Duo plan manager audiobooks locked. How to unlock them to access my free hours.

[Carlosdss]

Plan

Duo

Country

UK

Device

(iPhone 8, Samsung Galaxy 9, Macbook Pro late 2016)

Operating System

Android 11

spotify App v8.8.6.472

My Question or Issue

I am a new Duo plan manager and the audiobooks are all locked. How to unlock them to access my free hours. I am still in my first free month in the plan. Thx

[Jose_M]

Hello @Carlosdss!

Thanks for reaching out. I'll try to help you out. First let's confirm that the audiobooks you're trying to listen to are included in Premium.

You can find the free audiobooks by heading to Search > Browse all > Audiobooks, and scrolling down to find the free audiobooks section. To unlock a free audiobook, select the GET button on the desktop app and the Play button on the mobile app.

Keep in mind that if an audiobook is included it the plan, it has the "Included in Premium" call out above its title. On the other hand, if the audiobook isn't included, you'll see a padlock there instead.

Hope this helps and let me know if you have any questions!

[Benmarsh24]

I have the same problem. I can’t access the audiobooks included in premium duo, but my girlfriend can. Please help! Thanks

[Carlosdss]

Can this ONLY be done via a desktop computer? I am running the App on Android and NO books have the included with premium flag shown on this App.

i have no desktop access so this may be an issues for me going forward. 

Although, in the meantime  I will try to gain access to a desktop to see if that works.

[Carlosdss]

Hi, so I have got onto the web version of Spotify and logged in to my account. 

1.  The book IS included in premium.
2. it has a PLAY button next to it on the desktop version.
3. there is no GET button available on that title or any other I looked at. 
4. I CAN play the title on the desktop but NOT on my phone APP
5. i CAN control the playing of the title from the phone APP 
6. when I log out of the desktop and start playing on the Phone APP it will play, despite still having the padlock showing.
7. if I stop the book on the phone APP and play some music. The audio book will NOT play again on the phone and the padlock is still showing. Btw, I have logged off and on again without any success.

as I am paying for this feature I expect it to work on my mobile phone APP as it is useless to me on a desktop app. As I do not see the GET option I presume that this functionality isn’t fully tested and you have sold this function even tho it is not fully functional. 

i do hope this can be rectified  as this was one of the features I was most looking forward to in my new paid for version.

thx

[Carlosdss]

Hi  benmarsh just to remind you that only the account manager has access in a DUO account. So it sounds like that’s your wife. Rgds

[Jose_M · Accepted solution]

Hello @Carlosdss!

Thanks for providing these details. Can you try opening your account on a different mobile device to see if the same behavior occurs? I'd also recommend reinstalling the Spotify app in your phone to see if you notice any difference.

Make sure to let me know how this goes!

[Carlosdss]

Hi Jose_m

thanks for the advice. And I should have posted this earlier.

i actually reinstalled the Spotify App a couple of days ago and that fixed the issue. I can now access  the audiobook as required.

kind regards

[Carlosdss · Accepted solution]

...just to finish this post. The reason for the delay in me doing a reinstall was that I did not want to chance loosing all the liked songs, podcasts and playlists I had accumulated in the free account. All of which were retained successfully across the reinstall, so all is now good.

hope this helps someone else.

thx

[New user]

I should be able to access 15hours of audio books but I can’t

[Scamitch]

I have the same issue, I am a duo plan manager with no access to audiobooks. 

[topher3519]

I am experiencing this issue as well. I am the plan manager for my Spotify account and I tried restarting / reinstalling the app, in addition logging out from all devices, per the advice given in the bogus "solution," but to no avail. Every audiobook is still showing up as "locked" for me.

[Jose_M]

Hello @topher3519 @Scamitch!

Can you confirm you're using these steps to try to access the audiobooks?

Spoiler

1. Go to Search > Browse all > Audiobooks
2. Scroll down to find the free audiobooks section
3. Select the GET button on the desktop app and the Play button on the mobile app.

Keep in mind that if an audiobook is included it the plan, it has the "Included in Premium" call out above its title. On the other hand, if the audiobook isn't included, you'll see a padlock there instead.

Also make sure you logged into the account listed as the plan manager on your Spotify account page.

Keep me posted!

[Scamitch]

Hi Josie, I can confirm that I followed the steps and that I’m the plan manager. However, I think the issue is that I have a Canadian Spotify account which is not eligible at this time. Is that accurate?

[Jose_M]

Hello @Scamitch!

You're right, this feature is not available in Canada at the moment.

Hope this helps clear things up!

[Tiercededoverbroecks]

Plan

Premium

Country

UK

Device

iPhone 12

Operating System

iOS

My Question or Issue

Supposedly have 15 hours of free audiobook listening time a month, but all audiobooks are locked and it says I can’t purchase them through the app. A bit confused - how am I meant to access the free 15 hours?