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Google home keeps stopping to buffer

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Google home keeps stopping to buffer

Hi, I just recently got a Google Home and I can't seem to get a consistent stream when playing spotify through the device. Spotify works flawlessly when I play through a device on the same network. Is there a way I can change the streaming bitrate for Google Home in order to get a smooth playback?

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My SSIDs are different for the 2.4GHz channels from the 5GHz.  I control the bandwidth used by directing my device to the appropriate SSID.  2.4 GHz is generally fast enough for everything I do and it has a wider range which is what is important to me.

I am in Wisconsin and I am experienceing the same problem as you described. I have uninstalled both Spotify and the Google home app multiple times and preformed multiple factory resets on my chromecast. I have also tried the linking and unlinking of my Spotify account to the Google home app. It is increasingly frustrating. I also contacted both google support and spotify suppost and neither could comprehend what was happeneing. Google said that Spotify was preforming maitenance and Spotify just had no idea. Would love some answers.

I see so many "coincidences" here. Rogers service seems to be another potential issue. We have amazing speeds in my neighbourhood, but troubling amounts of drop-offs, especially on the 5Ghz.

Not saying my suggestion makes sense, it just worked. Am trying to help others figure this out...

But in my case it worked for several months on 5ghz with no issue until one day it decided to have issues. That's why I'm not convinced it is a network band issue.

Sorry to hear about that. It certainly is frustrating dealing with these things...especially when you find a thread that says "solved" , but doesn't really work.

Here's the things that seem to have helped:

1. Turning off notifications for Home (weird, but read it in one of the threads)
2. Unlinked Spotify account, THEN switched my wifi network (from 5g to 2.4g), rebooted Google Home and relinked Spotify.
3. Restarted my phone when it bogged...

The biggest help seems to have been the network. Google says you must be on the same frequency in your network as your phone...perhaps my service provider wasn't doing this on the 5g. I am returning the router nonetheless.

Good luck all!

Can't help you there dude. Did the same for me. I'm sure it has something to do with how the frequency between your phone and Home play together. It worked for 5 months on 5g and then cropped out.

I'm just looking for any hacks that seem to help people...I'll leave the diagnostics up to the brilliant minds at Google

I called Google Support this time and they said they are going to work on the problem with spotify and will give me an update in a day or two. Incredibly frustrating that it woked fine for months and now just decides to not work. But I guess thats the way it goes. I will keep you guys updated with what they send me.

I have two Google mini and solved the buffering issue by turning off the notifications on all devices including the phone.  

So I turned off notifications 2 days ago (Although it still paused immediately after turning it off), did not make any changes to my network band...and now I have noticed there is no pausing anymore.

 

Maybe it took some time to apply the setting, I don't know. But the problem has disappeared for now.

This is how I perceive it to be:

 

The pauses encountered when listening to Spotify on Google Home are due to some sort of bottleneck in delivering the stream to Google Home.  Phones and tablets are only required to manage Google HOme settings, like linking and unlinking one's Google Home device to Spotify, but don't actually mediate or manage the stream in any way, so they should be removed from the equation.

 

Things that actually cause bottlenecks include:

  • 2.4G or 5G wireless link from router to Google Home
  • 100 Mbps hard-wired link from ISP router on my premises to my secondary router
  • local link from ISP distribution centre to its router on my premises
  • Internet connection from regional Google server to my ISP distribution centre
  • Spotify link to my regional Google server

I don't think that Google is actually setting up a direct link from Spotify regional servers to my Google Home (via my ISP), otherwise we'd see the same kind of response that we do when capturing Spotify on our non Google Home devices, so I'm betting on regional Google servers mediating the Spotify stream although Ihaven't done any resarch on it.  It just seems to make the most sense.

 

I'm guessing that Google have a distributed architecture with regional server groups distributed around the world that talk to master Google servers in a few key global locations.  These regional servers disseminate Google's content through the links I list above to Google Home devices, Chromecasts and other Google home systems.  That includes Google Home linked Spotify.

 

For some people there may be bottlenecks in their home networks or ISP links.  Either their Internet service is too slow, or their home network has sub Mbps links that slow down the stream and thus there are some who need to up their home network or Internet service.

 

But for those of us who have been using Google's own music service hiccup-free for months these downstream problems are effectively ruled out.  The problem has to be upstream somewhere between Google's regional servers and their connection to Spotify.

 

Now linking and unlinking might switch you to a different Google regional server that has a better Spotify connection so I can see how that suggestion occasionally works.  There's maybe also some weird mechanism whereby removing notifications takes some load off the Google regional server and hence might resolve the problem although that strains credulity.  In some cases loads vary.  Last night my wife said that there were no pauses in the Spotify music service over Google Home whereas the gaps were almost as long as the music this morning and I turned it off after a few minutes.

 

So if I'm right ultimately it boils down to Google improving their regional distribution servers' connections to Spotify to resolve this issue for Google Home users.

 

Or don't offer the service.

ckoleske's call to Google support did the trick, at least in my area!!

 

For the third day in a row Spotify music has played with no pauses on my Google Home.

 

Prior to that it was unusable, so annoying were the frequent pauses, which for me eventually became almost equal in length to the bursts of music that played in between.  This would be by the fourth song or so.

 

Thanks Google and Spotify.  I enjoy listening to the music even more now, remembering how bad it used to be.

using web player, Chrome versjon 66.0.3359.181- and Chrome Cast. Music is still half dead. Have been reload the palyer and the wi fi some times and it starts to play again. But after a while its stops. Very irritating every damned day!

worked for me, thanks!

How do you turn off notifications?

Ya this isn't working for me. So annoying. So glad im paying for a premium account.....Google and spotify, kids and make up already  

After having fixed it with the relinking of the account (apparently) a
month after it started happening again. I relinked once again but it still
continued breaking. I then decided to follow another advice here which was
to reconfigure the wifi settings on my Google Home and it seems to have
(temporarily?) fixed the issue.

Someone (Google or Spotify, not sure at this point) needs to fix this!
there are way too many spread cases all over the world for this to be a
client-side issue.

Did this for couple of times but still not working. Do you have other advice? Thanks

On your router, choose channel 11 (if I remember right). My google cast products became stable after I did this.

I've had a Google Home since October and everything worked fine until about 3 weeks ago when I started having the buffering problem on Spotify. I'm on a 360Mb fibre network in Ireland so it's definitely not a speed problem and everything else works fine. I tried the unlinking and rebooting but it didn't work. Eventually switched it to 2.4 and that seems to have fixed it but it's not ideal, I'd far rather use 5. I'm not impressed by how many people are affected yet Google and Spotify between them can't seem to come up with an answer.

Having spent over an hour on the chat with Google today - I have to say you might be on to something. 

 

I have been having the same problems with Spotify but only on the Google home, all other devices stream Spotify without a problem. 

 

Google went through all of the suggestions but nothing worked.  They even requested I change my router settings - which I did but still no success. They said they will escalate but I've already lost confidence and been out to purchase alexa this morning who works perfectly with spotify. 

 

I guess the Google home will be going home tomorrow! (back to the shop) - it's a shame but we love Spotify in our house. 

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