Spotify 0.9.17 for GNU/Linux (and the upcoming 1.x beta!)

[nikreiman]

On 24 March 2015, we rolled out an update to the desktop client for GNU/Linux. For installation instructions, see:

https://www.spotify.com/download/previews/

The version of the client is 0.9.17, and it will be the final 0.9.x client released for this platform. It has been a long time since the previous release (with the prior version being 0.9.11), and for those interested in the release notes, they will be identical to those for other desktop platforms for the versions 0.9.12-17, with the addition of the following platform-specific fixes:

- The machine's hostname is shown to other devices from Spotify Connect

- A 512px icon is used for the taskbar and menubar (unity integration)

We have decided to make a final release of 0.9.x desktop so that our users can pin this package if desired. Also we will make a separate package for the 0.9.17 release so that it is easier to find in the apt repository in case users need to revert to the prior version.

*EDIT*: The 0.9.17 package is now available, it is called spotify-client-0.9.17. If you don't want to receive the 1.x version, you can install this package instead (note that it both provides and conflicts with the spotify-client package).

Going forward, the official Linux beta will be released very soon! There are already some unofficial beta links floating around the forum, but so far we have not published a deb package to our official apt servers yet. We have been very busy getting 1.x out the door and sadly have not had as much time to devote to the GNU/Linux releases as we would like. Also, it has been unfortunate that we have not been better at keeping up with releases for this platform in general, but we have taken some steps to improve this for future releases.

Specifically, this means:

- We will be releasing a regular tarball file alongside our debian package for the benefit of non-debian users

- Spotify client releases will be made available for GNU/Linux users at the same time as users on other platforms

- We will also make a public `testing` apt repository to house unstable beta builds for testing

- However, we do not have a 32-bit version of the client available now. This is difficult for us to do for a number of reasons, but we will consider doing this if there is enough demand from the userbase.

[muammar]

Local files does not work anymore...

muammar@ihacku ⮀ /opt/spotify/spotify-client ⮀ ls -ltr
total 39644

lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 41 Aug 31 2014 libavutil.so.51 -> /path/to/libavutil.so.51
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 43 Aug 31 2014 libavformat.so.53 -> /path/to/libavformat.so.53
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 42 Aug 31 2014 libavcodec.so.53 -> /path/to/libavcodec.so.53

-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 883 Mar 24 09:23 unregister.sh
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 254 Mar 24 09:23 spotify.desktop
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 980 Mar 24 09:23 register.sh
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 2285 Mar 24 09:23 readme.fedora
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 863 Mar 24 09:23 linklibs.sh
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 927 Mar 24 09:23 linklibs-fedora.sh
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 310674 Mar 24 09:23 licenses.xhtml
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 3919 Mar 24 09:24 changelog
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 40246040 Mar 24 09:40 spotify
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 Mar 25 16:59 Icons
drwxr-xr-x 3 root root 4096 Mar 25 17:00 Data

Previous version worked correctly playing local files when I had those symlinks shown above. Do I have to point each of those symlinks to other versions?

[Fred]

@muammar  in [Edit] - [Preferences...] could you please check what the Local files show? (everything worked for me, but then, I'm not really good at playing with symlinks so I was lucky... 🙂

[user-removed]

of course - wifi, and restarted or logut/login 😉

from terminal:

(...)

11:09:40.502 I [local_file_sync.cpp:529         ] Wifi Sync Connected to HTC One android
11:09:50.707 I [audio_driver_linux.cpp:27       ] Using Alsa                                                                                                                                         
11:09:50.731 I [head_file_streamer.cpp:106      ] Requesting head file from CDN url: http://heads-akp.spotify.com.edgesuite.net/head/367bce03f82fccffe24e4b1ab8bb24f3f145468b            ...  
11:09:50.731 D [spirc_manager.cpp:710           ] GAIA: SpircManager::stpLoad, track=spotify:track:0hNDftDmGLVxc4uwDpjHa9, index=0, position=59118, paused=0                                         
11:09:50.731 D [spirc_manager.cpp:1883          ] GAIA: SpircManager::becomeActiveDevice                                                                                                             
11:09:59.820 D [spirc_manager.cpp:1883          ] GAIA: SpircManager::becomeActiveDevice                                                                                                             
11:10:05.740 D [spirc_manager.cpp:1883          ] GAIA: SpircManager::becomeActiveDevice                                                                                                             
11:10:17.219 I [ApplicationPage.cpp:185         ] Keeping application browse alive for 60000 ms.                                                                                                     
11:11:17.218 I [ApplicationPage.cpp:66          ] Unloading application browse.                                                                                                                      
11:11:17.218 I [AppManager.cpp:541              ] Removing instance of application browse.    

