Help Wizard

Step 1

NEXT STEP

FAQs

Please see below the most popular frequently asked questions.

Loading article...

Loading faqs...

VIEW ALL

Ongoing Issues

Please see below the current ongoing issues which are under investigation.

Loading issue...

Loading ongoing issues...

VIEW ALL

Cannot Transfer Playback - Descriptor ID?

Cannot Transfer Playback - Descriptor ID?

Plan: Premium

Country: United States

Device: Macbook Pro

Operating System: Mojave

Browser: Chrome

 

My Question or Issue

I cannot transfer playback to my web app. This used to work just fine, but is throwing a new error I haven't seen before. I'm able to create the player, successfully connect to Spotify, and get a device ID. I can see it as expected when I call GET /devices.

 

When I call PUT on "/me/player" to transfer the playback (with the device ID in the body array "device_ids"), I get a 202 success status. 

 

In the console of my browser, I see this: 

"Uncaught CloudPlaybackClientError: Descriptor ID is null"

I cannot find any documentation on that error, or what playback_descriptor_id is. 

 

If I try to play anything after that, I get a 404 and "Player command failed: No active device found".

Reply
4 Replies

Hi @rhen321, welcome to the developer forum!

Thanks for bringing this up, I have not seen this particular error before. Are you seeing this problem with all types of content, or with a particular song, podcast or episode? 

Yes, all types of content are unplayable, since the Transfer User Playback PUT did not actually transfer playback. The device is not "active" if I call get all devices, even after a successful PUT. What is the Descriptor ID the error message is asking for? 

 

I have a hobby web app that I've already launched with this and it has worked wonderfully for a year, but now it's broken (no changes on my end) and I'm desperate to get it back to functional. 

@spotifyjosh is there any update here? I've contacted the support team three times and done my best to dig into this error, I have no idea how to fix it. This is broken on a live project for me and affecting hundreds of users. 

Hey rhen321,

 

Since I couldn't reproduce the issue, allow me to share with you the steps I followed in case it helps. For the test, I have used Chrome 99.0.4844.51 and Web Playback SDK v1.9.0-bb5ba1b. 

 

I started by creating a new Web Playback SDK instance (note that this instance does not receive the playback automatically). Then, I do a GET to /me/player/devices to see if the instance has been correctly registered. The response looks similar to this:

 

{
  "devices": [
    {
      "id": "9912c96a1c1fd14247ab06708239d38f41a2181f",
      "is_active": false,
      "is_private_session": false,
      "is_restricted": false,
      "name": "Web Playback SDK",
      "type": "Computer",
      "volume_percent": 49
    },
    {
      "id": "2a34567134e3d0983823d0ad0319b6a14dbe78d1",
      "is_active": true,
      "is_private_session": false,
      "is_restricted": false,
      "name": "MYCOMPUTER",
      "type": "Computer",
      "volume_percent": 70
    }
  ]
}

Finally, I transfer the playback by sending a POST to /me/player with the following body:

 

{
  "device_ids": [
    "9912c96a1c1fd14247ab06708239d38f41a2181f"
  ]
}

 

Some questions to consider:

- Could you please check the Web Playback SDK version you are using?

- Did you, by mistake, modify/delete your app (along with the client credentials) in the dashboard?

- Are you getting the same error using a minimal setup? (e.g using the Web Playback SDK example from the Quick Start, and the Console to perform the API calls)

Suggested posts