Spotify "Play on this phone" doesnt work in android auto?

[paranoidsystems]

Hi All,

So I have Spotify (I am premium) on my iPhone XR, my home PC, My work PC and on my Android head unit running Android Auto. Currently, if I am listening on my home/work pc then when I bring up my phone it generally starts playing where I left off. This is fine (although annoying if it's playing autoplay songs and my phone is not set to autoplay but my pc...but that's another issue). So sometimes it will inform me that music is currently playing on another device and ask do I want to continue listening on that device or play on "his phone" so I say this phone and all is well. The issue comes when I listen on my iPhone/PC and I get into my car. The cars head unit starts android auto as I enter and has Spotify installed on the device (with some downloaded offline lists etc). Sometime it will start playing like normal but most times it will just look like it's playing where i left off on my last device but no sound comes out....this is because it's actually playing on whatever my last device is like a remote control. The issue is in android auto the message to "play on this phone" never comes up. I have to exit android auto to get full-fat Spotify interface up on my car then the message comes up and I can make the car play...then I go and launch android auto again. If the car is moving well I am not doing that. I am going mad? is there something I am missing? is there a setting to say if I press play on "this device" to always switch to that device and not "remote control" another device?