SomaFM News & Events

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SomaFM Network News

Thank you for all your financial support during our September fund drive, you really came through for us! 30-Sep-2026

We have upgraded our Terms of Service to make it clear that we cannot grant permission for third-party SomaFM clients or applications, even noncommercial ones. This includes apps, games, website embedding. Apparently a lot of AI tools don't believe that and keep writing long, detailed letters trying to get us to sign over permission for their use at our expense. 4-Sep-2026

We are behind schedule on the DEF CON 34 live broadcast replay sets, sorry about that. 2-Sep-2026

It has come to our attention that with all the sets in rotation on our Live channel, we never posted last years DEF CON 33 sets. Well that is fixed now, and the DEF CON 34 sets will be posted in a few days. 18-Aug-2026

Attending DEF CON? We are back in the DEF CON Chillout Lounge¿ just off the Atrium 1st floor, south west corner next to Registration. Join us from Thurs-Sunday with SomaFM DJs providing the perfect soundtrack for hacking or relaxing. Stop by and say hello, and pick up a 2026 limited edition sticker. 6-Aug-2026

We had a hardware issue on SF1033 that was keeping the live police audio from being mixed in. We have made a stop-gap repair, and it should be back to normal in the next 24 hours. 13-Jul-2026

We have updated our streamservers to improve their reliability, but it's possible we may have introduced some bugs our testing didn't reveal. If you're having any issues, email us and let us know the details (app/browser version, device type, etc) Thanks! 12-Jul-2026

Getting reports that some Alexa users can't get to our App. If that's the case, try saying "Alexa end early access" and our app will work again. We are working on an update that's compatible with future Alexa updates. 20-Jun-2026

A technical issue affecting some players has been (mostly) resolved. 22-May-2026

A problem with our "Old Player" not playing Groove Salad 2 has been fixed. 12-May-2026

Happy Mother's Day! We wouldn't be here without our moms! 10-May-2026

Some of our bandwidth providers were having issues last night, so if you were having troubles connecting, that's why. Things have been back to normal since 8am Pacific time 10-May-2026

It's Cinco de Mayo time and we have some special programming: A fun mix of both traditional and alternative Latino music on our Specials channel thru Wednesday. 4-May-2026

Thank you for all your support in March. We are blessed to have listeners and supporters like you! 2-Apr-2026

SomaFM Loves You! 14-Feb-2026

A technical issue caused some redundant email acknowledgements and fundraising messages to go out. We apologize for the spam! (Both the main and backup server were sending them due to a misconfiguration) 3-Feb-2026

Thank you for helping us hit our budget goal for fundraising in January! Thank you all for being there! 31-Jan-2026

We are having some technical issues, and they're being worked on and we're running on our backup system. Please bear with us if there are any issues. We expect to be fully back to normal in a few days, replacement equipment is on the way. 24-Jan-2026

Always important to keep in mind: "Almost always, the creative dedicated minority has made the world better." - Martin Luther King, Jr. Remembering Martin Luther King, Jr. 19-Jan-2026

Happy New Year! Looking forward to spending 2026 with you. 1-Jan-2026

Happy Thanksgiving! Thanks for listening to SomaFM and all the support you've given us this year - SomaFM Loves You! 27-Nov-2025

Thank you for all your generous support this holiday season, you always come through for us. 29-Dec-2025

We have fixed the Web issues that affected updates for now playing, etc. Thanks for your patience as we dealt with the ghouls. 1-Nov-2025

Special Halloween programming this Friday on Doomed. 29-Oct-2025

Due to maintenance, n5md and Synphaera Radio were off the air for about 20 minutes, back on the air at 4:40pm Pacific. 29-Oct-2025

Photobooth pictures from our XXV Anniversary Party last month have been posted, Check them out! 22-Oct-2025

Network issues on the "internet backbone" are interfering with our streams for some listeners in Europe, Canada and the East Coast of the US. It started around 5pm Pacific time, and is ongoing. We are working with our bandwidth providers to get the issue resolved, and moved most of our traffic to servers that are on a different backbone in the mean time. 2-Oct-2025

