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)

[enistoja]

So, I return. despite using my ad-and-element blocker to remove all traces of spotify from my browsing activities, somehow a change made one of spotify's players slip into my tumblr feed. This immediately turned my monitor off, as it did before.

Any changes spotify may have done (or pretended to do) to fix this have done nothing at all for me. My element blocker is updated now, and spotify is gone once more.

I will continue to block spotify. The fact that they can enshittify the rest of the internet for users is something that should not be tolerated.

[Binkenstein]

This has somehow resurfaced again. Disabling all other audio devices still doesn't resolve it. This is seriously getting annoying.

I have uninstalled and resintalled the desktop app with no change.

[fishcakezxc]

Amazing work @Simitus! I suffered this issue in the past but was just reminded about it as I just stumbled across the same issue opening a venue's gig page! https://www.rock-city.co.uk/gigs/badly-drawn-boy-rock-city-nottingham-tickets-2025 

This is such a crazy issue.

[TML]

I could swear Spotify recently said they fixed this issue for the desktop app (not web embeds) and I haven't seen it for quite some while.

However now the issue has started for me again.... wild.

My issue stems from using a thunderbolt dock that has HDMI connected displays.

PS. No I'm not running Windows 7 if someone else sees my signature, but apparently signatures have been discontinued since I last visited and have no idea how to get rid of it.
I am indeed running W11 like most people.

[BWHun7mdMHUCpeC]

Yes, the problem is back (maybe it never got solved) but its not exactly spotify that is root cause of the problem, as I experience the exact same problem on certain other webpages also. It happens when the ads on the page start playing video. This is some «DRM last protection strategy» that it seems like spotify is also a victim for and i think this is actually something done on purpose in some driver in windows to prevent streaming video to a «recording device» - so either microsoft have to change this behavior or spotify has to add a setting «disable video playback» so it will only play audio

[TML]

In December it was mentioned in this thread that the issue was solved for desktop Spotify.
However it's definitely back again.

Just to be clear the issue with Spotify embeds on websites is different, in the sense that a desktop app fix probably will not fix that.
Those embeds also cause my monitors to disconnect, which is beyond annoying as they can appear anywhere online.

I've tried different HDMI cables but that does not help, even though I somewhat don't believe in that solution in the first place. 
HDCP has had HDMI support since 2003 and as far as I can tell the cable itself doesn't even have anything to do with HDCP. It's the devices on the two ends of the cable.

[Ivelina]

Hey again folks,

We're sad to hear that you're still experiencing issues with Spotify on external monitors and we'd like to once again gather some details in order to continue investigating.

We'd really appreciate it if you could provide us with the following info (in case you've not already done so):

• The current set-up that you're using (PC model, OS-version and monitor(s)).
• Where you've downloaded Spotify from (web page or MS store), as well as the app version.
• Is this happening in the Web Player?
• What embed(s) on what website(s) are you experiencing the issue with? 

Thanks and we'll be on the lookout!

[Dewi]

Thank you to Simitus and others who diagnosed this correctly. It's definitely Widevine DRM init that is disconnecting my entire USB, sometimes permanently.

This isn't wholly a Spotify bug, but Spotify is the only app that is initializing Widevine over and over every few minutes (due to the "music video" mode which keeps turning itself on against my wishes), making my PC unusable. It needs to be addressed - this is a *horrible* bug.

[jarandell]

I'm in Windows 11 and since I installed KB5053598 10 days ago I've had black screens again on my second screen.
I uninstalled the KB and since then sporitfy works perfectly again without black screens, whether in the web version chome/brave or in the application.

[jarandell]

i have a minisforum nucxi7; and i have tested firefox and edge too.

[UltraHwang]

I can confirm that the problem is still there.

My HW/SW config:

• HP Zbook, Windows 11 24H2 + 2 external monitor (HP 25x connected via HDMI; HP Z22n connected via HDMI to USB-C adapter)
• Spotify for Windows (64 bit) 1.2.59.514.g834e17d4 downloaded from MS Store
• Happens in the web player too (Firefox, Chrome, Edge)

[pedropanczyk]

Same issue here, external monitor connected vid USB-C to DisplayPort cable, screen goes black for a second or two when opening spotify web (open.spotify.com), no issues with desktop app (though I always had the short loop videos disabled in my desktop app). Setup:
* Lenovo LOQ 15ARP9 laptop
* USB-C to DisplayPort cable (tried various brands, currently using DP 1.4 by Zeskit)
* Lenovo Legion rq27qe monitor 
* Latest Chrome (issue persisted with all browser versions I tried, also present on Firefox)
* Latest Windows 11 (24H2)
* Latest Nvidia drivers (my computer has no igpu so everything goes through Nvidia), also tried downgrading to 566.36 with no luck

I think I occasionally experienced this on other websites but it might have been due to Spotify embeds now that I think about it, Spotify is the only one I'm able to reproduce consistently. It always happens when I open it for the first time in new session however when I close the website and re-open it the issue usually doesn't occur right away - only a long time later, particularly after computer and/or browser reboot this will happen again when loading up the website.