This is a petition by a few of us -- all users of Sing! by Smule, a platform where many of us sing, forge friendships and make connections through our love of/for music. A critical element of this platform is LiveJam, a medium that allows us to sing and listen to live jamming experiences. LiveJam has been a critical part of the Smule experience -- an experience that many of us pay a reasonable annual subscription to savour and enjoy. 

This was until about four weeks ago! Since then, our LiveJam experience has been frustrating.

We are unable to enter LiveJams for hours on end. Sometimes we are able to enter LiveJams only after 20-30 attempts. If we leave a LiveJam or by some chance, we get kicked out (the popular term for this is, ironically, "Smuled Out") of the platform, re-entry is a similar, frustrating process -- EVEN IF you are the owner of the LiveJam that you have been kicked out of!

Sometimes entering a LiveJam on "data" and then switching to WiFi (once inside the LiveJam) seems to help. Sometimes rebooting the device and then trying to enter a LiveJam seems to help. Then again, there is no consistent pattern to this. All of these "solutions" are, at best, anecdotal and unverified "hacks". There is no set pattern to this. The only thing we DO know is that entry takes an incredibly long time and at least 20-30 attempts. Is THIS the experience you want your users to have?

The error report we receive on non-entry is "Oops! There was a problem connecting to the server. Please check your internet connection and try again." The error report ought to read: "Smule is facing problems with its servers and we are trying to fix it. Do bear with us."

We know that many of us have reported this problem to you and to EACH person that has reported it, your tech team collects diagnostic information and responds as though it is the very first time they have encountered this problem being reported! The tech team then proceeds to seek additional data from the user, including video (screen-shot) evidence of multiple login attempts... While this is wrong at so many levels, it also shows utter disdain and contempt for users that pay to use your platform. A possible (honest) response from your tech team would be “Yes we are aware of the problem and we have been working to fix it for the last 3 weeks. We hope to resolve it soon.”

Dear Smule! Fix this LiveJam problem.

Quick.

You are losing customers who are wandering across to alternate platforms. You have a major problem that needs fixing. The current user experience is quite terrible, Adding a bunch of video filters to the platform can wait. If you don’t fix the technical issues with LiveJam, you probably won’t have many users that will need these new filters.

We the undersigned, who have signed this petition, request Smule! to handle this concern efficiently and honestly. Soon.