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Spotify 0.9.11 for GNU/Linux

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Spotify 0.9.11 for GNU/Linux

Hi, fellow penguin fans!

 

Today we've pushed version 0.9.11.26 of the Linux desktop client to our public repo. Just update your system!

 

General release notes: http://community.spotify.com/t5/Help-Desktop-Linux-Mac-and/Release-Notes-Spotify-for-Desktop-0-9-11/...

 

Linux specific changes:

 

 - collectionCache.bnk is no longer written to $HOME

 

Known issues:

 

 - It still doesn't work to drag from an HTML5 view to a legacy view (such as the sidebar).

 - On first start, the HTML5 views may not appear (just empty black views), try restarting the app if it happens

 - Some users have reported problems with the new track change notifications. If you experience problems, you can start the client with "spotify --ui.track_notifications_enabled=false", or you can edit the file called ~/.config/spotify/Users/<your-spotify-username>-user/prefs and add a line with "ui.track_notifications_enabled=false". Sorry for not having this option available in the UI.

 - No 32-bit build is available

 - This build is not compatible with debian squeeze or wheezy

 

If you don't already have the Linux client installed, install like this:

 

# 1. Add our repository. As root or with sudo, create
#    a file called /etc/apt/sources.list.d/spotify.list and add
#    "deb http://repository.spotify.com/stable non-free" to it.
#    Here's a one-liner:
sudo sh -c 'echo "deb http://repository.spotify.com/stable non-free" > /etc/apt/sources.list.d/spotify.list'
 
# 2. If you want to verify the downloaded packages,
#    you will need to add our public key
sudo apt-key adv --keyserver keyserver.ubuntu.com --recv-keys 94558F59
 
# 3. Run apt-get update
sudo apt-get update
 
# 4. Install spotify!
sudo apt-get install spotify-client
 
You don't have a debian based system? Well, it's still possible to get things running. Either you convert the debian package to something else using alien, or you can just download and extract the stuff you need from the package. There is no need to install the client, it can be run from anywhere.
 
# 1. Get the right filename
SPOTIFY_DEB=http://repository-origin.spotify.com/pool/non-free/s/spotify/spotify-client_0.9.11.26.g995ec04.78-1_`uname -m | sed s/x86_64/amd64/ | sed s/i686/i386/`.deb
 
# 2. Download the package
wget repository.spotify.com/pool/non-free/s/spotify/$SPOTIFY_DEB
 
# 3. Extract the required parts
ar p $SPOTIFY_DEB data.tar.gz | tar -zx --strip-components=3 ./opt/spotify/spotify-client
 
# 4. Go in to the extracted folder
cd spotify-client
 
# 5. Setup symlinks to libs (NOTE: this script assumes Fedora 17, edit to suit your needs)
./linklibs-fedora.sh
 
# 6. Optionally register icons and menu item
#    Note: for the menu item to work, you need to ensure
#    spotify is in your $PATH, either by symlinking
#    it from /usr/bin or /usr/local/bin, or by adding
#    the spotify-client folder to your $PATH
./register.sh
 

 

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368 Replies
Marked as solution

Thanks for the update!

 

I'm on Ubuntu 14.10, and I'm experiencing (almost) the same problems as Nico751:

  • I have an icon on the taskbar, but it's the standard "X11" plain icon, not Spotify's
  • The window decoration is wrong
  • I have no application menu
  • Media keys do not work
  • Spotify Connect does not work, the button seems to be disabled or inactive
  • There's no menu entry (presumably because the .deb does not install a .desktop file in /usr/share/applications)

The scrollbars work for me though, both with the mouse and the keyboard.

 

Any help will be gratly appreciated!

 

 

@Nico751 @cHagHi 

 

The new Linux version is very much still a beta so hopefully Spotify will be improving it with updates.

MattSudaSpotify Star
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Note: I'm not a Spotify employee.

So first thing I very much missed is: What the heck are you talking about? ;)) I now found out and for anybody else asking the same, please look here: https://twitter.com/felipernb/status/575669571044114432

 

I tried the .deb version (mostly because it's higher version and I don't know which features I would have been missing).

 

Now my findings:

 

First time I started this thing, I thought: Whoa, this is lightning fast. When the old version started, it took quite some time of disk thrashing and stuff until it got everything usable.

 

I played a few songs without issues, but that's too less to give a good answer on stability. Tho sound is playing fine through pulseaudio with no quality issues so far.

 

I like the new icon for showing the queue. I have quite some playlists and had to scroll up and down all the time to show queue and get back to the right list later.

 

Lots of people pointed out the bazillion of features that are... well, simply missing. Thats sad, some of those are REALLY imporant. Well, it's beta, so that's no reason to complain for me, but of course we should mention what we miss. I will add one point myself to this list:

 

  • Dbus interface missing 

As the old version, the new one does not use media keys on linux. I made the old version aware of that by creating global KDE keyboard shortcuts that then send dbus commands to spotify. Fails now, obviously.

 

As well I used a dbus query to get artist and title information for my own songinfo popup feature. That's impossible now, too. If somebody finds out, how to get the info about the actual playing song, I would appreciate any info.

