Windows App won't play without messing with soundcard quality

[neil_g]

Background - Windows 10 1903, External USB DAC/Soundcard, Spotify Premium, app set to default to max quality.

The Spotify desktop app has recently started throwing "spotify can't play this right now" errors at me. I've tried all of the usual suggestions, deleting the appdata local files etc etc.

The only thing I can do to get it all working again is to drop my soundcard settings down to 44.1k, start playing some content, then put the settings back up again (can go all the way to 384k) and then everything works as it should.

Rebooting however goes back to square one.

Extremely frustrating little dance every time I want to play some music. I don't want to keep having to faff around with soundcard settings every day.

[Sebasty]

Hey @neil_g 

That's a strange issue you're having there!

In general, Spotify will work properly up to 192kHz (here's a thread on this). It's interesting yours works above that, after the switching.

What soundcard do you have? 🙂

I had some specific issues with bitrate and buffer size - when my buffer size is too small, higher bitrates don't work in Spotify.. or any app for that matter.

Let me know how you get on! 

[neil_g]

Yeah, it's only a very recent issue. I've had this set up for about 12 months now.

It's a SMSL SU-8 DAC running from USB using its XMOS USB DAC Driver.

Interesting, I didn't know about the 24bit/192k limit. I can switch it back to 32bit/384k in Windows Sound settings which reports back on the DAC LCD and everything works perfectly (techincally this DAC can go to 32bit/768k or DSD512 but I've not tried that).

For reference when Spotify wont play, Windows sounds and any other app works fine.

[Sebasty]

@neil_g 

Sample rate shouldn't be causing any issues, other users can use 32bit setting fine. Bitrate causes issues for many users. 

You could try reinstalling the audio drivers. It's really interesting it's just a recent issue, do you remember changing anything prior to when it started happening? Windows updates? 🙂

[neil_g]

Sorry for the delay. Just happened again.. cannot play, down rate the bits to 96k for example, start playing (which works), then revert back to 384k and is then fine.

No nothing specific that could've caused it. There have been a handful of updates including the 1903.

I notice a LOT of other recent posts about "cannot play right now", maybe Spotify app updated and triggered something.