Podcasts not playing on external devices

[jazzpazz]

Plan

Premium

Country

Australia

Device

iPhone 12 Pro, MacBook Pro, Google Nest Hub, Google Nest Mini, Google Home Max

Operating System

iOS 15.1.1, MacOS 12.01

My Question or Issue

Spotify podcasts stopped working on Google Home connected speakers.

1. When I ask Google Home to play Spotify podcasts, or when I cast from my iPhone to a Google speaker and try to play a podcast, nothing happens.

2. When a podcast episode comes up in a playlist (e.g. Daily Drive) while the playlist is playing on a Google speaker (either direct or casting), the episode is skipped without notice and only music tracks are playing.

The issue became apparent this week but might have been present in December 2021.

Steps taken already did not resolve the problem:

- logged out on Spotify mobile

- updated Spotify on mobile

- unlinked and re-linked Spotify in Google Home app

- restarted my router

Please help!

[jazzpazz]

Hi Alex! 

The problem is as outlined before:

- Starting a podcast on the phone and attempting to Spotify Connect to the smart speaker won't work. It fails to establish the connection.

- Connecting via Spotify Connect AND THEN starting a podcast on the phone doesn't work. The Play button does nothing.

- Playing a playlist that contains songs and podcast episodes: The podcast episodes are skipped.

- Starting a podcast via voice command on the smart speaker: The speaker affirms the command but nothing is playing.

I have narrowed the problem down to my Spotify account rather than an issue with a device or service. Connecting a different Spotify Premium account to my setup works as expected. 

It seems like there's now a few people here with the exact same problem.

[grayhassmann]

We seem to have narrowed-down that the problem is a Spotify issue within our specific accounts.
Let’s hope they provide us with a solution soon that is quick and painless.

[Alex]

Hi folks,

Thanks for the posts and the information you've provided here.

We'd recommend reaching out to our Customer Support team through one of the channels here. They'll be able to look at your account in more detail.

We agree that by the sounds of it, it does indeed seem to be some account specific issue, some type of account corruption.

In this case, it might become necessary to create a new account, and we know this can be frustrating, but that just might be the only solution.

Our support team should be able to make this transition as smooth as possible. They will be happy helping you transfer all your music library and settings over, so that it's almost like using your old account.

Hope you find this info helpful 🙂

[grayhassmann]

Oh, neat!



*no kudos*

[ericachase]

Do you or anyone at Spotify know at all why all of our accounts would be corrupted? At around the same time? I’ve been using this account for many years and a solution of “create a new account” without knowing why is extraordinarily frustrating and honestly pretty lazy. I’m a software developer and designer by trade and if a number of our users had account issues we’d at least try to figure out why before telling them to delete their accounts. 

[jazzpazz]

I've reached out to support and was guided through creating a new account and transferring my data and settings. The whole process took about 2.5 hours via Livechat and 3 different support agents. The problem is now solved for me.

For anyone else with this issue I recommend reaching out to support on livechat rather than following the guide linked in this thread. The guide is a very manual and laborious process however support can just clone your account for you which is more accurate.

I'm pretty surprised that the only solution for this problem is to create a new account but at least I didn't lose any data apart from followers and friends I was following.

[grayhassmann]

*this*

I’m also a developer and baffled by Spotify’s lack of quality control and effort.
In my business, we would find and fix the error across all accounts so that the error/failure in our product wouldn’t continue to plague our paying customers.

We also wouldn’t make our paying clients do the legwork to fix our mistakes. If we did, we’d get fired in a heartbeat.

[BaconAddict]

Sounds very similar to a long-ignored thread over here:

https://community.spotify.com/t5/Ongoing-Issues/Unable-to-stream-BBC-podcasts-to-Wi-Fi-speaker/idc-p...

