DJ not working with BMW connected drive app

[Haystack54]

Plan

Free/Premium

Country - United Kingdom

Device

(BMW F40 128ti)

Operating System

(iDrive Version 7. BMW Connected Drive Spotify app)

My Question or Issue

When using Spotify in my BMW via the Connected drive app, when I go to Library then select 'DJ' there is no DJ announcement of what is going to be played. Also, there is not a playlist displayed. Instead, it says, 'No entries available' - as per the attached photo. If I then select 'Home' it says 'Loading' but Spotify never loads/opens the home page. I have to go into my 'Playlists' and select a music track to get Spotify working again.
I have tried various things to fix this without any success. I contacted other BMW 128ti owners via the 128ti owners club on Facebook and several of them have confirmed the same thing happens in their car. However, if you go into Spotify via Android Auto, then DJ works correctly - as it does on my Samsung phone and on my desktop version.
As I was unable to find any help on here or via Google search, I opened up a chat with Spotify Technical support (Conversation ID: 2e12eaf0-f612-4965-bcff-3c8b1cb49bc9). It concluded in the issue being escalted to the 'specialist team' who will look at the issue and see if they can come up with a fix.
Meanwhile, I thought I would share this problem with the Spotify community to see if other BMW owners have the same issue as I do with BMW iDrive 7 or other idrive versions.

[Anyk17]

Hey @Haystack54,

Thanks for posting in the Spotify Community.

I understand how frustrating it can be not being able to use the feature.

I've checked with the Spotify team, and it seems like in general the BMW drive app doesn't work with Android phones and that's why DJ is not working.

In this case, I advise you to continue using Spotify with Android Auto so you can keep using the great benefits of DJ.

Hope this helps. Let me know if I can help with anything else.

[Haystack54]

I have to disagree with your comment that the embedded Spotify app does not work. It works perfectly okay except, as I have explained, the DJ.

I don't think the Android phone has any relevance either as the embedded Spotify app uses a WiFi connection via the embedded SIM card in the cars communications ecu. 

[Anyk17]

Hey @Haystack54 thanks for clarifying that!

I've checked with the Spotify team and they've confirmed that the DJ feature is only available on the desktop app, iOS, and Android devices as per today. That means, when casting, the DJ feature is not going to work the same as when playing content directly from your mobile device. 

Hope this helps. Let me know if you have any other questions.

[Haystack54]

Thanks for this information. When you say, 'from today', that tends to imply it's something Spotify has just done/implemented. 

Furthermore, it's interesting that you say you've spoken to the Spotify Team. I spoke to them via the online chat and they couldn't understand why DJ was not working with the embedded BMW Spotify app. Hence, they asked the escalation team. They had no explanation or suggestions as to why DJ was not working, so my case was escalated to them to look into. 

If what Spotify has told you is correct, I'm surprised the escalations team have not come back to me or passed it back to the Spotify team to contact me.