Official Slacker Forums

[CharlesB]

Here you will find some of the ones we recognize more than others!

Q. I have signed up for a subscription and the Blackberry is not recognizing it. What do I do?

A. Fear not for this is a simple solution. To have the phone recognize the features, you will need to:

1. Open the Slacker app on the Blackberry.
2. Hit the BB menu button and choose Reset Account.
3. Then you will want to restart the app and sign back in.

The features will then be active at that time.

Q. I am unable to start the cache process and do not have the synclauncher file in my phone folder, What do I do?

A. You will need to go to Options > Memory and then make sure the MSM is turned on and set to Prompt. At that time you would follow the instructions below.

To cache stations to the Blackberry::

(Before you do this process make sure you have logged into the app and then streamed at least one station)

1. You will need to have a memory card with 500MB or more available.
2. You will want to start the BB Slacker app.
3. Then you will want to play the station(s) you wish to cache.
4. Hit the BB menu button and choose Cache Station. (This will have to be done for each station one at a time)
5. On the prompt, choose Ok to allow it to do this the next time it connects.
6. Then plug the phone into the USB port on the PC.
7. Select Ok to allow the Phone to go into Mass Storage Mode.
8.. Once in MSM, you will see the PC begin to recognize the player and run the synclauncher.exe file from the Phone, if it does not start automatically, you can click on the phone as a drive from My Computer and run it from there.
9. It will then cache the stations you have chose.

Ask any questions and we will answer them here for quick reference.

[burr]

My Blackberry (8830, OS 4.5.0.127) has Mass Storage Mode disabled and Encrypt Media Files enabled by IT policy. Can I still cache stations?

Based on reading a lot of forum posts, here is what I've tried so far:

1. I started with a newly installed Slacker application on my Blackberry and formatted the SD card. After starting Slacker and listening to a couple of stations, I selected to cache 1 station.
2. I shut down Slacker and connected the BB to my laptop and using Media Manager I copied the slacker files off the SD card to my desktop. This gave me unencrypted versions of the slacker.synclauncher.exe, autorun.inf, and everyting in the "slacker" folder.
3. I removed the SD card from the BB, and put it a card reader and plugged it into my laptop. I then deleted the encrypted files from the SD card using Windows Explorer and copied the unencrypted files onto the SD card.
4. I double-clicked slacker.synclauncher.exe and a message box comes up saying it is checking the slacker station launcher version. The message box goes away after about 20 seconds and nothing else happens.

Any ideas? Is what I want to do possible?

I love the Slacker service and use it all day via the Web. I would really like to take my favorite stations with me on my BB.

Thanks!

[CharlesB]

burr,

Unfortunately this is a no win situation with the IT policy intact this way. You may be able to ask your IT department to loosen the policy or alter it so that you can use the service, but of course in most cases that will not get far.

Stay tuned to the Forums for any updates to this.

[MikeV]

Q: The Slacker app stops playing whenever I receive an email, SMS/MMS, or other alert!

A: This is a known issue with the CDMA/EVDO Blackberry devices (Verizon/Alltel, Sprint, etc.). Aside from setting your profile to Silent, which may or may not prevent this from still happening, there is nothing Slacker can do to resolve this problem. A workaround to the problem is to select the "Quiet" or "Silent" profile before launching the Slacker app, as this will not provide audible alerts that interrupt the music.

If this is happening to you on a GSM/HSDPA (3G) Blackberry (i.e. AT&T, T-Mobile, etc.), contact Support about this.

[RomeE]

Q: How do I download the Slacker Application on my Blackberry?

A: You just need to visit http://www.slacker.com on your Blackberry Phone.

If you do not get the information to download the application, this is because your phone is not setup to identify itself as a Blackberry Phone. If we do not know that you are a accessing us via a Blackberry Phone, then we can not give you the information you need.

To fix this, you need to do the following on the Blackberry Phone.

-Open up the Browser.
-Click on the BB Menu button, and select "options" from the menu.
-Click on "Browser Options" or "Browser Configuration".
-Check that "Browser Identification" or "Browser Emulator" is set to "Blackberry". If it is not then it's telling us you are coming from something else (for example, if it's set to Internet Explorer, then it's making us believe you are coming from a computer, not a Blackberry phone).

After you make that change, save the settings, then go back to http://www.slacker.com on you phone and everything should work properly from there.

Best regards,
Rome E
Slacker Support

[incberry]

Hi-

I recently downloaded slacker to my BB 8330 and I am trying to cache a couple of stations. I connected the phone to my PC and I didn't see the slacker option in the Autoplay menu. I went to the device in My Computer but the slacker.synclauncher.exe file to sync is coming up unknown so I am unable to run it. How do I fix this?

Thank you for your help!

[CharlesB]

Q. Do I need a Portable ID for my Blackberry Phone?

A. No, you do not. The Portable Device Id is just for the Slacker Portable Devices. If you just have a Blackberry all you need is an account with Slacker (the account is free, unless you get a subscription).

[BigShot62]

Ok- I have run slacker successfully on my balckberry 9000 (bold), but now I am trying to cache a station. I followed the directions outlined earlier, all was fine until I connected the BB to my PC. No syncing started automatically, so looked for the slacker.synclauncher.exe program- I could only find slacker.synclauncher.exe.rem, which will not run.

