External monitors disconnect when opening Spotify

[jackspencer]

Plan

Premium

Country

United States

Operating System

Windows10

My Question or Issue

Whenever Spotify is active my monitors will constantly disconnect and reconnect (and my bluetooth mouse). This happens with the web player, the desktop app, and on webpages with embedded Spotify songs. 

[jackspencer]

The fix is going to depend on your cabling setup. HDMI to HDMI should be fine, but where you will confuse Widevine is using HDMI adapters to things like USB-c or Display Port. Widevine is not smart enough to tell the difference between this and a video capture device, so it overreacts. Buy a cable that states it is HDCP compliant and you can probably get use of your monitor back. 

Of course Spotify could also just not use Widevine DRM on these short loop video streams, or at least admit they are doing it and prompting for opt-in, or even updating their TOS if using DRM is now required. Like I said, solving this was hard because Spotify made it a mystery, unlike other Widevine using services that are upfront about it. 

[jackspencer]

Got this problem too. In my case with a Lenovo Thunderbolt USB C hub under Windows 10. Also changed from HDMI to DP but didn't fix the issue.
Maybe we are thinking too much about the video stream since we know the monitor is causing the issue. But maybe it's more the audio stream to the monitor that I think spotify wants to protect and if the hub doesn't support it or can't handle it properly, we get these crazy issues.

MY 2 SOLUTIONS (under Windows):

Both solutions aim at the same fix, but 2 ways to get there:

Via sound settings:
Disable all audio playback devices connected to your display. Mostly they are called something like Nvidia High Definition Audio, Intel Display Audio etc. Click the speaker icon in the right corner -> Sounds -> Playback -> [Disable all screen audio devices].
This solution will not work if you need your screen audio somehow, because it disables the screen audio at all.

Via Device Manager:
Open Device Manager -> Go to Sound, Video and Game Controllers -> Disable Nvidia High Definition Audio, Intel Display Audio, etc (any output connected to your display via USB-C, HDMI, DisplayPort, etc.).

After that you can trigger the screen crashes and blinking issues by clicking the home button in the spotify app and then if it doesn't crash just start playing some music. Normally after disabling the screen audio stuff it should stop (in my case)

[MikesMusicSpot]

I just last night signed up to Tidal. If it pans out, Spotify will be deleted from all my devices, leaving only the many playlists I created from it … and NONE of the playlists it shoved down my throat.

[meppyman]

Sadly, this didn't work for me. I already had those disabled.

[Legoabram]

Plan

Premium

Country

United States

Device

Lenovo X1 Gen 4 Extreme + Lenovo Thunderbolt 4 Dock

Operating System

Windows 11

My Question or Issue

I genuinely don't even know how this happening, and it does make the Spotify app worse than worthless. When I have my laptop attached to a dock with 2 screens on it, and the windows Spotify app is running, it will very often disable one of the screens completely and turn it gray. The ONLY ways to revert this are to unplug the screen and plug it back in, or unplug the dock. I've even tried disabling hardware acceleration with zero effect. While I'm am kind of **bleep** about it, I'm also genuinely curious about what on earth Spotify is doing on my machine that could even cause this.

BTW, I COULD NOT get this form to load while I was logged in. It just refreshed the page every second. I'll post an image if I can after posting.

[Legoabram]

 

[Garbor]

Funny how they keep merging related threads as if the "Solution" in this one works at all, seems very clear they have no intent of fixing this given the radio silence from anyone from the support team.

[MikesMusicSpot]

“Seems”? No, it’s a verifiable fact. When on the phone they deny the problem even after I point out that serious Spotify issues swamp the www. Like Spectrum TV, which has become all but unusable since they “upgraded” their user interface, they very obviously don’t care. I hope their arrogance bites them in the ***.

[sp-otifysucksss]

Tried everything. I don't even use spotify, but sometimes it just pop up somewhere else and my monitor is suddenly off. Restart is the only solution. I'm also an artist and get like 30dollars from spotify for 280k streams. Spotify sucks BIG TIME.

[sp-otifysucksss]

Does anybody at least know how to block everything spotify related that my pc wouldn't even try to load this piece of **bleep**?

