Spotify stops playing after seconds due to advertising domain requirements on premium account

[BrawnyBeats]

Hi!

Plan

Premium

Country

UK

Device

Windows 10 custom build

My Question or Issue

Every few songs, spotify just stops when I'm at work and behind a corporate firewall (of which I'm an admin). At home it's absolutely fine on the same device.

None of the main suggestions in the forum worked for me. I have to close and open spotify again for it to continue.
Our firewall is logging traffic to advertising domains even though I have a premium account. Advertising has no place in a school, which is why we block such domains. Advertising also has no place on a premium account, so this is a bug and it's really annoying!

Please fix this!

[Eni]

Hi there @BrawnyBeats, 

Welcome to the Community and thanks for reaching out about this. 

Could you try the following steps on your PC?:

• Check your firewall and antivirus software/apps to make sure Spotify is whitelisted or set as an exception.
• Clear any entries containing Spotify from your host files. Follow the instructions here.
• Uninstall any ad-blocker apps.
• Turn off the VPN if in use. 

Also, would you mind letting us know if this is happening in the web player as well?

Let us know how it goes 🙂

[BrawnyBeats]

Hi,

Spotify is whitelisted

Hosts file doesn't contain any spotify entries

We cannot disable adblocker on our corporate network and there shouldnt' be a need for advert access on a premium account anyway. This is a matter of security too.

No VPN is installed or running

Our firewall logs show spotify trying to access advertising URLs which are naturally blocked in our educational environment. I would have assumed spotify would not need such access if a premium account is being used.

I will await further advice.

[Ver]

Hey @BrawnyBeats,

Thanks for the confirming these details.

We've looked into this further and can now confirm on our end that Spotify is set to ensure that all ad-services and connections are functional, even on Premium accounts. This is expected behavior, as for example, some Podcasts include Streaming advertisements, even on Premium. The app is set up to stop if any adblocking technology is utilized to prevent attempts to bypass advertisements. In case there's no way to remove that, the app will stop working after repeated failed connection attempts, as you describe.

We understand that school policies can prohibit advertisements and totally get behind this for the sake of the students. However, as per our T&Cs, Spotify is for private use only, so we cannot accommodate special circumstances like the usage on non-private networks and environments.

In this situation, the only alternative we can suggest is utilizing the offline mode of either the desktop or the mobile app, to play music without any network connection attempts and saving data at the same time. You can check the steps on how to do so here.

In this case we understand that we're unable to offer a best solution for this, but we appreciate you trying the troubleshooting steps and sharing the outcome with us so we can get to the bottom of this.

If you need anything else, the Community is here for you.