First song in playlists not playing (or album singles)

[appledude9]

Plan

Premium

Country

USA

Device

Tesla

My Question or Issue

This has happened on a few different playlists. Attached is a video from my "liked songs" playlist, but it also has happened in "release radar". Occasionally, the first song will not play and it automatically switches to the next song. (One time however, it actually went to the third song in the playlist, so maybe the first two in that playlist at that time were problematic?). If I go to the song's 'single' (Overwhelmed, in this example) it also does not play, so the issue isn't with the playlist specifically, but with the track as I'm unable to play the track from any album/playlist. 

I then tried to play the track from my iOS Spotify app and stream it to the Tesla but that also does not work. When I attempt this, the track shows that it's playing on the iOS device but there's nothing happening on the Tesla. 

[appledude9]

Update: I logged out of my account and logged back in, the behavior did not change

The first song I noticed this happened with was "Text Book" by Lana Del Ray. I tried to play this song again too, and the same behavior occurs as in the video. If I search for the song and play it, the play button switches between play/pause a few times, then just stops. Currently, that song and the original in the post ("Overwhelmed") are impossible to play. 

[CarlosE]

Hi there @appledude9,

Thanks for reaching out about this here in the Community!

Just to confirm, does that only happen with those two songs or it does with the first song on any playlist regardless of the song?

We'd also like to know if when those two songs are in any other place in the playlist they're played correctly. 

Keep us posted.

[appledude9]

Hi Carlos.

Sorry for the confusion caused by the title of the topic and my lack of detail in the post! After playing around, it seems to be isolated to certain tracks, regardless of playlist. It just so happened that these tracks when in a playlist (either 'liked songs' or 'release radar', it happened to be the first song of the playlist). But indeed, these songs can't be played standalone, either, if explicitly searched for via the Tesla UI. While I cannot yet say with certainty, I do believe if the song was in any spot in a playlist it did not play, but I can try and create a playlist to confirm this suspicion.

Interestingly, if I then try to play the song on my iOS device and stream it to the Tesla via Connect, the song still doesn't play. Rather, what happens here is the song says that it's playing on the iPhone screen (but says that it's actually playing, aka the audio is coming via the Tesla via Connect). However, the track doesn't actually play and the Tesla screen is static as shown in the video (song is selected but status bar is not moving). Frustratingly, when these problematic tracks pop up, Spotify seems to stop working in general in this regard. That is, if I then switch to a different track on the iOS device, it will not play on the Tesla (but it looks like it is based on the iPhone screen, just no audio on the Tesla, and no visual changes either. The screen is still stuck on the problematic track). Despite this, I can still play songs on the Tesla via the UI there (although it takes a bit longer than usual), so these hiccups only seem to break the 'Connect' functionality when playing via the iPhone via Connect

I know this is a lot of info for a very odd problem, so please let me know if you need any other clarification, etc. Short answer: it's not so much a playlist issue, it's isolated to specific tracks. The song "Text Book" by LDR came out a few weeks ago and has consistently been impossible to play in the Tesla, playlist or not, so indeed it seems to be a track issue

Update: I tried to play one of the problematic songs via Connect (using my iPhone) and rather than the phone screen suggesting it's playing as mentioned before, it now exhibits the same behavior in app as it does on the car (attached video)

[Jeremy]

Hit here @appledude9,

Thank you for your reply and for your detailed information.

Can you perform a clean reinstall of the app? This will make sure there's no old cache files causing this.

If that doesn't do the trick, can you try to play the songs from a different account - such as a friend's or a family member's to see if the issue persist? This will help us understand if it's account related or not.

We'll keep an eye out for your reply.

Cheers!

[appledude9]

Hi. The app is built-in to the Tesla and cannot be deleted/re-installed/etc. I reached out to Tesla support but they have said they believe it's a Spotify issue. I have a friend with Spotify and I can ask them to try their account in the vehicle

[CarlosE]

Hi there @appledude9,

Thanks for keeping us posted.

Take your time to try it with another account and let us know how that goes. This would help us determine if this is account-related or if it's definitely something wrong with those specific tracks when playing them via Connect.

Additionally, send us the URI/links of the tracks that are causing this so we can take a better look.

We'll be looking out for your reply.

[appledude9]

Hi Carlos. The two song URI are spotify:track:50J98YfyIUVLWbXoQZambN and spotify:track:5jjZikDrEd0by1o7V3fO4y

[CarlosE]

Hey @appledude9,

Thanks for getting back in touch.

We've checked and everything seems to be ok with those specific tracks when playing them directly or via Connect, so this might be related to either the account somehow or the Tesla built-in app. Let us know as soon as you've tried using your friend's account to see how it goes.

