Why Do My Songs Keep Cutting Out on Pandora?

Pandora is a popular music streaming app, with over 250 million registered users. A frustrating situation that may happen while streaming music on Pandora is songs cutting out while being played. The most common cause of songs cutting out is a slow internet connection, causing the songs to buffer while being played. Fixing your internet and switching to a lower quality audio setting will speed up the loading speed, allowing you to listen skip-free.

Adam Goldkamp is the editor / author responsible for this content.
Apr 28, 2020

Pandora is a music streaming service with 250 million registered users. Pandora offers a paid premium version and a free version that includes advertisements. For a monthly fee, you can access Pandora Premium, which consists of the ability to choose and play any song, download songs, and have no ad interruptions during your music streaming experience. When you are streaming a song with Pandora, you may experience pauses or cutting out that can be frustrating. In this guide, you will learn why your songs cut out when using Pandora.

Internet Connection

One of the most common reasons your Pandora streaming is cutting out is the internet connection. Like most streaming services, Pandora requires a stable internet connection to stream smoothly. If the internet connection you are connecting to is not functioning optimally, the song on Pandora will buffer during its stream causing it to cut out.

To test your internet connection to make sure it is working correctly, use an internet speed test website. One free option is speedtest.net; this website will give you a rating of how well your internet is working. If your internet is working correctly, it would be time to explore different reasons your Pandora service might be cutting out.

High-Quality Audio Mode

Pandora offers an option on its mobile apps to choose between two audio quality options depending on the internet connection. If you select the 'high-quality audio,' you are warned of the possible skipping that will take place if the internet connection is slow.

Here is how to change the audio modes:

  1. Open the Pandora mobile app
  2. In the top-left corner of the app, click the three-lined symbol that opens up the main menu on Pandora
  3. Once the menu has been opened, tap on the 'Settings' option
  4. In the settings menu, tap the 'Advanced' category.
  5. In the Advanced menu, you will see the option of 'Higher quality audio,' with a box next to it that can be chosen depending on the internet connection.
  6. If you are suffering from songs cutting out on Pandora, make sure this box is not check marked. This could be leading to your songs being cut out due to buffering higher quality audio.

Anti-Virus Software

If you are using anti-virus software on your computer, you may be blocking Pandora from streaming correctly. Open your anti-virus software's menu and make sure that it is not blocking Pandora; this results in the streaming to not function properly. Click 'Always Allow' if the anti-virus software is blocking Pandora when you visit the website.

Further questions?

Ask a followup or related question and we will try to provide an answer in seconds.
Adam has been tirelessly trying to help customers find the best tips and tricks to get through phone trees and writing many guides for prickly customer service problems. He's been featured in the Wall Street Journal, Inside Edition and Bloomberg.
Why Do My Songs Keep Cutting Out on Pandora?

Help from Real People

We partner with a US-based company with live tech support experts available 24/7. Take advantage of a $5 one-week trial membership and chat with an expert now.
Chat with an expert

Why does GetHuman Write How-to Guides for Pandora Radio Problems?

GetHuman has been working for over 10 years on sourcing information about big organizations like Pandora Radio in order to help customers resolve customer service issues faster. We started with contact information and fastest ways to reach a human at big companies. Particularly ones with slow or complicated IVR or phone menu systems. Or companies that have self-serve help forums instead of a customer service department. From there, we realized that consumers still needed more detailed help solving the most common problems, so we expanded to this set of guides, which grows every day. And if you spot any issues with our Why Do My Songs Keep Cutting Out on Pandora? guide, please let us know by sending us feedback. We want to be as helpful as possible. If you appreciated this guide, please share it with your favorite people. Our free information and tools is powered by you, the customer. The more people that use it, the better it gets.

Pandora Radio

Asked 5 years ago
Updated 5 years ago
Viewed 3,418,373 times
Pandora Radio
How to stop Pandora songs from cutting out
My Pandora songs keep skipping
Why does Pandora buffer during songs

Speak to An Expert Now

We partner with a US-based expert help site to provide you with tech support 24/7. Enjoy a $5 one-week trial membership and chat with a live expert now.
Get Live Expert Help
Was this page helpful?YesNeeds work
Sharing is what powers GetHuman's free customer service contact information and tools. You can help!