Connection problems to Onkyo amp via wifi

[Alex9999]

My partner and I have a Spotify duo account. While I can generally easily stream music from Spotify to our Onkyo amp over wifi, my partner can connect sometimes but then her phone and computer simply stop "seeing" the amp anymore, it stops appearing on the Available Devices menu. It is not the amp that causes problems as its possible to connect to it via the Onkyo app, and I can connect and stream to it. Any idea why her Spotify suddenly "stops seeing" the amp and what we can do to prevent that from happening?

Plan

Spotify duo

Device

Phone and laptop

Operating System

iOS 10

[aiemdavalrus]

Hello Alex9999,

I have seen the very same behavior and that led me to your message.

My guess is that the appliance (I have a different brand) will be "attached" to one account and will stay attached there until that account does not use it for a while, then yet a little longer. After that, it becomes again available and can be found by the second account. 

It's frustrating to have to wait to switch and I haven't found any method to speed up the process.

I surely hope something can and will be done by Spotify itself (e.g. in the app) and that the problem won't be thrown in appliance manufacturer's lap.

Good luck!  

[Mihail]

Hey there @Alex9999 and @aiemdavalrus,

Thanks for searching for the answer you need here! 

If the device you want to use for playback is supported and connected over the same internet network to the device you want to control Spotify from, it should show up in the Connect menu. You can check which devices are supported here. 

If that's not the case, some of the apps files might have gotten damaged and causing such connectivity issues. This can usually be remedied by performing a clean reinstall using the steps here. This way all files get built anew from the ground up.

If that doesn't fix things, could you let us know if the issue comes up with other internet networks as well?

Hope you find this useful. Let us know how you get on.

[aiemdavalrus]

Hello Mihail and thank you for responding.

As you can see in both my post and Alex9999' one, the trouble comes when there are TWO phones with a Duo subscription, which ALTERNATIVELY want to stream through the same device which supports Spotify Connect.

In my case, I usually use my account to stream via the amp and everything works. However, my wife's phone, with her account (part of Duo contract), does not see the amp in the menu. If I do not use the amp for a while (say one hour or even more), occasionally her phone can pick up the amp and Connect works as expected. And keeps working from then on.

But then MY phone cannot see the amp anymore, until she stops using it (again for some annoyingly long interval).

Since my device is a different brand than Alex's I believe it's a limitation of the Connect protocol, which was designed for only one account being shadowed by a streaming device at any time. I also think should be corrected or some workaround should be found by Spotify, then eventually be pushed to device vendors, to offer smooth behavior for Duo subscribers.

Thank you.

[Mihail]

Thanks for the clarification @aiemdavalrus!

Our initial assumption matches yours and what you describe sounds like the plausible cause. We also think this probably varies from one device to another and how they handle the Spotify API.

We can still forward your feedback to the right team so they are aware of this and it is possibly fixed in a future update.

Can you and @Alex9999 please share the following:

• The brand and exact model of the third-party device you're playing music from.
• Your and your partner's phone model and OS version.

Thanks in advance!

[aiemdavalrus]

Thank you Mihail for following up with this issue.

My amp is a Marantz but I am afraid that is all the info I am prepared to offer on this public forum.

If a Spotify dev team really wants to follow up I am sure they can find a way to contact me. I believe they can also get a pretty good idea about the make and OS of my devices based only on my forum handle but that's an entire different subject ;).

Nevertheless, in that context I'll try to be more helpful with reproducing the issue and other steps towards finding a fix or a workaround. I do know my way around networking, protocols and stuff.

Thank you again for being involved. I will try to mark your answer as good answer if the forum interface lets me to.

[Alex9999]

Thank you for following up on this issue. I have an Onkyo amp, and we use iPhones to connect to the device to stream Spotify music. It is clearly an issue with Spotify, because I can connect to the amp from the app on my phone even when Spotify does not locate it. 

[aiemdavalrus]

Sorry Mihail, there is no "Accept as Solution" link or button on my interface. Probably there shouldn't be one. I suppose it's available only to Alex9999.