Desktop app not playing through bluetooth headphones

[mrsmagnuson]

Plan

Premium

Country

 Sweden

Device

PC Laptop

Operating System

Windows 10

My Question or Issue

 I just bought a new pair of bluetooth headphones (Sony h.ear2 WH-H900N). I can pair them with my laptop, but I cannot listen to the Spotify desktop app with them.

I can listen to anything via my web browser, including the Spotify Web player. I can also listen to the Windows media player app. However there is no sound through the headphones when using the Spotify desktop app, only the laptop speakers are working.

I can pair the headphones with my Samsung Galaxy S2 tablet and listen to the Spotify app on that without any problems. 

Actually, I can seemingly listen to everything with the headphones, except the Spotify Desktop app for Windows 10. I really like the app, but if this problem persists I will stop using it and only listen to the web player.

Any ideas?

[Jemi]

Hey @mrsmagnuson, help's here.

Is the volume bar at max on the app when you've connected your headphones? 

Also, make sure that your Connect feature isn't connected to any other device.

If that doesn't help, we recommend that you go through all the steps provided on this help article. You'll find some useful information there. 

Hope that helps!

[mrsmagnuson]

Thanks. I tried all those things, but it still didn't work. Then I played around with the default settings for sound devices in the Windows system settings. I found that when I un-selected the built-in speakers and selected my headphones as default audio device, I could finally listen to the Spotify app. I was weird though, because I could hear other sounds through the headphones before that, including the Spotify web player, just not the desktop app.  Anyhow, it's solved, and thanks for replying.

[nutz2001]

This worked perfectly thanks for trouble shooting.  Such a weird problem to have 

[clearly_blurry]

I have this exact problem with Linux. But nothing seems to fix it. I've even tried reinstalling the app. Used to work perfectly between the same laptop and speakers. Does anyone have any ideas?

[Romann_AV]

I believe I've found the (a?) root cause: the spotify app was specifically muted on the problematic output device within the windows 10 settings.

My symptoms were identical to the reported ones in the main post and replies: Spotify desktop app was not audible on only one particular audio output device, while all other app sounds and other outputs were working.

To confirm this, I had to go to a unique panel as follows:

1. Right click on the audio icon task bar and select "Open Volume Mixer", which brings up a window you can resize, showing "Device" and "Applications".
   • This brings up a panel called "Volume Mixer", which is an evolution of the one found on most platforms.
   • It is different to the one you get if you type "Sound mixer" in the start bar.
2. Click the drop down box (small black arrow) under "Device" to go through each output device you have
   • I have 2 distinct device profiles for my bluetooth headset, one mono, one stereo.
3. You will see the Applications change based on registered applications. if one is muted (in my case Spotify was showing the red block circle) you can unmute it by clicking the bottom speaker icon below the volume slider. that should immediately resolve your application+output specific issue.

At the core of this is the different layers of audio control. There's device-level, app-level and global settings that control volume levels. 

[oliverhalling18]

This helped me thank you, i went to my sound settings then at the bottom under advanced sound options i clicked on app volume device preferences and noticed that spotify was set to my speakers not default or my headphones. so i changed it and it worked ❤️

[___so]

I finally got it working today but maybe by fluke - if you have Ubuntu or similar maybe you can also try this:

* with Spotify open, go into sound settings

* make sure your Bluetooth device is connected and selected in the first tab "Output" 

* go to the "Applications" tab and turn sound for Spotify OFF and on again

* go back to the "Output" tab and make sure the Bluetooth device is selected as high fidelity playback, not as headset

(NB for me the previous step had changed this setting for some reason so do check again at the end, not just when you first land on the tab)

[SatyamS99]

Ubuntu 16.04

What worked for me was selecting the Bluetooth device in Settings->Sound->Output and then switching profiles to headset and then back to high fidelity again. 

[mcmuffin6o]

This worked for me on Linux Mint 21 Cinnamon!

[gafflation]

i didn't even read the text you wrote,  I saw your screenshot and immediately had a eureka moment to go try there and it worked.  Thanks so much for adding in that visual aid.

[woshiwco]

I also encountered this problem and finally solved it in this way. You can try: find the sound synthesizer in the window system, check the "Application" option, and see if the sound of this application is disabled.

[Quim_rx]

LINUX Mint/Ubuntu Bluetooth <-> Spotify issue

Everyting plays fine by bluetooth except Spotify.

You have already tried the BT unpair - repair solution without success.

1) Close Spotify windows. Verify if with Spotify closed there are running processes

  Open a terminal and write:

            ps -el | grep spotify

2) You will get a list of processes 

0 S 1000 24799 1380 1 80 0 - 752644 do_pol ? 00:01:24 spotify
0 S 1000 24804 24799 0 80 0 - 101087 do_pol ? 00:00:00 spotify
...
0 S 1000 24851 24799 0 80 0 - 224313 futex_ ? 00:00:08 spotify
1 S 1000 24870 24805 3 80 0 - 13063783 futex_ ? 00:02:44 spotify

3) Then, you should close the first and culprit process), in this real example is 24799 (1380 is the system who started Spotify).

          sudo kill -9 process_number [enter] == in this example sudo kill -9 24799 [enter]

4)  Close the terminal window, and start the Spotify program again. It will play music without issues.