[meganfortheanimals]

I'm very disheartened to see that this is an unresolved known issue from Spotify. the fact that we don't really have a choice in streaming music providers means they can ignore long standing issues while continuing to charge us money despite not being able to access all features we pay for. I listen to a "podcast" to fall asleep, 10 hours of rain sounds, and for the past two nights now I've incurred the issue being discussed here. I've attempted all troubleshooting steps on my own and nothing works. I've now contacted the support team but I have no hope that this will actually help. the fact that your "resolution" seems to be telling people to just create an account is UNACCEPTABLE. I've had my account for years and my music selection is curated specifically. I have no interest whatsoever in starting over and would rather switch to a paid Amazon Music account if that is the case. it doesn't seem like Spotify cares enough to even attempt an actual resolution of this issue which says so much about them as a company. if I'm expected to put in hours worth of effort to solve an issue you KNOW is happening, where is my compensation for doing YOUR job? a minimum 3 months of credit on Premium is the LEAST I would expect, yet you offer nothing. 

[jabarhead]

Creating a new account DID NOT work.

I spent the 2 hours creating a new account with Spotify staff.

Afterward, it worked temporarily. I could stream podcasts to alexa devices AND I could ask alexa to play podcasts and she'd play them.

NOW... it's back to being Spotify-broken. I can't stream podcasts to devices from gadgets NOR will alexa play podcasts when asked verbally.

Still being charged for a broken account. 

Please advise.

[lebasi-us]

I'm having same issue - Spotify podcast will not play to google devices. It will  play music no issue. Both podcasts and music played to these devices up until last week? When I try to switch from music to a podcast it won't let me select the podcast. If I start out with a podcast a choose a device to stream to in Spotify Connect and notIt just says connecting but never does.

I have done the following and situation remains the same.

- deleted, clean reinstalled on iPhone 11 Pro 15.2.1.

- deleted and reinstalled Google home app

- rebooted wifi

- verified firmware for google devices (google mini & Chromecast audio) was current

I want to SCREAM!!!

[lebasi-us]

same**bleep** here! And forum says issue is fixed. which is bulls hit.

Podcasts won't cast to anything other than MacBook or iPhone vice versa. Spent most of the day with support and the first solution thrown out was creating another account. Which is unacceptable. Tested 2 accounts  - first one could cast podcasts the 2nd couldn't.

Support said they ONLY HAVE 2 accounts with issues?? Why am I paying for this **bleep**?

[lebasi-us]

Did I mention that an account transfer IS NOT A SOLUTION!!!

It's a WORKAROUND.

[lebasi-us]

Agreed - long running issue - AND I was told TODAY only 2 accounts have issues like this. Agreed - transfer account not acceptable as a solution - Creating a new account and not knowing why the first account became "corrupted" doesn't FIX anything because it could happen again. and if does you're **bleep** because support said its only done 2xs per year - in order to protect our information - makes no sense. IT is LAZY on Spotify's part.

[lebasi-us]

Just tried to play podcast on another piece of equipment - my Xfinity cable box. Music no issues Podcasts nothing happens.

[Kiril]

Hey @lebasi-us,

Thanks for reaching out on the Community!

Great that you've done so much troubleshooting already, but sorry to hear it didn't help you resolve the situation. If in doubt you've done the clean reinstall of the app the right way, you can check out the linked guide and repeat the steps if you wish. Check if this will make any difference for you.
 

In case this doesn't help, we suggest reaching out to our Support team through any of these channels, so they can take a look at your account and give you a hand with this.

Hope this is useful. If you need a hand with anything else, the Community is here for you.

[lebasi-us]

Thanks but been there done that with support. 7 different folks. Clean install twice.

The only "Fix" offered was an "account transfer" - which is NOT a solution. It's lazy workaround.

Question?

1) people that have this issue - is the account plan premium w/Hulu?

2) was an "account transfer" offered as solution in order to purge customers on this plan because it is no longer offered? - a new account would not transfer this plan correct??

[tripllle]

My account has this issue and I have always paid for it directly, not as part of a bundle. 

I do, however, have a Spotify CarThing and it's possible it started around the time that device was added to my account.

[bhborba]

I'm also with the same problem since last year. The support team just don't know what to do or don't answer me

[audreybarron]

I am having the same problem. Spotify music plays on my Amazon Echo but podcasts will not. I’m not going to start a new account. Spotify needs to fix this. Crazy making.