Spotify URI time codes not working anymore

[reditec01]

Plan

Premium

Country

Germany

Operating System

Windows / Mac

My Question or Issue

Hi there!
I'm using Spotify Desktop for a music research project where we have to play music at very specific positions. E.g. Track 15, minute 1, second 23. With the Spotify API our project can create those URI links which can be opened with the Desktop player and the Desktop player starts playing the given track at the given time. This used to work on Spotify Desktop for Windows and Mac. However, since the new UI got rolled out, this doesn't work anymore. The client always starts the first track at 00:00. Can you please bring this feature back? It's awesome and very important for our project!

The links look like this (spotify uri):

spotify:track:2A3AlFm0YW1oWw6X9N10aF#0:2

spotify:track:3IjmPBUqQ7ur8IULp8mkCt#0:55

[EthanS1]

Hey @reditec01,

Thanks for posting, I see you have also posted in the New Desktop Experience Thread. 

As mentioned in the postings on the thread:

The Spotify Community Moderator team is monitoring this thread in order to track the experience reported by users and coordinate with the right teams.

---

All feedback is being collated and is being sent directly back to the right teams for their consideration and also for their visibility so they are aware of the feedback which everyone is providing.

All the best,

[Matthau]

I'm facing the same issue (Spotify Desktop Client v1.1.48.625 under macOS 11.0.1 ).

This bug seemed to be temporarily fixed in v1.1.47.684 but is now ocurring again: The URIs always open the first track of the album starting at 0:00, even though a valid track id different from the first track's id and a timecode different from 0:0 is provided in the URI. Logging out and in again or completeley removing and reinstalling the Desktop Client didn't help, unfortunately. Please fix this, being able to link to a specific passage in a specific track was one of the key features for me to choose Spotify.

[CarlosE]

Hi there @Matthau,

Thanks for reaching out to the Community and welcome!

If that started happening after an update and you have the New Desktop Experience (new UI), then this is expected. However, we want to hear your thoughts and feedback about it, so we recommend heading to the feedback thread that @EthanS1 mentioned above.

This is constantly being monitored and discussed by the right folks in order to improve the users' overall experience based on the feedback provided.

You can also Subscribe to it so you can be on top of all the new updates we share about it.

We hope this helps. If you have any questions, give us a shout.

Cheers!

[Matthau]

Hi Carlos,

many thanks for your reply. Unfortunately I'm not able to post anything in the New Desktop Experience Thread at the moment since I could not get past the captchas. As for the new Desktop Client, I can live with the UI changes, but killing a functionality that users and developers are relying on is really disappointing. Could you explain to me from a UX point of view how it could be expected behaviour to always link to the first album track when the URI contains the id of another track? Interestingly, at least the open.spotify.com URLs still link to a specific track although it is not possible to start playing the track from a specific timestamp (like it is possible with youtube and used to be possible with the old Spotify Desktop Client).

Cheers,

Matthau

[CarlosE]

Hey @Matthau,

Thanks for getting back in touch.

Just to clarify, the URIs should indeed work in the new client, opening the specific track the URI belongs to. What isn't available in the new client is the ability to open a URI on a specific timestamp.

An update of the desktop app was recently released, so we recommend reinstalling the app again to make sure you're running the latest version. Then, try to open a URI (without the timestamp at the end) and let us know if it starts playing the intended track or if it plays the first one of the album.

On another note, we're sorry to hear you're experiencing some issues when trying to post on the feedback thread. We recommend giving it a try using an incognito/private window and a different browser. Trying from a different device could be helpful too.

Keep us posted. We'll be on the lookout.

[Matthau]

Thanks for the advice, I will try using the URIs without timestamps. For our web application which uses those timestamps this means some code changes, unfortunately.

Could you therefore please tell me why you removed the ability to open the client on a specific timestamp after all? Will this ability ever be  re-added to the Desktop Client? If not, could you at least add it to the web player and/or the mobile app?

As a part of our research project we've been encouraging our users who haven't used Spotify before to install the Desktop Client. This way we could offer them an elegant means to access specific parts of radio dramas without having to upload audio samples and thereby probably violating copyright laws.

However, since the timestamps are not working anymore our main point to convince our users to use Spotify (and possibly become paying customers) is gone now. Wouldn't this point of sales outweigh a minor effort on your side to make a once working feature work again?

[Eni]

Hi @Matthau,

Thanks for getting back in touch.

We’re always testing possible improvements and new features, so you might see something on the app that other users don't, or get a brand-new feature for only a temporary period.

We really value your feedback as it helps inform our decisions going forward so we suggest that you leave it on the thread mentioned before. 

We'll be here if you need help with anything else.

[Matthau]

Hi @CarlosE, apparently in v1.1.51.382 the URIs now open a specific track again even when they contain a timecode (which is still functionless, unfortunately) . I also noticed that opening a new track via URI while another track is playing doesn't stop the current track like it used to. Instead, one has to pause the current track manually for opening a new track via URI.

Thank you anyway for forwarding this matter to your developers and kudos to them for providing a fallback to that "legacy" case. If you now enable linking to a timestamp within the track again, you'd earn my eternal gratitude! 🙏

[Ivan]

Hey @Matthau, 

Thanks for keeping us posted. 

We're always glad to help you here. Rest assured the right folks are already looking into this after we passed on all feedback provided in the thread. 

To make sure you won't miss a thing we recommend keeping your Spotify app updated to the latest version. 

Cheers! 

[ab199]

Was this ever fixed? I open this on macos and it opens spotify on the correct episode  but not to the timestamp.

spotify:episode:6PyTZUY9FqRa51ZfWCFl3Q?si=rF4cLTHzT0qhC4ZM0bqSKg#123:00

[Elena]

Hey @ab199,

Thanks for bringing this up.

The podcast timestamp sharing works only on mobile devices for the time being. Here is how to do it:

1. Launch the Spotify app on your phone.
2. You can see new episodes of the podcasts you subscribe to on your home screen, or you can navigate to Your Library > Podcasts & Shows.
3. Listen until you find the spot in the episode you want to share.
4. Tap the Share button at the bottom right of the screen (you don’t even have to pause).
5. Toggle the button next to Share from and make sure that it’s green.
6. Tap the app you want to use to share.
7. The person who receives the link will be able to listen from the same spot you were. All they need to do is click the link.

But as we strive to constantly improve the listening experience on Spotify, maybe soon this option will also be available on the desktop app or the web player.

Hope this helps,

Cheers!

[Lerumsbo]

Why is this still not possible in ordinary sound tracks?

It is really simple feature to implement that 10s of thousands want: be able to save a track to a playlist with start time xx:xx and share tracks with start time xx:xx. Make it happen, other apps have...