Unable to access Preferences when "offline"

[kevinkuo2004]

After the update a few weeks ago, I've noticed that I cannot access the Preferences panel when I'm offline anymore.

This is very very annoying as my school uses a proxy and I have to manually enter the proxy information into the Preferences in order to access Spotify though the Mac Client. When I get home, however, if the proxy is still on, Spotify will believe that it is "offline". I'll be stuck, unable to do anything to turn off the proxy because the Preferences panel will completely refuse to load. 

I wonder if this is a bug or a design error, but it is really really annoying. If I forget to turn off the proxy while I'm in school, I'll  have to completely uninstall Spotify in order to use it at home. 

Please fix this!!!

[morberg]

This is really bad. You can edit the prefs file manually, but it is a PITA.

Even if you get your proxy setup correctly the application still fails to download album art.

Proxy support have been spotty in Spotify since 0.9 and it doesn't look like the company cares at all.

[hongymagic]

Preferences pane is also not accessible when users are _not_ logged in. This is a massive pain for those sitting behind a proxy as the login won't work without proxy.