Wrong Daily Drive playlist triggered by Google Assistant

[thegdthadman]

Premium Account.

I have a daily routine set up in Google Assistant that launches on a Google Home device. Each morning, the last action in the routine tells Assistant to play "my daily drive playlist."

Until this week, the Daily Drive curated playlist would begin, with the daily intro, some songs, and the NPR and What A Day podcasts mixed in. This week, that has all changed. What ends up playing is a Spotify-created playlist called Daily Drive that contains multiples of a week's worth of Daily Drive intros. A repetition of "It's Monday," "It's Tuesday," "It's Wednesday," you get the picture.

This is greatly annoying. What is frustrating is that the name of both playlists is exactly the same, Daily Drive, so there appears to be no way to structure the GA command to play the one with content that I want to listen to.

[thegdthadman]

Hi folks,

Thank you for your replies. 

After doing some digging and research, we found  this issue has been reported in different ways. The most recent one in this thread. 

To quote the official reply given there, everything that the Spotify app does during this process is communicating with the Assistant API, following the received instructions and playing what the Assistant has requested.

We've let the right team know about this and we continuously work with Google on improving the Spotify integration, but it might be worth reporting this to their support from the user's end as well, as it does sound like the Assistant needs to be trained better to pick the followed playlists.

Let us know if you have any questions.

[thegdthadman]

The problem is with Google home that clearly tells Spotify to play the wrong playlist or song.

My suggestion is to create a new playlist with a unique name, and add the daily drive,or whatever, to it. Then create a routine on Google assistant that makes it playing that creates playlist 

I tell Google simply "daily drive" and it does play my daily drive.

It's a workaround, but if it does the magic .

[dacolemon]

Hi there,

I’ve been having more or less the exact same problem and was hoping based on this thread that I have been solved. But no luck. Please help!

I’ve tried all of the above voice commands using Google assistant on my Google nest to hopefully trigger the daily Drive playlist as my morning alarm.

I’ve been trying to get it to work for several weeks now. Originally, trying different commands would trigger the album with all the various daily drive intros. But now the commands trigger something called a “daily drive podcast” instead.

Any guidance is incredibly appreciated!

[dacolemon]

I should clarify that I am not attempting to add the playlist in a routine. Simply using voice commands to have the Google nest device schedule an alarm.

[thegdthadman]

Okay, now it's just getting worse. Daily Drive playlist won't trigger at all in my morning routine, and now it cannot be started by voice. This morning, after being told "Something went wrong" at the end of the routine and being met by silence, I said to Google Home "play my daily drive playlist." Going into my Assistant Activity history confirms it heard me correctly, yet both times I gave this command, Spotify played some song called Daily Drive by CIVO.

At this point, I am admitting defeat and will not expect to include Spotify in my weekday morning routine.

Rename Daily Drive playlist to something unique or fix the Google Assistant integration, or something. At this point I'm no longer willing to continue to exercise patience with iterative testing. Please just fix this so that it works as expected/touted.

[CarlosE]

Hey folks,

Thanks for reporting this to us.

First, we'd recommend trying a clean reinstall of the app on your device by following the steps here.

If after that you’re still having trouble with this, could you provide us with the following info:

• Device + OS version
• Exact Spotify version
• Example of a couple of commands you tried and the URI of the result
• Does this happen when trying to set up a routine? If so,  Google Home/Nest app's version
• Troubleshooting steps you've tried (e.g. different Internet connection, reinstalling the apps, unlinking/relinking Spotify from the Google account, etc.)

Once we have that, we will pass it on to the relevant team, who will look further into it.

Thanks!

[ajcyr44]

Reinstallation did not have any affect.

• Pixel 5, Android 11 with April 5th patch
• Spotify version 8.6.20.1063

Everything else you asked has been documented in this thread.

[Xenia]

Hey everyone,

It's been a while since we received any new contacts or reports, so we're now moving this thread back to the help boards.

If you're still having trouble with this, make sure to comment with the info we asked for and we'll be happy to help.

Cheers!

[ajcyr44]

This problem has been fixed for me. Thank you!