[MikesMusicSpot]

RE: Does anybody at least know how to block everything spotify related that my pc wouldn't even try to load this piece of **bleep**?

Google something like How To Delete All Traces of Norton. I’m hoping that Spotify will cease and desist after I verify that I’ve downloaded and outright OWN all the playlists I built from them and stop paying them.

Norton is worse than Spotify. It has taken me years to REDUCE its persistence, let alone its scamming impostors.
Both are right down there with the VA, which keeps trying to hijack my medical care. (I am a disabled 20-year veteran, but I consider the VA criminally, medically, and deliberately incompetent and keep trying to get them out of my life.)

[PatMathews]

ALL:  I have recently been in contact with spotify escalations team, and finally through filing a complaint with the BBB, they've actually taken this seriously (this thread originally created 9-18-23) .  There was an update recently that they pushed out that seems to have fixed this issue for the most part.  I haven't had the black screen issue or the audio "click" when launching the software in a couple days, and I have shut down spotify several times as well as restarted my computer at least twice in the last 2 days to verify.  Make sure you don't see the blue notification dot over your account icon while you're in the software.  If you do, click your icon and allow the update.  @simitus, I do think that your very detailed initial explanation pushed their efforts in the right direction.  I am not closing the ticket I have with the BBB as of yet, so we can get some more feedback from this community, because obviously they don't want that hit from them going on official record, so they are actually taking steps to resolve this.  @spotify, you need to start listening to your subscribers FAR faster than this.  This is just terrible customer service when we have to resort to filing an official complaint to get any action by you.  Remember, your paycheck comes from people using the software, so when it gets this bad, people will remove themselves from any subscriptions they have with you.  Thankfully for all the users that are still around, I am also a part of a software development team, and it pisses me off to no end when there are issues that aren't resolved in a decent amount of time. I filed my complaint not just for myself, but for everyone else that may be spending their hard earned $ for this platform.  Learn from this.  No reason to take 14 months to resolve this whatsoever. 

[enistoja]

This is both a specific reply to this question, and a general update as to how my web experience has gone since I blocked all of Spotify's web players on my laptop.

I have not had my laptop's monitor turn off since. That's it.

So, if anyone is interested in leaving spotify for good, not seeing it on your browser, and keeping your monitors from flicking off if anyone in your vicinity links to spotify?

1. Get yourself firefox (better for privacy than Chrome or chromium web browsers, and stops google's encroaching on web monopoly)
2. get the Ublock Origin OR Ad Nauseam addon (I prefer ad nauseam because it actively hits advertisers in the pocketbook while benefiting independent web owners who need those ads to exist).
3. Click on the cog in the addon menu, and go to the My Filters Tab
4. add these filters:

   ---

   ||open.spotify.com/embed?uri=https%3A%2F%2Fopen.spotify.com%2Fepisode%2F3BYbhYthya9QTlpSyZJaF3&view=coverart$subdocument
   ||open.spotify.com/embed?uri=https%3A%2F%2Fopen.spotify.com%2Ftrack%2F6Zbv79YWB0iZSXwIwEsIOP&view=coverart$subdocument
   ||open.spotify.com/embed$subdocument

   ---

This fits my personal web browsing experience, and you may need to add more specific filters if you go to different websites than i do (likely). But if that's the case, right click on the spotify element you want to block, and on the context menu at the bottom should be an option with the ublock/ad nauseam icon that reads "block element"

Since spotify has made it clear it does not care about my web experience, I have simply removed them from it and I have had no monitor shutdowns since.

Keep in mind this only works for the WEB BROWSER spotify players that pop up in social media. I do not know about the actual installed software, as I never used it.

Best of luck out there. For a free internet!

[onejeremias]

I would like to say thank you to PatMathews for the update and for taking the time to exert some real pressure on Spotify. Wish I had thought of it myself. I came back to this thread to check on status, and if there was not a resolution, my plan was to drop my Spotify account and move to a different platform. I can confirm that the issue seems to be resolved for me (at least in the web version). Thank you!

[KinTheRanger]

Likewise - I uninstalled and reinstalled on two affected systems, and it appears to have resolved!!