Spotify started misbehaving on iPhone

[arvine1028]

 Hi, 

I'm getting weird behaviour from SpotifyPremium on my iPhone 5S (iOS version unknown). Upgraded to iOS 10.2 ...same behaviour.

AppStore says Spotify is current version (all Apps are current version).

A: Start Spotify... logo shows for a couple of seconds... menu shows for half a second... and Spotify appears to shut down!

B: Double-click the iPhone button and there appears to be a Spotify instance running in the background (playlist visible, Shuffle Play button visible), attempt to access this background instance: playlist goes full-screen for a second... logo replaces playlist... and Spotify appears to shut down.  GOTO A or GOTO B and repeat as often as you like.

C: Delete Spotify background instance and confirm it is gone with another button double-click. GOTO A

Spotify on my MacAir works perfectly.

Spotify on Win10 started... switched to "installing Spotify ...then restarted Spotify and works perfectly.

Anyone have some suggestions???

[arvine1028]

Forgot to mention:

Yes, I uninstalled Spotify app, shut down iPhone, restarted iPhone, installed Spotify from AppStore. Result? GOTO A in msg above

I tried variations on the re-install theme including: restart phone before Spotify first-use; allow/not notifications. GOTO A in msg above

Occasionally I managed to provoke a slightly different response from the Spotify App. On two occasions it prompted me to agree Terms & Conditions - it closed the T&C screen after a quarter second so no chance to respond: with this variant, the background app is the Spotify logo screen instead of the playlist screen, but otherwise the behaviour is as msg above.

Four hours now I've been going through this loop of dozens of reinstalls!

[arvine1028]

I got it working for a while:

With the last of the many delete/installs done today.

1. Ensure there are no lingering background instances of Spotify.

2. Home+Power buttons for 10secs or so until the thing reboots.

3. Pause, prepare a finger at around 90% of the way down the screen.

4. Launch Spotify and keep that finger poised - you will have about 0.3sec

5. Spotify logo will show a few secs and give way to the T&C screen - unleash the finger!

If you are too slow, GOTO 1

If you have fast reactions you might get lucky and hit the T&C Agree button before it disappears. I was too slow twice, but got it on the third attempt.

Spotify started perfectly several times (search, play a track, etc), so I decided to document this "solution". 

I just tried Spotify again: bust again. Back exactly to A in the first post.

AAAARGH

[Hubo]

Hey @arvine1028! Thanks for reaching out!

How much space have you got left on your phone? Let me know! 🙂

Take care!

[arvine1028]

Hi Huib,

Thanks for looking at the issue.

I have 7.23 GB free (...with Spotify installed)

Chris

[arvine1028]

NEW INFO

Turning off iPhone WiFi makes Spotify work.

Turning WiFi on again breaks it.

OSX-Spotify works fine on the same WiFi network.

Older version of iOS-Spotify worked fine on the same WiFi network.

There is a hardware firewall: rules are unchanged and are the same for all iOS and OSX devices.

Chris

typo corrected

[arvine1028]

That new info above shows there is no fundamental issue with iPhone or its Spotify installation. Great!

However, Spotify without WiFi is no use to me at all.

99.6% of my Spotify use is Spotify-Connect to either Chromecast-dongle or Connect-native devices ...I need to be on the same network to Connect which is tough without WiFi.

Chris

typo corrected

[Hubo]

Hey @arvine1028! 

Could you try to reset your router/modem? Please refer to your manufacturer for more information on that. Let me know how it goes.

Have a lovely day! 🙂

[arvine1028]

Hi Huib,

Sorry if some of this sounds a bit ...ungrateful. I appreciate any help I can get and it is really not meant that way. Perhaps I'm getting a bit frustrated after 30 hours of trying to fix an app that got broken when I updated it.

OSX-Spotify on MacBooks is happy (using same AP, FW, DSL)

Win-Spotify on Win10 is happy (using same FW, DSL but is wired, so not using AP)

My son just visited: Android is happy doing Spotify (using same AP, FW, DSL)

My iPhone prior to Spotify app upgrade was happy (using same AP, FW, DSL)

Sure - I can reboot the 15 boxes on my network.

Sure - I can update the BIOS and  device drivers on all boxes.

Sure - I can set my firewall to produce 500 pages of log daily.

Sure - I can dig in deep with wireshark and investigate every packet.

Spotify support suggests turning off the firewall! Sure - it cost less than ten thousand bucks and its been working forever and it works for everything EXCEPT current iOS Spotify. Why not turn it off? Because I will cancel my subscription immediately if that is the only way to run iOS-Spotify on WiFi!

So I'm not saying no to your suggestion, but I would like to understand why resetting hardware that functions perfectly for EVERYTHING (including all flavours of Spotify EXCEPT current iOS-Spotify) is somehow going to be a solution to what I suspect is a simple bug in iOS-Spotify code.