It was wonderful to see so many of you at our XXV Anniversary party! 22-Sep-2025

If we can make it work, we will be broadcasting the audio from tonight's XXV Anniversary Party here SomaFM Live, from 7p-Midnight pacific time. But because our small team is so busy doing everything for the party, we may not be able to pull it off (and we haven't been able to test at the venue ahead of time). Cross your fingers! 20-Sep-2025

If you plan on attending our 25th Anniversary Party on September 20th, please buy tickets in advance as we will only have limited tickets at the door. 13-Sep-2025

SomaFM was featured in the SF Examiner this week, check it out. 12-Sep-2025

Our Roku issue has been fixed and an update will be going out next week. The issue was limited to devices running Roku version 15.x (which is a beta release they've been testing), and we're glad we caught it now before they release it to everyone. 13-Sep-2025

We are getting reports of an outage affecting our Roku app, and are looking into it. 7-Sep-2025

Our stream server maintenance has been completed. Everything should be working like normal. We proactively replaced the SSDs on 2 of our oldest stream servers because it turned out they were 12 years old, and were liable to fail at any moment. 17-Aug-2025

We will be doing some stream server maintenance in the next 3 hours (between 5pm-8pm Pacific), you may get kicked off a stream but should be able to reconnect after 30 seconds or so. 17-Aug-2025

We are back from DEFCON 23 and will have the DJ set archives posted next week. Thanks to everyone who came by and said hello, great to meet you all in person! 11-Aug-2025

The problem with our iOS apps now showing any channels has been fixed. You may need to "Pull to Refresh" on the blank channels list when viewing by listeners or genre for force it to update. Sorry for the outage! 25-Jul-2025

Tickets for SomaFM's 25th Anniversary Party in San Francisco are now on sale! We are taking over the historic Verdi Club (just like we did for our 15th Anniversary) and we'll have SomaFM DJs, a band, a photo booth, and free swag. Most importantly, we'll have YOU! Thank you for your support all these years. Let's get together and have some fun! 24-Jul-2025

Fixed a problem with our new web player when using Safari that started yesterday, causing it not to play. It's working like normal again. (We were trying to improve launching Music.app/iTunes from our website, and that fix had a negative interaction with the web player on Safari. 20-Jul-2025

The SomaFM Alexa skill is now available in German, Spanish and French and if you live in those countries (as well as Spain, Mexico, Canada, India, US, UK, and others where those are the main languages). To install it, say Alexa Open SomaFM (or Alexa Öffne SomaFM, etc) 16-Jul-2025

Lots of new items in the SomaFM Premium Store including items for our XXV (25th) Anniversary. 10-Jul-2025

Alexa users, TuneIn radio is reported to have issues playing Drone Zone on Alexa speakers. The easy fix is to use our official SomaFM skill instead of TuneIn. You'll also get the benefit of no TuneIn-inserted commercials before your music starts. 3-Jun-2025

Thank you to all our supporters for helping us have a very successful May fundraising. Thank you for keeping us on the air for 25 years now! 30-May-2025

The Roku Screensaver bug has been fixed. Thanks for your patience. 9-May-2025

Thank you for your support in our April fund drive. We had our best April in a long time, and have now caught up from running behind in Jan and Feb. Thank you for your support and believing in SomaFM! 3-May-2025

Roku users: a bug in our update last week is causing a crash when the Roku screensaver kicks in. We have fixed this and Roku has scheduled the release for Monday evening. In the meantime, a work around is to set the sleep timer to the max time: 2 hours. That way the app will play for at least 2 hours while the screen saver is active (before crashing). 26-Apr-2025

An update to our Roku app has been released, which improves reliability (if the main streaming server can't be reached, it will try 2 backup servers) and a few other minor fixes. 17-Mar-2025

Roku users: want to help us beta test our next Roku update? (Among other things this should fix the issue where the old app didn't automatically switch to a backup stream server if the primary was down). Limited to 20 testers, first come first served! Sign up at https://my.roku.com/account/add/KPD2XL6 11-Feb-2025

(More old news in the news archives.)

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