Spotify's volume doesn't react to external changes (anymore) and this is a grave problem for me

[EcruHazelnutW]

Plan

Premium

Country

Hungary

Device

desktop computer

Operating System

Ubuntu latest LTS, pipewire

My Question or Issue

The latest Spotify update to version 1.2.63.394.g126b0d89 changed how Spotify handles the volume. It no longer updates its internal concept of volume when I change the volume in the system mixer (pavucontrol) or via scripts (the pactl command). I am in in serious need of the volume being able to be controlled from the outside because I have big tinnitus and hyperacusis (oversensitive hearing) and it's important for me to listen to sound all day but the volume needs to be controlled finely and be consistent and easy to set. Clicking on the volume slider unfortunately doesn't do that as it's very coarse and tedious to change the volume this way every 10 minutes. I have separate EQ presets that I can switch to depending on what I am doing (eating, exercising, etc) and corresponding volumes. The sound level in the room can not be greater than a certain level and needs to be very consistent between days since it's a load on my ears, but it also can't be too low because of my health issues. I have everything measured and set with a hand-held decibel meter and it worked very well until now.

Setting the volume externally works but Spotify changes the volume where it thinks it should be when reaching the next track.
As additional information, pausing playback causes Spotify to update the volume (read from the mixer).

I am among the bottom 0,5% or 0,1% unluckiest people I have ever met or heard of in real life and am the lowest still alive.

Please please please make this fix happen. I would be eternally grateful.

Thank you very much.

[EcruHazelnutW]

I suspect this may be the side-effect of a fix to another issue. I think I noticed the audio stream is recreated on the new Spotify version (see above) if pipewire/pulseaudio is restarted (but not Spotify) and I hit play, but on older versions, Spotify wasn't able to do this (it went mute and didn't have a real audio stream anymore).

[Mixel626537]

Now i got the same. Fedora linux.

[EcruHazelnutW]

I still haven't found a workaround despite my best efforts.

Can we add each other on discord? I enabled my DMs.

[EcruHazelnutW]

Unfortunately, Spotify version 1.2.77.358.g4339a634 (latest at the time of writing) displays the same issue. I haven't found a solution yet.

[mastamic]

Spotify in chromium based browsers(firefox has the same issue) works more like on windows. The volume on the webpage is separate from the os app volume. What i suggest for now is you install a chromium based browser with drm support that u don't use for anything else(I use brave), max out the volume on the page and re-calibrate scripts if needed. You can also "install" Spotify as a browser based application by pressing the box in the search bar right of the url. screenshot is an example of brave(can look different on other browsers but position should be the same).

I would also love to see this fixed in the native app. A lot of media played within Firefox has the same behavior as current spotify app (youtube, spotify, plex and probably many more). This probably means it is a shared issue between applications and pipewire so I don't expect this to be resolved any time soon. Hope this helps some people.

[no4b]

This limits you to a lossy 256 kbps stream and resampling everything to 48 kHz. Far from ideal. It's a workaround with a really bad tradeoff.

[EcruHazelnutW]

Has anyone tried 1:1.2.82.428.g0ac8be2b yet?

[decbr]

Confirming this on Spotify for Linux `1.2.86.502.g8cd7fb22` on EndeavourOS / KDE Plasma 6 with PipeWire. The in-app volume slider has almost no effect on output level until it hits 0 (mute), and changes made via the KDE Plasma audio applet or `wpctl set-volume` are no longer reflected in the app's slider position. Behaviour matches what's described above and started around 1.2.63. Would appreciate an official acknowledgement that this is being looked at, the in-app slider is currently non-functional on Linux for any practical purpose.

[mastamic]

This seems to be a pipewire issue as well as a Spotify issue. Firefox has followed the same behavior as Spotify. for example the volume slider on YouTube in Firefox behaves exactly the same as Spotify. Firefox and Spotify tied the in app sliders to the puleseaudio/pipewire volume. They used to reflect the pulseaudio volume whitout issue before pipewire became the default. Chromium has a different implementation. They never connected the puleseaudio volume to the in app volume so they did not have this issue. There is an open issue on the pipewire side for anyone interested ( https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/pipewire/wireplumber/-/work_items/857 )

[EcruHazelnutW]

Ok, so from the linked convo it seems decided that Spotify is responsible for the problematic behavior.

Developers, PLEAASEEE look into this.

[Nøwheretorun]

Seems it was fixed with some recent update.

[EcruHazelnutW]

The bug is still present for me.

I use Spotify version 1.2.92.147.g5b8f9367 and Ubuntu 24.04.4 LTS.

Pipewire:

Compiled with libpipewire 1.0.5
Linked with libpipewire 1.0.5

May I know what OS, Spotify and Pipewire version you are using?

[mastamic]

For me this issue is solved but now but the slider inside the spotify app is not working(edit: turns out this behavior is because of  the software I use to manage volume, it is forcing the volume to the set value constantly. For reference I use knoellix/NativMix. Pipewire version might not be relevant at all, my bad). I am using pipewire version 1.6.8 and the same spotify version as you. If you like this behavior better you need to update to Ubuntu 26.04 LTS which currently ships pipewire version 1.6.2. or try to compile and install the latest pipewire version yourself. I don't actually know if 1.6.2 is new enough to solve the issue but they will hopefully give it a few more versions before moving on to the next ubuntu release. Good luck.