Constant playback issues.

[n3uromanc3r]

Plan

Premium

Country

United Kingdom

Device

Desktop & iPhone 11 Pro

Operating System

Ubuntu 18.04.5 & iOS 14.4.2

My Question or Issue

I recently received the updated app, at the same time as receiving Gigabit Fibre from Virgin (and upgrade from 350Mb).  Ever since I have been unable to use Spotify on my desktop.  Songs constantly stop playback after a varying number of seconds (sometimes minutes).  I've also had playback issues on my Spotify app on my phone too.  The web player seems to work OK though, but this is a less than optimal solution for me.

I've started Spotify with a custom log file and have logs that end with stopped playback, but I'm not sure if the data captured is of any use.  The error presented in the desktop app is "Can't play the current song".

I've tried restarting and updating all my network gear.  The Virgin Superhub 4 is in modem mode (this was the case with the previous Superhub 3 too, which worked fine), and then I have a Netgear R7000 router and a pi-hole too.

I'm not sure if this is the correct forum to post this on, of if I should be posting it on Virgin's forums.  Either way, hopefully this issue gets addressed by one or both parties and gets resolved soon.

If someone wants a copy of the logs, let me know.

Thanks in advance.

[JasonLG1979]

You're not going to get any help from Spotify as the Linux desktop app is not supported officially. The best you can hope for is that another user can help you. You'll probably have better luck resolving your issue on the Virgin forum. IMHO It sounds more like a network issue since it affects your phone and the desktop app.

[n3uromanc3r]

It's frustrating.  Having been a customer for many years now, and with the popularity of Linux on the rise, year on year, it would be great if Spotify actually focused on giving native first class support to their Linux customers.

Given that the web player works perfectly, I'd wager this bug is something to do with the way the native desktop app handles streaming/buffering/ranged responses, potentially combined with the way the Virgin gigabit system manages the Spotify streamed traffic.  Ultimately, it's probably not something I can resolve on my own.  Virgin probably aren't gonna be all that helpful either, but I'll give it a shot.

I've been a huge fan of Spotify, and over the years I've encouraged numerous friends to join too.  With the release of the new app design, I've surprised myself by actually considering what my long-term options are.  The new UX is terrible (slow/unusuable menus, removed config options, dreadful local file functionality).  The only plus with Spotify compared with the alternatives is the fact they have a native Linux app (thanks only to some fringe devs within their company).  Given that it doesn't actually work anymore, that really doesn't give me an anchor to keep using Spotify.  I reckon at some point they'll probably remove the ability to see hidden(/removed) tracks, which is something I currently use.  The option is now missing from the desktop app, and I expect that the mobile app will follow suit in time. 

Anyhow, now I'm just grumbling/rambling, but, it's annoying when one day your stuff works perfectly fine, and then the next some update has knocked it all for six.

[JasonLG1979]

The best thing I ever did as far as Spotify is concerned is buy a Raspberry Pi Zero and a HifiBerry DAC+ Zero and throw Raspotify on it. Raspotify is basically librespot built and packaged for Raspberry Pi's. It turns about $50 worth of hardware into a headless Spotify Connect device. I have it Velcro'd to the back of my stereo receiver.  It doesn't matter what device I control Spotify from, playback actually happens on the Pi Zero.

[ItsDoog]

I have also been experiencing a similar issue with the Linux client for the past couple of days. Tracks start playing, then after a period of time ranging from tens of seconds to a minute or so the audio cuts out and the playback timeline freezes, then shortly after that I get the "Can't play the current song" pop-up.

I never use the phone app nor directly through the web browser but thought I'd give them a try based on your report…

The Spotify app on my Android phone has a similar issue, except here a track will start playing fine but then stops and starts every second or so while the playback timeline freezes at the point it stopped for the first time. I have yet to see it stop completely and show the "Can't play…" pop-up (if the app even does this?)

Playing through the browser has a similar issue, it will stop and start playing like the phone app but the playback timeline doesn't appear to get stuck.

Playing Spotify through my Sonos system does not appear to be affected and has been working fine throughout.

Interestingly, I'm also with Virgin Media (though not FTTP) and have a Pi-hole on my network but I can't see anything in the logs suggesting that it's interfering with Spotify traffic.

[n3uromanc3r]

So, an update.... I've been unable to use the desktop app for the last week or so, and within that time I've noticed the web player being somewhat temperamental too.

Not sure if there is a memory leak or not, but if I don't play anything and have the tab open for several hours (it's pinned in Firefox), I cannot play a track without refreshing the page... play buttons basically no longer have any interaction available.

At the point in time, Spotify is basically unusable on my computer.  I'm sat here 8+ hours a day coding and can't even listen to music without having to jump through hoops.

I wish I could revert to the previous Spotify version, just to test it out, but unfortunately I cleared my package cache after upgrading.  That would at least let me know whether it's 100% a connection issue, or whether it is related to the new client.

[n3uromanc3r]

It's a shame the Linux devs at Spotify don't seem to be particularly active on this forum either.

[ItsDoog]

I've not experienced any improvement from the desktop client either. I have since installed a CLI client called ncspot and that hasn't skipped a beat over the last few days - I'm finding it a reasonable stop-gap until the desktop client gets sorted.

My Sonos has also been unaffected throughout. Unless these third-party integrations connect through a different infrastructure it's sounding like an issue with the official clients…

[jaymiethomas · Accepted solution]

Are you using CloudFlare's 1.1.1.1 DNS? This response earlier helped me, as I'm in that situation:

https://community.spotify.com/t5/Desktop-Windows/Random-Stopping-with-CloudFlare-DNS-1-1-1-1/m-p/519...

[n3uromanc3r]

I am using Cloudflare 1.1.1.1 DNS, yeah!  I'll try changing that and see if it helps.

I shall report back with my findings!

I'm guessing that fixed the issue for you?

[jaymiethomas]

Yeah, it seems to have. I was also using CloudFlare’s WARP tool, so disable that if it’s available on Linux too.

[n3uromanc3r]

Since making that change to the upstream DNS provider on my pi-hole I've not had any issues.  I'll give it a good test tomorrow and if everything is good I'll mark this issue solved.

I guess the timing of this was just unfortunate, given that Spotify updated their client, and I updated my broadband package and modem.  If this had happened without those changes, I'd have been checking the other components of my network chain a bit closer.

Anecdotally, I had connectivity issues with my PS4 and Cloudflare's DNS about a year ago.  I resolved that by manually changing to a different DNS provider on the console.  That issue was resolved though, as when I upgraded to a PS5 I reverted to using the default DNS (pi-hole + Cloudflare) and it's been OK ever since.  I probably should have considered Cloudflare as a possible contender for connectivity problems having experiencing this issue before.

Anyhow, on a positive note, I'm now running my own DNS on the pi-hole with unbound.

Thanks again for the heads up on this, I really appreciate it.  I love Spotify and would like to continue using the service problem free, so you've made my day 🙂