No Sound in Desktop App on Ubuntu Linux

[jonte330]

I am getting no sound from the Spotify desktop app on Ubuntu Linux. All other apps play sound normally.

I have tried reinstalling the app with no success. Checking pavucontrol, Spotify is outputting to the correct output (Line out) and volume is normal. The monitor in pavucontrol does not register sound from Spotify.

The app worked a few months ago. I was messing around with outputs in pavucontrol in order to isolate the output from Spotify for streaming reasons. I changed the output to a new one I created in the terminal but this output is not available in the list anymore. I don't remember all the details, unfortunately.

I've checked that Spotify is playing on "This Device" and it also works normally on my phone and in browser.

Anyone have any ideas what's wrong?

[tiaraju]

It's really a shame that a service we pay for stopped working like this and there's no fix, rollbacks or not even an answer about it.

[BiAiB]

Thanks ! I had the same issue on ubuntu 24 and it works.

Now, I wonder why this setting changed all of a sudden, and most importantly, why the f can't we select the device in preferences

[JoeHarr4]

Both Snap and Flatpak are broken now. Snap version 1.2.90.451.gb094aab0 is still broken. But, there are several workarounds in comments to this issue from a few weeks ago:

1. Use Spotify in a browser rather than the app.

2. Roll back to an earlier package version with:
snap revert spotify

snap hold spotify

(There's a Flatpak equivalent, see the comments above.) This might no longer work as they seem to have taken the older, working versions down.

3. In the terminal, start it with:

spotify --audio-api=pulseaudio

(or append --audio-api=pulseaudio to whatever command you normally use)

4. Copy the system spotify config file into your homedir and edit "--audio-api=pulseaudio" into the command line there (different for Snap and Flatpak, see earlier comments in this thread).

5. (My contrib) Make either a shell alias or a function with the "--audio-api=pulseaudio" argument and put it in your ~/.bashrc file, or a file read by .bashrc (use ONLY ONE of these lines!):
spotify () { command spotify --audio-api=pulseaudio "$@" > ~/.run/spotify 2>&1 & }
alias spotify="spotify --audio-api=pulseaudio"

The first one of these puts Spotify in the background (gives you your prompt back) and puts errors into a file so they don't clutter your terminal.  You need to make a ~/.run directory.

--jh--

[keepawayfromlan]

Same problem here, solved by running Spotify from a terminal:

snap run spotify --audio-api=pulseaudio

[ElisHoli]

I have same problem after last update. I'm using Linux Mint 21.3 Cinnamon and flatpak version of Spotify. Has anyone solved the problem for flatpak?

[jonte330]

THIS is one of the reasons I've been curating my own library of music to put on a Navidrome server so I can finally cancel my Spotify subscription. This stinky company deserves no more money from me or anyone else.

[Lirick]

This should hopefully be fixed in 1.2.92.147.g5b8f9367 which was released for snap edge/candidate today

[joris1977]

Just tested and upgrading to  1.2.92.147.g5b8f9367 does not fix it. The  snap run spotify --audio-api=pulseaudio works though. 

[rogeriowolff]

Same here, the 1.2.92.147.g5b8f9367 version works only from CLI setting --audio-api=pulseaudio. When you Spotify guys will fix this? What a shame!

[tech-priest]

I have had the same issue, but launching with `--audio-api=pulseaudio` worked.

Spotify version 1.2.92.147

[JoeTixi]

I feel I'm being taken hostage by Spotify for being on linux.... why isn't there any other good app out there still ?

[Neutrino1502]

anyone has any solution same issue for me also tried both the steps mentoined above but not working 

[AnotherHobbyist]

FYI All, see the marked solution on this thread:
https://community.spotify.com/t5/Desktop-Linux/latest-edge-1-2-86-502-g8cd7fb22-cannot-play-audio-on...

Not a perma-fix yet but they are working on it.

[Severance]

This is also still not working for me (Arch Linux 7.0.11 kernel). Using Spotify version 1.2.92.147.g5b8f9367. Desktop client produces no audible output when routed through optical SPDIF to an external mini DAC. It works when using the web client via Firefox. The desktop client creates a stream labelled "audio-src" using a non-standard aux0,aux1 channel map at 44.1kHz while my active sink runs at 48kHz.

Using pipewire stream rules or the audio-api=pulseaudio flag makes no difference.

[AndyKillen]

I have the same thing, audio does not work on ubuntu/spotify.  However I notice today that its only audio files that are effected. When using video inside spotify, the audio works fine. 

tells me 100% its not ubuntu that's the issue but the app. Very sad its been now months and no fix even with their 400 AI commits a day. 

[vitorbootz]

After a few months with spotify app not working on my Ubuntu I fixed this issue by changing the audio server from PipeWire to PulseAudio with the command below:

sudo sed -i 's|Exec=/snap/bin/spotify %U|Exec=/snap/bin/spotify --audio-api=pulseaudio %U|' /var/lib/snapd/desktop/applications/spotify_spotify.desktop

[stunning_spider]

Can confirm. Still no sound for the snap app, still the `--audio-api=pulseaudio` fix works.

[fantasy7play]

I had the same issue with Spotify on Ubuntu (Flatpak version) - tracks were not playing at all.

What helped me was resetting Spotify's local data:

rm -rf ~/.var/app/com.spotify.Client

Then I started Spotify again:

flatpak run com.spotify.Client

Flatpak recreated the folder, and my tracks started playing normally again. You may need to log in again after this.