Family accounts: please clarify "Must reside at same address"

[keithsparkjoy]

Spotify, please clarify what you mean in your FAQ for family accounts that says that everyone in the "family" must reside at the same address. What I am experiencing is that the only time multiple members of my family can use Spotify simultaneously is when they are all coming from the same IP address (e.g. they are all on wifi in the same location). If one of us is out driving somewhere (different IP address, from the cellular network), this no longer works and we start getting the dreaded "Someone else is using your account" message.

If you actually do use IP tracking to implement this feature you should be clear about that, because what you're currently doing seems like false advertising. I see people asking about whether they should combine their personal premium accounts into a family account, and responses from well-meaning Spotify employees saying, "Yea sure that's a great idea. Here's how to get started." But they don't realize they are going to be broken by this.

So what's the scoop? Is the limitation on family accounts actually that any simultaneous use must be behind a single router?

[KatesHere · Accepted solution]

Hey there @keithsparkjoy, welcome to the community!

That is a good question. I believe that when you get a Premium for Spotify plan it will ask for your address which the members of your family will have to verify when they join in the plan. After that they can listen anywhere, like you could when you have Premium.

Hope this helps some 🙂

K

[osornios]

Hey @keithsparkjoy,

@KatesHere is right. After signup, Family members can use their account from any IP address.

However, if all members use the same login information in their devices, your music will cutoff like it has been happening to you.

Each family member has to have a separate username and password, so the first step is to create new accounts for each new member (if they haven't already).

The account that pays then links the other family members to the plan through the Spotify website.

After that, each family member will be able to listen to music at the same time, have different playlists, library and friends.

Hope it helps. 🙂

[keithsparkjoy]

Thanks for the replies! We have a music server in our home and we had switched over to using family accounts for it since we were getting conflicts (obviously) using a single Premium account for both me personally and the music server. But even after switching the server to the family account, we're still getting conflicts.

After reading your replies, I did an experiment - after turning off the music server, I used one of the family accounts to play Spotify on my desktop computer, then took my phone off wifi so it'd have to get its IP address from the cellular network, then I played Spotify on my phone using the administrator account. And it worked fine - no conflicts.

Then I turned on the music server and played from my other family account. There shouldn't have been a conflict there, but there was - my phone stopped playing and complained that the administrator account was being used elsewhere.

So I think I've proven that there aren't IP address restrictions, and I'm going to have a talk with the guy working on the music server to make sure there's not a corner of his code remaining that is relying on my administrator account. I don't know what else it could be.

Anyway, if we figure it out, I'll post our findings here. Thanks again!

[keithsparkjoy]

I believe we've gotten to the bottom of the problem. I changed the password on my administrator account, and voila! No more problems, although the music server didn't work so well after that 🙂 Turns out indeed the music server still had some corner places where it was using my admin account.

Thanks to those who answered - you gave me the ammo I needed to go back to my home theater guy and challenge his assertion that he wasn't using my admin account on the server!

[allegra1000]

My daughter has created her own account and is part of our premium family account, however, we are unable to listen to spotify at the same time whether we are at home or out and about.  if she logs on it boots me off and vice versa.  why does this happen?

[osornios]

Hey @allegra1000

That happens because you're using the same credentials to login in your devices.

Try logging into your Spotify profile on your browser here with your email. Your username will be displayed after you login.

After that, check the status of your subscription. If everything looks ok, logout of the app in your device, and be sure to use that username, instead of your email address, to login to your account.

After that, each family member will be able to listen to music at the same time, have different playlists, library and friends, because each will be using different usernames.

Hope it helps. 🙂