[/quote]

[Warstomp]

---

@nikreiman wrote:

---

Weird, I haven't seen missing icons in awhile. Try nuking the cache (rm -rf ~/.cache/spotify) and restarting the client.

---

Worked for the playlist, but not for: Browse, Activity, Radio...

[muammar]

@FredJ It shows the path of my local mp3 files:

/home/muammar/Music

The files are shown in Spotify, but if I click on them there is no sounds and the program stays in pause. I use Debian Sid. 

[sleeksorrow]

---

@nikreiman wrote:

IIRC Spotify doesn't have an Unlimited subscription anymore, though maybe it still exists in some countries? Anyways, I'm really not sure about this but my understanding was that Connect just doesn't support the free tier.

---

Well, I have unlimited subscription here in germany since March 2013, I pay 5€ each month and I'm fine with not being able to use premium features.

Unlimited has been advertised as "No hours limit, no repeat limit and no ads." Well, in the meantime, all time and repeat limits are also gone for free users, so unlimited now is "everything free can do, but without ads". So it would be logical that Spotify Connect is not part of this deal.

Just this promise is not true for the mobile app. I accept all limits there, with not able to choose a specific song, no offline, etc.pp., but I still have ad breaks there and that's not fair in my opinion. But obviously this is off-topic here, sorry for that guys.

[sleeksorrow]

---

@FredJ wrote:

@nikreiman  even though it no longer is possible to sign up for unlimited, there are still users who signed up for unlimited when it was offered who continue on unlimited. As far as I know it is still possible to keep that subscription if you already have it. 

---

indeed, proof attached 😉

[sleeksorrow]

---

@muammar wrote:

@FredJ It shows the path of my local mp3 files:

/home/muammar/Music

The files are shown in Spotify, but if I click on them there is no sounds and the program stays in pause. I use Debian Sid. 

---

Guess that's the "wrong/old/missing ffmpeg" thing that hit Ubuntu a year ago.

https://community.spotify.com/t5/Help-Desktop-Linux-Mac-and/Linux-Local-files-do-not-play-on-Ubuntu-...

[f_b]

---

@nikreiman wrote:

On 24 March 2015, we rolled out an update to the desktop client for GNU/Linux. For installation instructions, see:

(...)

- Spotify client releases will be made available for GNU/Linux users at the same time as users on other platforms

(...)

---

This does sound very great, and I really hope that Spotify follows through with it. I still don't understand why it takes so long getting v 1 out on Linux. I remember that when v 1 was still in beta for Windows, we got promises that this version would be easy to cross platform...

[sleeksorrow]

---

@Warstomp wrote:

---

@nikreiman wrote:

---

Weird, I haven't seen missing icons in awhile. Try nuking the cache (rm -rf ~/.cache/spotify) and restarting the client.

---

Worked for the playlist, but not for: Browse, Activity, Radio...

---

That's because spotifys http proxy usage is utterly broken.

See my (sadly still ignored) post here: https://community.spotify.com/t5/Help-Desktop-Linux-Mac-and/Spotify-sending-garbage-to-HTTP-Proxy/m-...

Luckily I had the option to choose socks5 as proxy, where the problem does not occur.

[Fred]

@muammar , could you check the thread that @sleeksorrow  linked to regarding ffmpeg? Let us know how it works out for you!

(Thanks sleeksorrow for the link btw!)

[Erkan_Yılmaz]

- However, we do not have a 32-bit version of the client available now. This is difficult for us to do for a number of reasons, but we will consider doing this if there is enough demand from the userbase.

I.
I guess then spotify (and my forum activity) won't be an option anymore 😞

- I can not use the web player, since it doesn't scrobble to last.fm (1).
- I will use my current 32-bit spotify (2) as long as possible and until the apps cease to exist (3).

II.

