XM Radio Online Problems
When you can't be near the satellite radio in your car, or the boom box unit in your home, you can listen to most of your favorite XM Satellite Radio programming online. Unfortunately, just like any online utility, plenty of things can go wrong. The people at XM undoubtedly work hard to keep the service running, but there will always be problems. Understanding these problems can be the first step to fixing them.
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System Requirements
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XM Radio Online may not work properly if your computer isn't equipped with the features necessary to stream the programming. Among other requirements, XM Radio insists that, in order to receive online programming, a computer have a broadband Internet connection (not dialup), a 1-gigahertz Pentium III processor and the Windows XP operating system or later. Mac users need a computer with at least a PowerPC G3 processor and the OS X operating system.
Pay to Play
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In the past, XM offered online streaming as a free benefit of subscribing to the service. This is no longer the case, so you will have a problem if you sign in with your account information and try to access the online player without having paid up. A subscription to XM Radio Online costs a few dollars a month and, generally, can be activated almost immediately after payment.
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Selected Programming
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If you subscribe to XM Satellite Radio and listen in your car or on a tabletop radio, you might be accustomed to listening to programming that you can't access via XM Radio Online. For example, many of the sports leagues, including Major League Baseball and NCAA Football, have different arrangements for streaming their games over the Internet. If you expect to listen to that big baseball game via XM Radio Online, you're going to have a problem.
Inactivity
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If you stream the radio for a long time without switching channels, the XM player will shut off the stream and post a pop-up encouraging you to sign back in. This is done, according to XM, in order to ensure that the company has enough bandwidth to serve all of its online listeners. To fix this problem, simply click "OK" and select a channel to which you want to listen.
Browser Plug-Ins
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In order to stream XM Radio Online, your browser, whether Firefox or Internet Explorer, must be equipped with two important plug-ins. (These are add-on tools that expand the utility of your browser.) You'll experience problems if your PC browser doesn't feature Windows Media Player 10 and Flash 7. Mac users will require Windows Media Components for QuickTime and Flash 7.
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