Google Now doesn't play Spotify music

[ZiK8]

Hey, so this is the problem. I know I'm suppose do be able to say "okay Google, play [song] by [artist] on Spotify" and it would automatically start playing the song. However, in these past few weeks, I am unable to do so.
I have Samsung galaxy s7, unrooted, and when I say for example "okay Google, play 3005 by Childish Gambino on spotify", Google would say something like "playing music" then proceed to open Spotify. However, it ends there. It doesn't play the song, it doesn't search for the name, nothing. Please help.

[Findinghomer]

It used to work for me as well, and I've been trying my hardest to figure out why it's no longer working ! I rolled back Google and Spotify app to a year back and it still doesn't work! I don't know what's going on. I have a Samsung S6 plus, it doesn't work on that , nor my LG G3 which is still on Android 4.4.

[okurnia]

Also not working for me either. Android 6.0.1, Cyanogenmod 13 on a Huawei 5X. All other Google Now actions are working except Spotify. 

[ZiK8]

Seriously. Spotify needs to step it up. First lyrics get removed for almost a year, now this. I made this topic 2 months ago, and the issue has still not been fixed. 

[_shadowraven_]

I would like to add that it seems to work sometimes.

I had more success just saying "Play [artist] on Spotify", or after some time even "Play [artist]". It also seemed to work particularly well when Google just started a Spotify search (which it did on occasion). When I tried to play somewhat popular songs (e.g. Wish You Were Here by Pink Floyd) it actually didn't work that well.

I'm using a Samsung S4 Mini with Cynogen Mod 13.0-20160820 (Android 6.0.1)

[Findinghomer]

Yes, saying what artist you want to hear, or even what album you want to hear, still works. The problem is, you cannot play individual songs hands-free anymore. That was huge!

[SpotifyFalcon1]

Just bought an S6 and finding this issue too - works for artists and albums sometimes, and for individual songs the first time i search in a few days, but doesn't work in general. A real shame

[Corsair]

Same here with my device (S7 Edge) and mi wife's (S6 Edge)... Used to work very well until September 2016.

[Iharkonen]

Same darn thing here. I have s6 edge plus. Without this feature Im dropping the pay version. I'm done

[91jme]

Same issue here. "Play <artist name>" works but not "Play <song name>".

LG G4, Android 6.0, Spotify 6.5.0.1816

[kurtiskusz]

I have a Google Pixel XL with Spotify premium and the issue is still present with Google Assistant, not just Google Now. Playing music by artist works (i.e., "Play Kanye West music") but not specific songs ("Play Barbie Girl by Aqua").

[what_up]

I got fed up with this issue and decided to take things into my own hands. I have a system that mostly works now, and I thought some of you might want to copy what I did for your own uses.

To get my system to work, I needed two applications, Tasker and AutoVoice, the former of which is a very useful app to have regardless. With these two installed, I created a Tasker task that lets me say "tiger [song name/details]" and then has spotify search for and play [song name/details]. The word 'tiger' can be replaced with any word you want that will both (i) be recognized unambiguously and (ii) not otherwise be interpreted by the system as a particular request. More confusing words like "tamarind" won't work, because Google's voice recognition will interpret "tamarind love me tender" as "tam or and love me tender".  Something like "play" will not work because Google will handle it as a command and mess up our own bootleg handler.

Profile:

    Name: Autovoice Recognized Command: "tiger"

• This is accomplished by creating a new profile and choosing State => Plugin => Autovoice => Recognized, then clicking on the pencil icon in the top right next to Configuration and choosing Command Filter  where you enter "tiger" (without quotes).

    On Enter: tiger

Task:

   Name: tiger

   Actions:

1. Flash %avcommnofilter (not needed, but helpful for debugging)
2. Send Intent:

• Action: android.media.action.MEDIA_PLAY_FROM_SEARCH
• Cat: Default
• Mime type: (empty)
• Data: (empty)
• Extra: query: %avcommnofilter
• Extra: (blank)
• Extra: (blank)
• Package: com.spotify.music
• Class: (blank)
• Target: Activity

With all this, you should be set. The search is a bit worse than the standard google one, but it generally works for song names Google can spell right.

The fact that Spotify handles it perfectly when such a simple command is sent from a simple tasker task leads me to believe that the original issue is a problem on Google's end, not Spotify's.

[indie_youth]

I have the same issue!
Ugh... Have been reporting so many issues with Spotify recently.

Is it really so difficult for the Devs to fix it?

[ryfresh]

Z3 user here too with exact same issue, maybe it's the phone?

[junglist82]

I'm having the same issue on Android 6.0.1 with a Oneplus X when I ask Google to play a specific song (i.e. OK Google, play Money Trees by Kendrick Lamar), but if I say "OK Google, play Kendrick Lamar" it opens Spotify and plays Kendrick Lamar on shuffle.

[nathanamiah]

I'm having this issue too, it's so frustrating! Can't believe it's been going on so long now and neither Google or Spotify have addressed the issue.

Spotify if you're reading this - stop being lazy and fix this darn bug! Listen to your customers.

[ComicBookGuy]

Another "me too" post sadly. Nexus 6P on Android 7. It's not a phone issue, it's not an Android issue, it's a Spotify issue.
As others have said, I can do "Play [artist] on Spotify" and it works. But doing "Play [song] by [artist] on Spotify" just opens the app.

To really test this, I tried without the "on Spotify" bit to play music on Google Play Music instead. On there, it works fine. You can play songs just fine, so Spotify really need to sort this out.

[ljuborados]

I opened a issue, it would probably help if everyone could vote on it.

https://community.spotify.com/t5/Ongoing-Issues/Voice-search-on-Android-doesn-t-play-songs-Google-As...

[Joe]

Voted.

[what_up]

I transformed my original comment with a workaround into a youtube tutorial video. Hope it helps someone!

https://youtu.be/n5MmeBROMw0

[user-removed]

For those of you still wondering.  I believe this is an issue with the API but I don't know whether it is on the Android or Spotify end.  

I just bought the Pixel phone and I can confirm that this works but that uses the Google Assistant rather than Google Now but possible that it might start working again in Nougat.  The other thing is, this will also work on Android Auto.