Perhaps you could also clarify what you mean by "reset": a simple power down and up again will take around 10 minutes for all the boxes - an inconvenience but nothing to the 30 hours already spent on this issue. A factory reset and reconfigure to the way I want this stuff to work is more than a days work and needs a pretty big "why" to justify it (and hey, if I reconfigure it correctly I'm back where I started).

regards Chris

[Hubo]

Hey @arvine1028!

Alright, I'm going to escalate this one. I'll get back to you shortly. Hang tight! 🙂

Take care!

[Hubo]

Hey @arvine1028!

Alright, could you try to use Spotify on mobile data and on another Wi-Fi network? Let me know how it goes.

Take care! 🙂

[arvine1028]

Hi Huib,

Yup - iOS-Spotify works perfectly connected direct to the DSL modem (i.e. bypassing real-AP and Firewall). To be honest, this result is not astonishing: any other result would have millions of users screaming.

Clearly either my real-AP or my FW is refusing to accept something that current-version iOS-Spotify wants to do when it notices that I've moved from "mobile" to "fixed".

Meanwhile:

I rebooted real-AP (clear the logs and any ugly historical event that might have an influence).

I repeated the experiment iPhone-WiFi OFF ...listen a while... iPhone-WiFi ON.
NOTHING in real-AP logs.
iOS-Spotify crashes and burns around 15 seconds (I didn't time it, so that's an estimate) after WiFi goes ON. The playing track hisses and crackles for a fraction of a second and drops dead.

I dug out the FW log from yesterday's experiment (.jpg attached). FW didn't log any DROPs during the experiment.

FW rules are trivially simple - read from the top and exit when first rule matched:

LAN to ANY Allow, Nolog   (WiFi sits in LAN - it can go anywhere subject to ***)
DMZ to FW Drop, Log
DMZ to LAN Drop, Log
DMZ to ANY Allow, Nolog
WAN multicast, Drop, Nolog (otherwise my @!%*# ISP fills my logs with garbage)
ELSE Drop, Log  (sorry, no inbound!)

***Portscans/sweeps; floods; malformed packets: Drop, Log.

There is some other port/protocol stuff but it should not get in the way if iOS-Spotify behaves responsibly.

iOS-Spotify should NOT be doing any of the stuff that would make my FW twitch.

But...
  if iOS-Spotify expectes to receive something via multicast
or maybe even...
  if iOS-Spotify attempts to multicast (I need to look more closely at the multicast rule tomorrow)
Notice that multicast is dropped but not logged mmmmmmmmmmmmmm!

I'll also repeat the experiment tomorrow morning while sitting on top of the FW as I turn iPhone-WiFi on.
    
regards Chris

[arvine1028]

Hi Huib,

I modified the FW to log everything but could not find any entry that is Spotify-related.

The logs show three events (all dropped) happening again and again:
o  DSL-modem to 224.0.0.1 (I believe this is my ISP trying to "help" me by mapping my network). Dropped by Multicast rule.
o  PublicIP to FW port 4500 (PublicIP is owned by my ISP - the intention behind this hassle is unknown). Dropped by ELSE no inbound rule.
o  255.255.255.255:67 DHCP requests from "nowhere" (I guess this is activity in my un-firewalled net). Dropped by ELSE no inbound rule.

...plus the usual background chatter from DHCP.

This stuff happens all the time with ZERO Spotify and with iPhone WiFi OFF.

When I run iOS-Spotify WiFi I don't see anything different!
Not a single different log entry!

Just the same three events again and again.


WORKAROUND
My IP-TV loves to multicast (dropped by FW). So STB sits in the un-firewalled net mentioned above. I will move Chromecast dongle to that net and switch iPhone to that net when I need Spotify.


CONFESSION TIME
Having trawled through a few thousand lines of log, I was surprised that I didn't see my son's Android connect to the LAN! Investigating further, I see that he is using guest WiFi in the un-firewalled net. No wonder his droid-Spotify worked! Cancel my earlier claim that droid-Spotify works through the AP/FW connection that kills my iOS-Spotify.  
Sorry for this mis-information.

Chris

[Hubo]

Hey @arvine1028!

It looks like it's a network related issue, so I'd strongly recommend resetting your router, or checking your settings again. Let me know if anything else pops up.

Take care!

[arvine1028]

Hi Huib,

The workaround works just fine. It is mildly inconvenient to switch the iPhone to a different WiFi to use Spotify, but it takes seconds and I can live with it - it is dramatically less inconvenient than trying to use the Spotify web interface on my TV.

I've ordered some new network bits and pieces that should arrive tomorrow. They will allow me to swap stuff around easily between my various networks and see what is choking iOS-Spotify: your guess is that it is my network / my guess is that iOS-Spotify is the culprit. We'll see 🙂

Thanks for jumping in.

regards Chris