Snap version without themed window bar

[marcoshalano]

Plan

Premium

Country

Brazil

Device

Dell

Operating System

Ubuntu Linux 25.10

My Question or Issue

I just updated the Spotify's snap, and the window bar is like in the attached image.

I think someone forgot to add something in the snap, because the size is smaller than the older version where the window bar works, 1.2.74.477.g3be53afe.

[SinisaPerovic]

Same here with the Flatpak update on elementaryOS 8.1 (based on Ubuntu 24.04.4 LTS)

[Johnficca]

I'm running Fedora Silverblue and it's a flatpak and I'm having the same problem. 

[elmagio]

Same issue here with the Flatpak on Fedora 43. I'll add that there's really no good reason why we still don't have Client Side Decorations on the Linux client...

[davelima]

Same here on Fedora Workstation 43, GNOME, using the Flatpak version. Temporarily fixed it downgrading it to commit 6daa559db754864d93170313d42ba50642137fae5aa16b25b92dbf37fdfe252d

sudo flatpak update --commit=6daa559db754864d93170313d42ba50642137fae5aa16b25b92dbf37fdfe252d com.spotify.Client

[MarmaladeOne]

I'm experiencing the same issue. Here are my system details:

• Ubuntu 25.10
• Lenovo ThinkPad T480s
• GNOME version 49
• Spotify for Linux version 1.2.82.428.g0ac8be2b, installed via Snap

To temporarily fix the issue, I reverted to Spotify version 1.2.74.477.g3be53afe with the command `snap revert spotify`.

[Bnuttn]

same for me (.deb version, using debian 13 gnome)

[zicstardust]

GNOME doesn’t support wayland properly, for ideological reasons they refuse implementing server side decoration on wayland, so when Spotify runs under GNOME Wayland, it will fall back to this ugly CSD.

[zicstardust]

The problem only occurs in Gnome with Wayland; the temporary solution is to use Spotify with XWayland.

.deb version

Add the following arguments:

--ozone-platform=x11 --disable-features=UseOzonePlatform

Flatpak version:

flatpak override --user --unset-env=WAYLAND_DISPLAY --nosocket=wayland --nosocket=fallback-x11 --socket=x11 com.spotify.Client

and add in ~/.var/app/com.spotify.Client/config/spotify-flags.conf

--ozone-platform=x11
--disable-features=UseOzonePlatform

EDIT:

To persist the arguments in the .deb version, I have a script that adds a spotify-flags.conf file, similar to the flatpak version.

Github repository: zicstardust/spotify-debfixes

Link not allowed here

[KaorunIchijou]

Thanks man

[Bnuttn]

thanks it worked!

[marcoshalano]

Thanks. What I did was copying the .desktop file to my local folder so I can edit without touching the original file, which would be rewrite after an update:

cp /usr/share/applications/spotify.desktop ~/.local/share/applications
vim ~/.local/share/applications/spotify.desktop
<add the parameters to the line TryExec

[zicstardust]

To persist the arguments in the .deb version, I have a script that adds a spotify-flags.conf file, similar to the flatpak version.

Github repository: zicstardust/spotify-debfixes

Link not allowed here

[OliverCalder]

EDIT: I just saw zicstardust's post above, and yes a change to use full Wayland and expect server-side decorations definitely seems like the culprit.

Old post below was me poking around the snap connections.

---

I just set up a new machine today and clean-installed the spotify snap (rev 92) with the broken titlebars.

Remembering the problem, I then ran `snap refresh --revision=89 spotify` and lo and behold, this caused the `gnome-3-38-2004` snap to be installed. That's a "content snap" (https://snapcraft.io/docs/reference/interfaces/content-interface/) which provides some common libraries to the snap itself. So perhaps the newer revision (92) with the broken titlebar is missing a content snap?

I looked at the snap connections for both revisions, here's the difference:

```

diff 89-connections.txt 92-connections.txt
4c4,5
< content[gnome-3-38-2004] spotify:gnome-3-38-2004 gnome-3-38-2004:gnome-3-38-2004 -
---
> content[gnome-46-2404] spotify:gnome-46-2404 gnome-46-2404:gnome-46-2404 -
> content[gpu-2404] spotify:gpu-2404 mesa-2404:gpu-2404 -

```

I don't think the gpu-2404 snap would affect it, more likely there's a difference in what the content snap provides and Spotify isn't using the new content correctly.

The fact that the official .deb package on Debian and Ubuntu is also broken suggests this as well.

[avasilver]

This was the fix that worked for me, I found it in a similar reddit post:

All I did to fix the window decoration was copy the spotify_spotify.desktop from /var/lib/snapd/desktop/applications to ~/.local/share/applications. Then I edited the file so that the "Exec=" line reads, Exec=/snap/bin/spotify --ozone-platform=x11 Ran "update-desktop-database . in the directory and now Spotify starts with the correct windows decoration. 

---

Hopefully this helps y'all!

[jwtaufer]

Weird. I tried flatpak and had the same issue. Broken in snap and apt as well.

[FerreMeow]

This should be fixed by introducing the window decoration bar that shows on Windows and MacOS instead of relying on server-side decorations. This would both resolve this issue and improve the consitency of Spotify across the desktop platforms.

[qingguang]

This does solve the problem temporarily, thanks👍

[SlothLady]

Same issue for me on Fedora with the flatpak version.

[OliverCalder]

So as it turns out, the ugly bars are actually Spotify's native Client-Side Decoration (CSD). So it's not a GNOME/Wayland problem -- everything is working as intended, the Spotify CSD is just terrible.

The solution would be for Spotify to update the CSD in their Linux build to match what's on Windows or MacOS.

[vvk99]

Well, it is not a problem on other distros like KDE, so it most definitely is an issue with Gnome.