Web Player: play.spotify vs open.spotify

[PixelBays]

For the past two-three weeks I've been having issues with the web player. 

The main issue seems to be that rather than seeing play.spotify in the URL, it automatically redirects me to open.spotify - this happens both when I try accessing the web player via Chrome apps, and when I input the address manually.

The layout is very different. There are less features down the left hand side, there is no control column on the right (there's just a small one at the bottom of the screen), I cannot access my friends profiles etc... The 'settings' section is also missing.

The biggest frustration of all is that music won't play!! It doesn't matter if I press the 'play' icon next to a song, in the control bar, on an artist's page...nothing happens.

I've contacted Spotify Care via Facebook, they have asked me to try several things (incl. clearing cache and cookies, trying different browsers, incognito...) nothing seems to be fixing the issue yet!

[Jenkins5million]

Its now April 2017 and this spotify webplayer using open.spotify problem has not been fixed. I'm a web developer and programmer and I would fire the developer/s with no questions asked for turning out this pile of nonsense.

I have also worked with computers for over 25 years and almost every OS from Windows to Unix to Mac to Linux and  every browser. Come on spotify whats the problem? Im sure you can do better than this. Quite frankly the whole situation is disgusting. I can imagine you losing many many customers due to this.

[oldFakebooker]

Thanks, lifz -- afterthought, perhaps I needed to add your name just to make sure you see this reply, but maybe not now that I looked at the bottom of this edit page. Anyway, back to the story: I'm getting too old (56) for this--lol. Just revived my old Windows Vista (support is ending this month) machine with the free Linux Lite installed alongside, for a dual-boot setup--which I am really happy with and proud that I did it, with the help of the internet of course. Now, I am using Linux Lite all the time. Just got back into Spotify after trying it a few years back. Installed the desktop app, which works well, but I wanted to share playlists with friends and tested the Web Player a week or so ago. It worked fine but apparently it was the old version. After a couple of days it changed to the one that looks more like the app and it gave me an error message (on both Firefox and Chromium): something went wrong, Reload. After bellyaching here in the forum and not getting the fix I was getting frustrated. I've used the user agent switcher stuff sparingly in the past but I thought I'd give it a go with your suggestion (using a Firefox version), and Voila! Thanks once again. **bleep**, get this for a follow-up an hour later. It worked that one time, but then I closed the browser and came back to try it and it failed trying to log into the player in the IE setting. With some fiddling around, I logged in regularly with the default and got the standard Reload error, then I switched the user agent, opened the player in a new tab and it worked. Ok, so it's a workaround but sheesh. Anyway, have a great day!

[Sebasty]

Desktop Spotify is nice, but it uses quite a lot of resources. Spotify uses much less when I use the web application which is play.spotify.com.
open.spotify doesn't work at all.
I am pretty sure I'll look into Deezer if Spotify forces me to upgrade my computer. 😉

I have noticed play.spotify returns after some time, but I can never be sure.

[ManuEich]

Ugh, I'm having this problem now, too. Why would you turn an okay UI (not perfect by all means) into a really unusable, function-follows-form one that only makes sense for maybe smartphones? Come on spotify! You already have apps for embedded platforms!

Oh yeah, and the desktop application doesn't work properly either (can't restore it from tray on linux mint/ubuntu), so the only option _was_ the web player. Not anymore, UI designers destroyed it completely.

I've Just read that these changes are not a bug but intentional redesign by this guy, Stanley Wood:

http://www.hellostanley.com/#designing/1

and he obviously wishes to transfer the ridiculous usability and lack of content on his website to all of spotify's interfaces.

Let's drop him a (civilized) email and tell him what we think about it:

email@hellostanley.com 

These community threads aren't read by people in power – the issue has been going on for over five months – and we only get excuses from community manager monkeys.

[kmurche]

I have had the same issues. I am a premium member, but can't download the player to my work computer (where I listen to music the most). So I am stuck using the web player and it is awful! It won't play, every time I visit the page it says there was an error and to reload (which does not work).

Also why is is that they web player looks nothing like the phone app or the download player? Specifically, I have trouble with playlists. I cant add or delete multiple songs to a playlist, if I add a duplicate song I don't get a warning, and they aren't organized in any of my folders?

[mizznillax3x]

I have been having the same problem with a couple different complications. I'm using a school issued Chromebook which means I can't download the desktop version. However, when I'm at home open.spotify works fine, the layout isn't ideal but it plays music and the rest I can navigate from my phone. But if I'm in class it won't play music at all. My friend's laptop also redirects her to open.spotify but she's able to listen to music just fine. This issue is so annoying and I'd love it if someone knew how to fix it.

[lifz]

Did you use the UA spoofer? That is the best solution for now I believe.

[vaahtera]

UA spoofer doesn't work for me. play.spotify.com is redirected to open.spotify.com and it says that the browser version is not supported. This is really annoying... Can't listen to spotify at work as we are not allowed to install any apps on our computers.

[olafk]

I hate being a metoo-poster, but I'm having the same problem. I'm a Linux user, running firefox 45.8. That used to work until yesterday - today I'm getting redirected to open.spotify.com. Which would be sad enough, because this new interface is actually a significant step back.

What makes it worse, though, is that open.spotify.com is telling me that my browser is not supported. Which means that even though I'm paying for this service I'm unable to use it.

Fairly disappointing, spotify. Thumbs down for this one.

[vaahtera]

Got this working:

1. Went with my home computer to the web player at open.spotify.com and clicked from the bottom left link for installing the app.

2. Downloaded and installed the app (allready had it installed on my computer but wanted to reinstall it in case it had been updated)

3. Started playing one song with the desktop app and paused it. Then i clicked on the bottom right "Connect to a device" and selected Listening on webplayer (Firefox)

4. Switched back to the web player (had it idling on the background) and it had synchronized the song to web player that i had played in the desktop app

5. Resumed the song from web player and it works!

I also tried to log out and back in to the web player and it still plays music. I will report tomorrow that if it works with different computer at my work.

[vaahtera]

Yep, now it works also at work. So if someone is having the same problem that i did (web player doesn't play music at all), the previous post workaround might fix it.