 

At last I want to mention the missing tray icon. Yea I know that's been mentioned above, but I wanted to point out that I use ksystraycmd to put it back there. I even used the icon from the web to give it a nice icon. Of course that cannot bring back the context menu of the old tray icon. You can configure ksystraycmd that clicking "x" does not close the program, but hide it to tray. But if you do that I don't see any possibility to really quit the program without logging out, as the new spotify menu does only have "logout", not "quit" anymore.

 

As a final note: Thanks Spotify for still believing in native Linux programs. And thanks in releasing betas so we can tell what we think, before something is getting mandatory. But please this time: Listen to the feedback. While version 1.0 catches up to feature completeness, please don't force us to use it. Let us stay with 0.9.11 as long as 1.0 is not ready, and please really do make it completely ready first.

Hello there!

 

For those who have no decoration, here is how to fix it :

  1. go to ~/.config/Spotify
  2. open "window_position.prefs"
  3. set "app.window.position.width" to a much lower number (mine was 1440 and I set it to 144) and save.
  4. close and restart Spotify

You should now be able to resize the window and see the decoration but no "classic" menus (file, edit etc)

 

 

The new Linux client looks pretty good, although I'm experiencing some issues:

 

* No shortcut (i.e. /usr/share/applications/spotify.desktop).

* Application should always be open. Doesn't minimize to notification area.

* No notification area support (i.e. seeing what song is playing by hovering the notification area icon).

* No dbus control (i.e. no media keys and no track change notifications).

 

(Is there any plan to include Spotify Connect support too? That would be really nice!)

 

(It seems that I'm a bit late in the game, cHagHi already pointed out most of my concerns ;).)

well since version 1.0 users on all supported OS for the desktop client have been complaining about unwanted changes and what not, but i believe uses from the Linux64 are the least affected ones. (users from linux32 like me are still on 0.9.4 so we are good too)

Is 1.0 ready for Linux? Because I don't see any reference on the forum (like for the older versions). 

 

 

version 1.0 is still in beta. you can try it if you want but expect some regression.

see earlier posts for detail

download link (deb package, 64 bit-only): https://twitter.com/felipernb/status/575669571044114432

 



Although I have been able to run the most recent version (1.0.1), I am experiencing the same issues as those you mentioned above. Also, I am unable to play local files, and the upper toolbar has dissapeared. What can I do to fix it or at least contribute to the development of the Linux client?? Running Ubuntu 14.04 64 bits. Thank you

Marked as solution


@antortjim wrote:

Although I have been able to run the most recent version (1.0.1), I am experiencing the same issues as those you mentioned above. Also, I am unable to play local files, and the upper toolbar has dissapeared. What can I do to fix it or at least contribute to the development of the Linux client?? Running Ubuntu 14.04 64 bits. Thank you


I am not aware of a toolbar in versions below 1.0. If you mean the menu bar, the menu now is behind a little downward arrow in the upper right corner.

 

For playing local files, it may be that 1.0 still has the same issues with trusty as the older versions had. Try a search in this forum, a quick hit would be https://community.spotify.com/t5/Help-Desktop-Linux-Mac-and/Linux-Local-files-do-not-play-on-Ubuntu-...

 

Edit: I'm not sure if your local files show up, but are not playable, or if they don't show up at all. In first case, see my hint above. In the latter case, it may be that you just need to re-add the local music folders in your preferences. As far as I remember, the settings have been resetted to default for me.

 

Edit2: Indeed, Spotify 0.9 is using $HOME/.config/spotify and Spotify 1.0 is using $HOME/.config/Spotify (note the uppercase "S"). That's why the config was all default after update, and it means your old config for 0.9 is still there and untouched.

Thank you! I didn't realize the little arrow in the upper right corner ahaha.

 

Also, I should have specified my issue with local files. They did show up (1st option you proposed), and I have been able to fix it following the instructions explained in the link you provided. I went to page 2 and I followed the instructions from peter, victorneo and woqer. I followed all them because first two didn't work apparently.

Neither of them "worked" apparently (their output from bash was an error), but fortunately when I launched spotify again, local files were now playable!!! So I cannot say which worked but indeed that was my solution in Ubuntu 14.04 64 bits (they worked after all, only an error was displayed in the terminal output). The issue lied on the ffmpeg package. Thank you again

 

What can be done about the issue of the lost icon in the tray and the desktop icon? Will it be updated in the stable version? Shall I remove the 0.9 version?? I am experiencing an annoying issue with sudo apt-get update & upgrade. After running it, if I launch spotify, the 0.9 version is executed, instead of 1.0. In order to fix that I have to sudo dpkg -i the .deb package for the 1.0 version. Can I do something to fix that? Thank you again!!

 


@sleeksorrow wrote:

@antortjim wrote:

Although I have been able to run the most recent version (1.0.1), I am experiencing the same issues as those you mentioned above. Also, I am unable to play local files, and the upper toolbar has dissapeared. What can I do to fix it or at least contribute to the development of the Linux client?? Running Ubuntu 14.04 64 bits. Thank you


I am not aware of a toolbar in versions below 1.0. If you mean the menu bar, the menu now is behind a little downward arrow in the upper right corner.

