Spotify struggles to cast to speaker groups

[the-only-me-is-me]

Plan

Premium

Country

U.S.A.

Device

Motorola Moto G Stylus 5G - 2024

Operating System

Android 15

My Question or Issue

I'm a simple girl. I like to open Spotify, pick a speaker group, and listen to podcasts while I do chores. Unfortunately, for many weeks (months?) now, Spotify has decided that's too much to ask.

The fun begins when I move to select a speaker group. Will my speakers and speaker groups even appear in the list of devices? Place your bets! On a good day - which are few and far between - they will, which means I am ready for the next obstacle: Will Spotify connect to the device? If I'm having a great day - even rarer - it will, and in under a minute. Incredible! We're home free, right? Wrong! Every time my phone wakes to display something (typically a ringing alarm), Spotify disconnects from the speaker or speaker group and plays through my phone speakers, which means I am booted back to step one.

Don't even get me started on using voice commands to try to do any of this. I don't know whether this is on Google or Spotify, but for roughly the same period of time, I have had no luck convincing Spotify to play anything of mine on a speaker group by asking out loud. EVERY request that includes a speaker group nets me a "please enable personal results on this device" from my Google Home speakers. I've had personal results enabled for years, and toggling the setting changes nothing. Hard rebooting a Home device might fix the issue for the next one or two requests - possibly pointing to Google rather than Spotify - but it's weird that both issues seem to revolve around speaker groups.

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Some more (potentially related) issues, for SEO:

• Stuttering while casting podcasts to speaker groups
  • It'll get stuck replaying the same 0.5 - 2 seconds, sometimes for almost a minute, sometimes longer (and I usually break and disconnect from the speaker group before I hulk out).
• Difficulty scrubbing to any particular spot in a podcast
  • Similar to the stuttering, if I try to skip to a specific point in a podcast episode while casting, it won't register any of my attempts until after a huge delay, if at all.
• Occasional progress resets
  • This also appears to be specific to casting: Sometimes, Spotify decides to completely reset me to the beginning of a podcast episode.

[the-only-me-is-me]

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By resetting the network settings, we meant the network settings on your phone, not a full router reset, so you wouldn't lose any custom configurations like port forwarding. This can be done from Settings > System > Reset options > Reset Wi-Fi and Bluetooth settings.

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I'd have to reconnect all my Bluetooth devices and redo all my saved Wi-Fi connections after doing this, correct? That will be extremely painful, so this is also a low priority troubleshooting step for me, if so.

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Since you mainly listen to downloaded podcasts, the audio quality settings might not have a big impact. However, if some of your podcasts are streamed or partially cached, lowering the quality temporarily might help us see if the issue is related to audio or connection handling.

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I almost exclusively listen to downloaded podcasts. It accounts for over 90% of my podcast listening experience, and every time I can recall running into this issue, it's been while trying to play podcasts from one of my two main downloaded playlists.

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Also, you mentioned using a Pi-hole, it could be worth checking whether it's blocking any Spotify or Google Cast domains. You can try disabling it briefly to see if your full device list appears again. Keep us posted on how it goes.

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I'll try to remember to do this the next time the issue occurs.

If the pi-hole were blocking these domains on my local network, though, why would I ever be able to cast to my speaker groups while pi-hole was active?

[TheMonoTM]

I am encountering the same issue. I can add that it is definitely a Spotify issue, and not a Google or device issue, as I have no issues casting to the same speaker group from Apple Music, YouTube Music, Soundcloud, and Tidal on the same device. Exact same results on both my phone, my wife's phone and my tablet so it's not a device issue.

If it helps, the devices are a Pixel Tablet, a Pixel 8 Pro and a Pixel 9 Pro Fold. All running the latest Spotify build (9.0.94.274)

[the-only-me-is-me]

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I am encountering the same issue. I can add that it is definitely a Spotify issue, and not a Google or device issue, as I have no issues casting to the same speaker group from Apple Music, YouTube Music, Soundcloud, and Tidal on the same device. Exact same results on both my phone, my wife's phone and my tablet so it's not a device issue.

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I didn't even think to test YouTube Music, dang. I'll try to remember to double check that the next time I have this issue.

[Joan]

Hi there folks,

Thanks for the replies.

We've gathered all the info you've provided us and forwarded it to the respective teams so that this can be investigated further. Be advised however that we cannot say for certain at the moment when or if this is going to get addressed. We'll keep you updated with news if and when we have them. In the meantime, if you have any more relevant info to share, do let us know, every bit helps.

Cheers!

[the-only-me-is-me]

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@Joan wrote:

Hi there folks,

Thanks for the replies.

We've gathered all the info you've provided us and forwarded it to the respective teams so that this can be investigated further. Be advised however that we cannot say for certain at the moment when or if this is going to get addressed. We'll keep you updated with news if and when we have them. In the meantime, if you have any more relevant info to share, do let us know, every bit helps.

Cheers!

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Does that include the new information I added to my original post, by chance?

[Kruemelmonster]

I encounter the same problems with Spotify and Google Home Speaker Groups.

The behavior is also very inconsistent.

E.g. TuneIn works well.

Google Pixel 8, Android 16 (and before).

[the-only-me-is-me]

It's like the mobile app just can't get or stay connected when Chromecasting. So it could still be Google's fault - no telling how stable that API is - but since other, non-Google apps don't seem to have these issues, I'm still leaning towards the ball being in Spotify's court.