Is there anything we, as community, could do to help you guys keeping the 32bit version?

(1) https://community.spotify.com/t5/Help-Web-Player/web-player-not-scrobbling-to-last-fm/m-p/919767#M77...
(2) version 0.9.4.183.g644e24e0
(3) https://community.spotify.com/t5/Closed-Ideas/Keep-the-old-app-API-in-the-desktop-software-for-exist...

[dennismantz]

Hi, I'm a german student and I use Spotify Premium for students (only 5€ a month).

I just updated on to the 0.9.17 version on my Ubuntu machine but I still cannot see the Ubuntu machine on my phone in the Connect list. However I can see the phone (Nexus 5) on the desktop.

I already restarted both, pc and phone, I signed out and back in again, ... nothing helped.

Both devices are in the same subnet.. the desktop via LAN and the phone via wifi.

Any ideas? I would love if I could finally use Connect on my Linux machine!

Cheers,

Dennis

[ColtonDRG]

Since taking this update, my client will not start. I get an error "Failed loading skin" and the executable quits immediately.

- I already tried nuking ~/.config/spotify/ and ~/.cache/spotify/
- I already tried removing and re-installing Spotify in every way I know how.

- I tried running as root, the application starts, but it freezes when I try to do anything.

- I asked on the forum earlier and got nothing useful back. My thread.

Any advice? I really would like to get this working again.

- Colton

[Zer0CT]

I have problem with libudev.

I'm using elementaryOS Luna (64bit) which is based on Ubuntu 12.04 LTS. This OS supports libudev.so.0 and there are no entry for libudev.so.1 in the repository.

The program don't start from the launcher and give error from terminal.

~$ spotify
spotify: error while loading shared libraries: libudev.so.1: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory

 I've found a workaround on some forum. 
That solution makes a link from libudev.so.0 to libudev.so.1
This seems to work everybody. However, I read that this solution is a dangerous and bad practise (I didn't find out why.)
This is the code for the linking:

# ln -s /lib/$(arch)-linux-gnu/libudev.so.0 ./libudev.so.1

 My questions:
Can you update the program to support libudev0? (elementaryOS Luna still have 2 years lifetime; eOS Freya supports libudev1, but it is considered unstable beta yet)
Why this linking considered to be dangerous? Will it need any special care if I do it?
Are there any other (safe, elegant) mode to solving this?

Anyway, thanks for the Linux support! I love that it get more and more attention from everywhere.
Note that I have only chosen Spotify in the first place a year ago because it has native Linux app. (You can copy-paste this sentence to your sales manager. 😄 😉 )

[hans-jürgen]

---

dennismantz schrieb:

I just updated on to the 0.9.17 version on my Ubuntu machine but I still cannot see the Ubuntu machine on my phone in the Connect list. However I can see the phone (Nexus 5) on the desktop

---

 See https://community.spotify.com/t5/Help-Desktop-Linux-Mac-and/Spotify-0-9-17-for-GNU-Linux-and-the-upc... in this version this is not possible yet, but it will be in v1.0.x.

[hans-jürgen]

---

Erkan_Yılmaz schrieb:

- I can not use the web player, since it doesn't scrobble to last.fm (1).

---

It looks like they are already testing a new beta of the web player for some users which seems to be similar to the new 1.0.x desktop software, see the related threads in the web player forum. Scrobbling works fine there, so hopefully the new web player will use the same internal scrobbler without this problem. This will not solve your Linux 32-bit problem, but it might help.

[spotzfellow]

Thank you for supporting the Linux community. Finally upgraded to premium because of this.

The Arch Linux AUR package version 0.9.17.1 is running without major problems here. Also thanks to gadget3000 who does a great job maintaining the Arch Linux package.

[olejon]

Sad we do not seem to get 32-bit support. With the new cross platform technologies under the hood I assumed it would be easier for you devs. I even thought ARM would be a possibility. That would be really cool for Raspberry Pi owners!

[BeatHead]

I was just thinking this morning, "darn it's been a long time since we've seen a Linux client update". I was beginning to wonder if you'd given up on the idea of Linux support. I came to see if there was any more talk about it, and I see this announcement. Thanks for not only continuing to support us Linux users, but for taking steps to making the client less of a red-headed stepchild.