[Coliver]

I am having this same issue, I have a routine that runs every morning and is supposed to end with the Daily Drive playlist thats automatically generated by Spotify. But it the last few days its stopped running this playlist and instead plays the song "Daily Drive" by CIVO. I have tried every solution I can think of but nothing is working. Please fix this issues ASAP.

[Alex]

Hey @Coliver,

Thanks for the post.

Can you try unfollowing and re-following the Daily Drive? If that doesn't work try going into CIVO's artist page on Mobile and blocking the artist by clicking on Don't Play This from the 3-dot menu.

Let us know if that helps.

[Coliver]

Blocking CIVO was actually the first thing I tried but it didn't work, Spotify just starts playing music similar to the artist. I just tried unfollowing and refollowing the Daily Drive playlist but that didn't work either.

[MafeG]

Hi @Coliver,

Thank you for your reply.

Can you try testing different voice commands to see if there's a difference in the results you get? The commands were shared by @Novy, but I'll post them again:

• Play my Daily Drive
• Play your Daily Drive
• Play my Daily Drive playlist
• Play your Daily drive playlist
• Play Daily Drive
• Play Daily Commute
• Play my Daily Commute
• Play my Daily Commute playlist

Please give them a try and let us know if there's any change, this will greatly help us keep working on this.

Keep us posted.

[Coliver]

Hello,
I did try the commands that were previously suggested in this thread but
none of them worked, they would either lead back to the album by CIVO or
they would play something else entirely.

[MafeG]

Hi @Coliver,

Thank you for your reply and trying these out. 

As a heads up, we've reported this and are working with Google to improve the experience when using voice commands. For now, it would be best if you keep your devices up to date, so you don't miss any updates.

Lastly, we also recommend you folks reach out to Google, so they can look at what's happening from their end too.

Don't hesitate to reach out again if you have questions.

[ajcyr44]

Just adding my contribution - also having this issue. It was resolved temporariliy but it has returned. Similar to OP blocking and unfollowing and other suggestions haven't fixed anything.

I'm also having this issue persist with my other automatic playlists, like Daily Mix 1 - which plays an album with a similar name.

[Coliver]

I'm still having this issue and like the post above me (from ajcyr44) the problem has spread to all my other playlists that are automatically generated by Spotify. I have also discovered that the problem isn't just with Google Assistant, Amazon Alexa also does not play the correct items when I attempt to use voice commands or routines.

[Alex]

Hey folks,

Thanks for reaching out about this.

We recommend checking whether there are any pending firmware updates on your smart devices and let those install.

Let us know if the issue continues afterwards.

[Coliver]

All firmware is up to date, I do not believe this is related to firmware at all because I am also having the issue with the assistant on my phone. There is something wrong with the assistant itself. I have attached screenshots from my assistant app showing what happens when I try to ask it to play the daily drive playlist. 

Look, I realize that this is a first world problem and you guys probably have bigger issues to worry about but in order for routines to work properly voice commands like this need to work properly.

I also get that this is a problem that's probably going to need to be fixed by Google but it's next to impossible to get support for their products, I've tried to go through the proper support channels but I am ignored.

[ajcyr44]

Same as Coliver. I noticed this problem primarily on Google Assistant on my
phone. Software is up to date, and the problem persists..

[thegdthadman]

It's very disappointing that this seemingly simple but annoying problem persists. To date, I have cleared the field that requests a specific playlist in my Routine and left it blank. Now, when my morning alarm Routine goes off, it plays from a subset of recommended playlists (usually a "This Is ___" playlist from recommendations) which is honestly only acceptable since it's playing music that I like. Would be much better if it could play something I intentionally want to hear, but this is the best that can be achieved so far. Do better, Google and Spotify.

[MafeG]

Hi folks,

Thank you for your replies. 

After doing some digging and research, we found  this issue has been reported in different ways. The most recent one in this thread. 

To quote the official reply given there, everything that the Spotify app does during this process is communicating with the Assistant API, following the received instructions and playing what the Assistant has requested.

We've let the right team know about this and we continuously work with Google on improving the Spotify integration, but it might be worth reporting this to their support from the user's end as well, as it does sound like the Assistant needs to be trained better to pick the followed playlists.

Let us know if you have any questions.