topic Re: Spotify client falsely shows offline in Desktop (Linux)

Spotify client falsely shows offline

askrabal — Fri, 31 Mar 2023 16:29:30 GMT

Plan

Premium

Country

Device

(Linux desktop)

Operating System

(Linux Mint 21.1 (Ubuntu 22.04 base))

My Question or Issue

Spotify client won't play music as says it's "offline", but literally everything else on the computer is connect to the internet (steam, chrome (including spotify web app), discord etc) . I've read numerous posts about many other users having this same issue and I've never seen a response that actually solved anything. I've uninstalled and reinstalled the client multiple times and that hasn't changed anything.

Re: Spotify client falsely shows offline

Sebasty — Fri, 31 Mar 2023 17:04:55 GMT

Hey @askrabal

Does hitting Ctrl + Shift + O change anything for you? That would be the keyboard shortcut for Offline Mode, which on Linux is accessible only by using the aforementioned key combo.

Other than that, have you made sure it's not blocked by the firewall? You should also check if you can access Spotify sites and the web player.

Let me know how it goes!

Re: Spotify client falsely shows offline

askrabal — Fri, 31 Mar 2023 18:16:18 GMT

Pressing the ctrl + shift +o combo turns on offline mode ( it shows the offline image fig 1) and pressing it again disables it ( "You're offline" disappears), but it still seems to think it's in offline mode ( warning message pops up, see below). I'm 99.99999999% sure that it's not getting blocked by firewall as updates to playlists show,it knows which devices are connected (fig 3, unless the web player is open), and it shows desktop notifications when a new song plays; it just won't play music (it's most important job!!!). I can use the web player so I'd assume that further shows that spotify isn't get blocked by firewalls nor content blockers, also see fig 4 below showing active connections.

fig 1: shows offline mode is active

fig 2: warning pop-up when attempting to play music

fig 3: Shows connected devices

fig 4: spotify is getting connections

Re: Spotify client falsely shows offline

mstensho — Mon, 03 Apr 2023 06:01:47 GMT

Looks like I have the same problem, and it started happening last week.

Re: Spotify client falsely shows offline

mstensho — Mon, 03 Apr 2023 06:06:08 GMT

It does seem that Spotify is experiencing some actual connectivity issues. I can only play songs that are cached locally, and I cannot see any of my Spotify-enabled devices, except for a Chromecast device on the same network. The computer has no other issues, so it's just Spotify. I don't see anything interesting in the console.

Spotify works just fine on *another* Linux machine on the same network.

I don't remember exactly when it stopped working, but probably around Wednesday last week.

Spotify version 1.1.84.716.gc5f8b819

Re: Spotify client falsely shows offline

Forty-Bot — Fri, 07 Apr 2023 16:18:20 GMT

I have this same issue. In the console I see

16:16:34.026 I [f:288 ] prepare play, context uri: spotify:playlist:2i8OV1ZQHmYO7do8Rhvolt, url: context://spotify:playlist:2i8OV1ZQHmYO7do8Rhvolt 16:16:38.934 I [f:302 ] prepared session id: 3Ba7Umj637QI3IacxlInig 16:16:38.937 I [f:337 ] play, session_id: 3Ba7Umj637QI3IacxlInig 16:16:40.530 I [f:185 ] mdata: dbf9abf3: Task from `legacy_track_info_provider` finished. -1/-1 entity URIs requested/needed (-0.0% cached). -1/-1 extensions requested/needed (100.0% w/ ETags, -0.0% cached). 0 unfinished task(s). 16:16:40.532 D [connect_onboarding:263 ] Onboarding::evaluateOnboarding bailing, local=0, track=0, within=1 16:16:40.536 3 [f:448 ] [spotify:playlist:29G3z3Z1uEDVjYv3A2Hewc] Synchronization starting: GET (from revision 0,726f6f7400000000000000000000000000000000) 16:16:40.536 I [f:185 ] mdata: 74546100: Task from `your_library_user_profile` finished. 1/1 entity URIs requested/needed (0.0% cached). 1/1 extensions requested/needed (0.0% w/ ETags, 0.0% cached). 3 unfinished task(s). 16:16:40.536 I [f:185 ] mdata: e697f061: Task from `your_library_user_profile` finished. 1/1 entity URIs requested/needed (0.0% cached). 1/1 extensions requested/needed (0.0% w/ ETags, 0.0% cached). 2 unfinished task(s). 16:16:40.536 I [f:185 ] mdata: 23c4d15a: Task from `your_library_user_profile` finished. 1/1 entity URIs requested/needed (0.0% cached). 1/1 extensions requested/needed (0.0% w/ ETags, 0.0% cached). 1 unfinished task(s). 16:16:40.536 I [f:185 ] mdata: 3fc84da5: Task from `your_library_user_profile` finished. 1/1 entity URIs requested/needed (0.0% cached). 1/1 extensions requested/needed (0.0% w/ ETags, 0.0% cached). 0 unfinished task(s). 16:16:40.536 5 [f:287 ] [spotify:playlist:29G3z3Z1uEDVjYv3A2Hewc] 'GET' request complete 16:16:40.536 3 [f:712 ] [spotify:playlist:29G3z3Z1uEDVjYv3A2Hewc] synchronization error: Error category: http, code 11 (forced offline) 16:16:40.536 3 [f:735 ] [spotify:playlist:29G3z3Z1uEDVjYv3A2Hewc] - transient error, retrying.