 


I don't think the downward arrow in the upper right corner replaces the menu. The Windows version of the desktop app has both a proper/standard application menú, and the arrow next to the user name. There are several features/functions that cannot be accessed with said downward arrow, and are only exposed in the menu.

 

So I don't think that the lack of a menu in the Linux version is intentional. It's a bug.

 


@cHagHi wrote:

I don't think the downward arrow in the upper right corner replaces the menu. The Windows version of the desktop app has both a proper/standard application menú, and the arrow next to the user name. There are several features/functions that cannot be accessed with said downward arrow, and are only exposed in the menu.

 

So I don't think that the lack of a menu in the Linux version is intentional. It's a bug.

 


That's interesting, thanks for pointing that out. As I don't have Windows available, I cannot compare. Do you know about - or can make any - screenshots of the windows menu contents?

 

I'll investigate a bit in this, because in the past I already had some apps that were missing their menu bar. Perhaps for spotify this is a similar issue and if we're lucky, it can be worked around. If I find something, I will update here.


@antortjim wrote:

 

What can be done about the issue of the lost icon in the tray and the desktop icon? Will it be updated in the stable version? Shall I remove the 0.9 version?? I am experiencing an annoying issue with sudo apt-get update & upgrade. After running it, if I launch spotify, the 0.9 version is executed, instead of 1.0. In order to fix that I have to sudo dpkg -i the .deb package for the 1.0 version. Can I do something to fix that? Thank you again!!

 


For the tray icon I provided a workaround for KDE users some posts before. Keyword is "ksystraycmd". I'm quite sure, Unity/Gnome/etc has similar apps/functions.

 

As for the desktop icon, I also only can give you a hint for KDE4. I go to "edit menu" and create an application menu entry manually there. If you want a nice icon, too, then I suggest an image search on google for "spotify icon" and download one. Then add a folder view widget to the desktop showing the "Desktop" folder. Now open the applications menu, go to the manually created Spotify entry and drag and drop that to the desktop folder widget. Again I am sure there are similar concepts for your favorite desktop environment.

Two other things I noticed are:

 

Copy/cut and paste (CTRL-C, CTRL-X, CTRL-V) is not working anymore, too. I use that on a regular basis to re-arrange my playlists. I select multiple songs in one playlist, cut or copy them, go into another playlist, select a specific position and paste them. None of those functions are working at the moment.

The new workflow is to select the songs, then use context menu to add them to the destination playlist, delete them from this playlist, then go to the other playlist, identify the just added songs, select them again, and move them to the desired place with drag and drop. I'd call that "distressing".

 

The second thing is, that lyrics view seems broken when using a proxy. I use https proxy with authentication, which is working just fine for all other functions of spotify, but lyrics only work at home where I don't need a proxy.


@sleeksorrow wrote:

@cHagHi wrote:

I don't think the downward arrow in the upper right corner replaces the menu. The Windows version of the desktop app has both a proper/standard application menú, and the arrow next to the user name. There are several features/functions that cannot be accessed with said downward arrow, and are only exposed in the menu.

 

So I don't think that the lack of a menu in the Linux version is intentional. It's a bug.

 


That's interesting, thanks for pointing that out. As I don't have Windows available, I cannot compare. Do you know about - or can make any - screenshots of the windows menu contents?

 


Sure! Here you are.

 

My Windows desktop is in Spanish... but the options are (mostly) the standard ones, and not much different from the previous desktop client (0.9.x)

 

For example, without the application menu, I can't hide the Friend Feed, which is absolutely useless to me. So I'm left with one third of the screen lost to an empty vertical list 😞

 

 

spotify-menu.png


@sleeksorrow wrote:

@cHagHi wrote:

I don't think the downward arrow in the upper right corner replaces the menu.

[...]

It's a bug.

 


I'll investigate a bit in this, because in the past I already had some apps that were missing their menu bar. Perhaps for spotify this is a similar issue and if we're lucky, it can be worked around. If I find something, I will update here.


Sadly those workarounds I know for other applications don't work here. That included unsetting the environment variable "UBUNTU_MENUPROXY" and making sure that all appmenu* packages are installed. Nothing I tried gave me a menu, so at the moment I cannot find a solution or workaround. Seems the menu is simply not included for the linux version yet.

The program is unusable becouse the splash window (I suppose) hides a huge part of the program. As you can see from the attached screenshot

spotify.png

It may be a problem with hardware acceleration, try to disable it:

  • Go to Edit > Options > untick "enable hardware acceleration"

I've also seen this with non-premium users, if you aren't premium you should use the Windows version.

I don't ever never use Windows.  

Most of the menu entry are disabled, including Edit > Options, that you mention.  The linux software is owful and useless. I can't accept spotify can't develop something decent!  I say this as a Linux user and as a computer programmer.

I'm a premium user but if the program does not work I will be a deezer premium very soon. Deezer streams 320K via web browser, spotify doesn't

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