weeks ago and the last.fm client is the version as of yesterday, so everything should be up to date. No bandwidth-consuming apps in the background (except Trillian instant messenger, but that can't be it, and it's even running on a separate machine)

Generally I'd say, that there is more buffering than there was a few months ago, oh and because I just wrote otherwise: As of this minute, the webclient starts buffering like hell. I can't listen for more than 5 seconds straight.

[any ANONYMOUS forum user]

OK, same problem. Audio stops for a few seconds and then resumes. Happens for every song I listen to, maybe 2-3 times. Happens in the client and the web browser, on a Mac and also a windows machine.

Last.fm support people. Please give more hints as to what to do if it may be a problem with a router/ISP? I have a fast connection with no problems in any other application or stream: PANDORA, youtube, news video, HULU, etc.

I set the HTTP buffer in the client to 1024 KB (or more) and get same problem. This preference seems to randomly revert to 'auto' mode? I have done clean installs of the client on Man and Win.


Removed all last.fm client files on my mac. Fresh install. No skipping/pauses for 3 songs, then skipping/pauses returned just as bad. Tried the last.fm client, the last.fm web, songbird plugin and all had pauses. Now listening to internet radio station, WXPN, through VLC and no skipping/pauses at all.

[any ANONYMOUS forum user]

I am having this problem too. This is just ridiculous! I was really annoyed when countries other than US, UK and Germany (if I am not wrong) were required to pay to use the radio service. It's just unfair that people living in those countries don't have to pay anything. Anyway, I decided to subscribe because US$ 3 per month is actually very cheap, but now Last.fm radio has to buffer after every 30 seconds or so.
My download speed is 4 Mbps so I shouldn't be having any problem using the radio service. In fact, I even closed everything else (Firefox browser, MSN etc) and tried to listen to radio, but it's still not working.