Re: Spotify client falsely shows offline

mstensho — Thu, 11 May 2023 07:04:55 GMT

Now it's happening again. When attempting to play a song that isn't cached locally:

07:03:29.141 I [f:310 ] play, context uri: spotify:track:4TTBPdXXR0iABu7lCg4cCK, url: context://spotify:track:4TTBPdXXR0iABu7lCg4cCK
07:03:29.151 D [connect_onboarding:263 ] Onboarding::evaluateOnboarding bailing, local=0, track=0, within=1
07:03:29.152 E [f:146 ] parseLoadedContext failed: 500 context://spotify:track:4TTBPdXXR0iABu7lCg4cCK

07:03:29.156 D [connect:1202 ] No network and no cached capability
07:03:29.156 D [connect:1202 ] No network and no cached capability
07:03:29.157 D [connect:565 ] put state error: http client error 'http_error_forced_offline'

Re: Spotify client falsely shows offline

compguy — Wed, 12 Jul 2023 02:24:12 GMT

I've run into this too. Not sure if it's the same issue, but you might make some headway if you look at how/if NetworkManager is configured. The issue I had was I configured my network settings through systemd-networkd, and Spotify was looking at network manager's status. Uninstalling it entirely fixed my issue.

It looks like spotify checks the online status via dbus on `org.freedesktop.NetworkManager`. If that's not exactly your issue, you might make some headway debugging either using `dbus-monitor` (to spy on the dbus signals), or by checking the status of the NetworkManager dbus service via something like `d-feet`.

Re: Spotify client falsely shows offline

mstensho — Tue, 18 Jul 2023 13:03:08 GMT

Oh! Didn't even know that I had NetworkManager installed, because I don't really use it on this system. Removing it solved the problem. Thanks a lot!

Re: Spotify client falsely shows offline

OtterTom — Tue, 24 Oct 2023 19:27:48 GMT

BINGO

Re: Spotify client falsely shows offline

SuperSandro2000 — Sat, 01 Mar 2025 02:49:20 GMT

I can confirm that this is still an issue and Spotify won't play any music when NetworkManager thinks that there is no internet connection despite that you can access the internet.

Re: Spotify client falsely shows offline

sinistarjab — Mon, 17 Nov 2025 20:58:24 GMT

I also ran into this issue. I use systemd-networkd for my networking and have NM installed for userspace vpn/wifi. It would seem the spotify client simply takes the dbus response from network manager as gospel if network manager is publishing to dbus. Fixes are to either stop networkmanager, or uninstall it. I was unable to discover any env options that would override it.

❯ nmcli device status
DEVICE TYPE STATE CONNECTION
nmkeepalive0 dummy connected dummy-nmkeepalive0
lo loopback connected (externally) lo
virbr0 bridge connected (externally) virbr0
vm-cuda tun disconnected --
wlp9s0 wifi unavailable --
br0 bridge unmanaged --
enp8s0 ethernet unmanaged --

❯ nmcli general status
STATE CONNECTIVITY WIFI-HW WIFI WWAN-HW WWAN METERED
connected (local only) limited enabled disabled missing enabled unknown