I am in the mass storage mode. Is there somewhere else i should be looking for the file?

Thanks!

[forkup]

Ok- I have run slacker successfully on my balckberry 9000 (bold), but now I am trying to cache a station. I followed the directions outlined earlier, all was fine until I connected the BB to my PC. No syncing started automatically, so looked for the slacker.synclauncher.exe program- I could only find slacker.synclauncher.exe.rem, which will not run.

I am in the mass storage mode. Is there somewhere else i should be looking for the file?

Thanks!

You have encrytion turned on for your media card and it will not work until you turn encryption off.

forkup

[maxwilburn]

Is there a workaround for having encryption turned on? I'm also getting slacker.synclauncher.exe.rem, and my employer's IT policy on my 8830 forces me to keep encryption turned on. Consequently, I have been unable to cache a station.

[drache]

When I have my phone encrypted I have had decent luck caching stations using an unencrypted version of the sync app. It has been awhile, but previously I was able to run the sync app and have it put stations on my BB (via mass storage mode) unencrypted and slacker liked it. I have noticed that files transferred from the PC in mass storage mode are still available, just not encrypted. In short, if you can get a copy of the unencrypted sync app, copy it onto your BB and run it, you should be able to cache stuff. Just keep a copy handy, next time you update slacker it may replace the sync app with a .ram version.

[nerys]

Q. I have signed up for a subscription and the Blackberry is not recognizing it. What do I do?

A. Fear not for this is a simple solution. To have the phone recognize the features, you will need to:

---------------------

alas this solution takes well over 10 minutes to do the reset and then you can log in and OH yeah spend the next 1-4 hours recaching all your stations. Yeah :-(

[MrSimmonsSr]

I have a Blackberry Bold that my employer pays for. That is the good news. The bad news is that my IT group forces encryption on for the MicroSD card, thereby messing up the ability to cache channels without doing a little song and dance first.. Since I found some various hints in different places, and I've set it up myself to work more than once now, I thought I'd put a few quick instructions out here on how to make it work.

First of all, you need to have a relatively recent version of Blackberry Desktop Manager installed, and it needs to include the Roxio Media Manager application.

So follow these instructions and caching of channels should work, even if you are forced to keep the encryption on your MicroSD card.

1. Make a folder on your Desktop (or anywhere else) called "Slacked Caching Tools".
2. Connect your Blackberry to the PC and get Desktop Manager up and running so that the device is considered "Connected"
3. Start up the Roxio Media Manager and type in your device password so that it can see your MicroSD card.
4. Wait.. and wait.. and wait.. Be patient. On my machine, it sometimes takes forever for Media Manager to get cranked up. I think sometimes it has to do with the fact that the Roxio forces you to display thumbnails of any photos in the folder it is trying to display, even if you're just using "List" view..
5. Put Media Manager into dual screen mode so you see the device on the bottom half of the screen and the local disk up above. Navigate the upper window to the folder you just created in step 1 and the bottom window into the base folder of your MicroSD card.
6. Look for the two files called "autorun.inf.rem" and "slacker.synclauncher.exe.rem". Highlight them and "Copy up" into the folder on your hard drive. This will retrieve unencrypted versions of these two files for you.
7. Navigate the lower window into the "/slacker/user" folder and do the same thing for the three files named "pubcert.pem.rem", "profiles.xml.rem" and "playsequence.dat.rem". This will create copies of all of these files, but unencrypted, into the same folder.
8. Once you have gotten unencrypted copies of all 5 of these files into your new folder on your Desktop (or wherever you made the folder in step 1) then you can close out Roxio Media Manager and Desktop Manager. Then use the System Tray icon (down by your clock in the lower right corner) to safely remove the Blackberry device.
9. Now connect the device again to the USB port and make sure it goes into Mass Storage Mode, so that it shows up as a drive letter in your "My Computer".
10. In the root of the MicroSD card, drop the newly unencrypted copy of the "autorun.inf" file and the "slacker.synclauncher.exe". I usually delete the .rem encrypted versions of these files at the same time.
11. Next navigate down to the "slacker/user" folder and drop the unencrypted versions of the other three files as well. (I'm not sure if all three of these are really needed, but I do this for all three and it works for me.)
12. Navigate back up to the root of the MicroSD card and double click on the "slacker.synclauncher.exe" file. It make takle a few minutes to crank up, but eventually you should see the caching app start up and give you status as it caches the files onto you MicroSD card.

This works for me. I hope it works for you as well!

One note: On my original Blackberry Curve (8310) my cached channels were constantly buffering and skipping. The music would never play very well and it was unusable with cached stations. When I upgraded to my Bold 9000, it works like a champ. The Bold has plenty of memory and a much faster CPU, so be warned that cached channel performance might not be that great on a Curve. That said, some other forum folks told me it was likely because of my limited amount of memory, so if you want to try it on a Curve, I'd recommend you delete some other apps and clear up plenty of file space on your Blackberry before you try playing cached channels.

Good luck and I hope this is of use to someone..

MrSimmonsSr