Keep us posted.

[appledude9]

Hi, 

I finally had a chance to use another person's Spotify account. The issue persisted. When we logged in to their account on the Tesla, the song would not play and displayed the same behavior as before. That is, Text Book by Lana Del Rey for example would toggle between the play/pause button when attempted to be played, and after a few seconds would stop attempting to play and the end result is that the song does not play. Thus, it does not seem account related.

[Ivan]

Hey @appledude9, 

Thanks for keeping us in the loop. 

Could you confirm if this happens only when playing Spotify in your Tesla? We suggest testing how it goes when playing Spotify also elsewhere, for example at home or on mobile. 

If you observe this only when playing in Tesla, it's possible that the tracks aren't currently yet available for the Tesla account. 

Hope this helps. Keep us in the loop here. 

[appledude9]

This occurs in the Tesla regardless of how the track is accessed, whether through the Tesla touchscreen itself (my default method), or if done on the iOS app to control the Tesla via Spotify Connect. This I summarized in more detail in previous posts.

The issue does not occur elsewhere though, such as the iOS app playing on the iPhone itself, or any other device I've tried (desktop app). 

Edit: I posted in Tesla forums as well to see if others have the issue, too. And they do. One user has reported that a song called "It's a Sin" by the artist Ghost has the same issue (I have not tried to verify this myself), to add to the list of seemingly random tracks that do not play

[Ver]

Hey @appledude9,

Thanks for the info 🙂

There appears to be some incompatibility for those particular songs with the Tesla integration.

A reason for this could be that as some content isn't available on all platforms, you might have stumbled to some of those cases.

As a workaround you could try playing directly from your phone via Bluetooth or establish a similar direct connection.

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

[appledude9]

As Spotify, don't you have access to what songs are available on what platforms? If so, can you verify that these songs are indeed not available on the Tesla platform? If they should be available, then I would think there's an issue with the Spotify 'app' on Tesla. 

If they are indeed unavailable, is there a reason why these random songs will play on Spotify mobile app/desktop app/etc but not on the Tesla? I can't imagine Lana Del Rey says "my new single is available on Spotify, but not if streaming in a Tesla".

I signed up for Spotify Premium to be able to play music on my car's touchscreen but if Spotify isn't able to provide the experience I will likely cancel my subscription. I can't fathom why I can play a song on my iPhone but not in my car

[Novy]

Hey @appledude9, 

Thanks for your message. 

We understand where you're coming from. However, we don't have much info about this at the moment. 

We really appreciate you taking the time to share your feedback with us, and will make sure to pass it on to the right folks as we always strive to improve our users' experience. 

Take care.

[appledude9]

Hi Novy,

I understand there won't be an instantaneous answer, certainly. But I've seen many threads on here listed as "under investigation" and the like. In my opinon this seems to be an issue where tracks refuse to play on some devices (i.e. Tesla), and I don't think it's intentional behavior as suggested by another Spotify moderator above. Basically, if there's a possible bug, I would hope Spotify would actually investigate it (and contact Tesla software folks if need be; I tried to myself as well). Based on your reply though, it seems like you might have let the appropriate team(s) know and if so that is much appreciated. 🙂

As I have posted the issue on a couple Tesla forums to gauge if I'm the only one, I can say with confidence I am indeed not alone, and thus a resolution in the future would be wonderful as it is a phenomenon affecting multiple users. While I have other bugs that affect my Spotify experience in the Tesla (I've posted these as well, the main one is that a shuffled playlist always re-shuffles when I switch between Mac/iOS and Tesla), having songs simply refuse to play as outlined in this thread seems more problematic.

Please let me know if you need other things from me, including videos of the issue. And yes please raise this to the powers that be if not done already. Thank you!

[Jeremy]

Hi @appledude9,

Thank you for getting back in touch with us.

We've indeed brought this up for internal discussion, which is how we've come to the conclusion mentioned above, that this might be a track availability issue.

Unfortunately, it's not as easy as it might seem for us to get to the bottom of this, when there's a third-party integration involved, as we can only directly check availability on the apps we fully develop: Android, iOS and PC/Mac. Other integrations user our API and individual configuration are possible, which would require a substantial resource and partner involvement to figure out.

We're happy to cooperate with our partners on resolving Spotify integration issues and it's not excluded that it could be tackled in the future. Moreover, catalog refreshes occur regularly, so if this indeed is due to an availability issue, it could change at any time.

However, we don't want to provide false expectations and promises, so that's why we wish to be transparent here and say that for the time being at least, we're not able to provide a solution, except the workaround to play these individual songs from a playlist on the phone, via bluetooth.

We hope they understand.

Take care!