Android app showing blank window only

[msa_socal]

Plan

Premium

Country

USA

Device

Chromebook

Operating System

Current Chrome

My Question or Issue

My son is using the Spotify app on his chrome book in a child account that has parental controls enabled.
All websites are blocked, except those in a white list. Spotify is white-listed.
The app has been working fine in this setup for months until last week, when suddenly the Spotify app only showed a blank window, and nothing got loaded.
Trying to use Spotify in the browser gets an "Oops something went wrong" right after entering email and password in the login screen.

Uninstalling and reinstalling the app will make it work for a little bit (a few hours, or maybe until the next reboot?), but then the next morning it is back with just a blank page.
Internet connection is fine (25Mb/s up&down stream), and the window will not load even after sitting for over an hour.

My parent account on the same machine does not have this problem, so it's not the Chromebook or the internet connection)

Any idea what is going wrong?
Thanks in advance!

[Vasil]

Hey @msa_socal,

Thanks for reaching out!

Just to confirm - are you using the Spotify Kids app with Premium Family and a child account or are you utilizing some Chromebook parental controls and a regular Spotify account? Note that a Kids account can only be accessed via the Kids app and will not open in the Web Player. 

If you're using the Kids app, does the error appear only when you try opening the Kids profile but not the parent one and could you let us know where you've successfully managed to log in? Has it been the Web Player, the standard Spotify app or the parent account on the Kids app? We'd be grateful if you could send us some screenshots or a short video recording of what you're seeing on your end so that we can get a better look on our end as well 🙂

Much appreciated! We'll be on the lookout for your reply 🙌🏼

[msa_socal]

It's the latter - a regular Spotify Premium account with the regular Spotify app, running in a Google child account (family link).

Thank you!

[Eni]

Hey @msa_socal, 

Thanks for your reply. 

Could you let us know if this has started happening after a specific event such as an update either of Spotify of the OS of your device? 

On another note, we'd recommend reviewing the permissions and settings for external apps under Family Link on the parent Google account. Make sure that Spotify has all necessary permissions enabled. 

Additionally, it's worth clearing the app's cache and data by going to Settings > Storage, and clear both cache and data. Then, log back into the account to see if this did the trick. 

If the issue persists, could you check if the same happens in an incognito window? 

Keep us posted. 

[#5]

I have uninstalled, reinstalled, restarted my laptop. After each attempt Spotify works once and the next time I try to start it nothing works. The logo appears on screen, then the logo disappears from the screen leaving only the surround with the top left and right of the screen showing the max/min/close icons.

[msa_socal]

> Could you let us know if this has started happening after a specific event such as an update either of Spotify of the OS of your device?
Nothing that I am aware of...

Also, after I uninstall and reinstall the app, the app first works fine, then breaks again within a day or two, without me making any changes, updates, etc This is also why I do not think that it's an issue with the family link permission settings - I am not changing anything there at all.

I am actually at a point now where I uninstall the app, re-install it, start the app (it works), then reboot the Chromebook, start the app again, and the app is coming up blank. All within less than 5 minutes. So it seems one way to cause this is simply a Chromebook reboot.

I was able to get the web version in Chrome working again by deleting all cookies and website data; but the app stays dead. Since it is a family link account, anonymous browsing is not available, so I cannot try that...

Also, I was not able to find any way to delete the app's data or storage files on the Chromebook, other than completely uninstalling it. Is there one?
I cannot get to the settings inside of the app, because the app doesnt load...

[MihailY]

Hey @msa_socal,

Thanks for your response.

Unfortunately, we're not very familiar with the way Google's parental controls work on your device and considering that we haven't had any similar reports, we'd suggest reaching out to Google Support and checking with them if there's any setting on your Chromebook that might be preventing the proper functioning of the app.

Let us know how it goes.

[msa_socal]

Like I mentioned earlier, I doubt it is related to the parental controls,
because it goes from working to broken within less than an hour and without
me making any changes.

But I'll try to find out how to delete app data in Chrome OS; maybe that
will do the trick...
I'll report back if I find anything

Thank you

[msa_socal · Accepted solution]

ChatGPT pointed me to a way to clear files and cache data for an app. Along the way, there is also a "force stop" to really shut down the app (seems like just closing it might keep it running behind the scenes...)

Doing all 3 together got the app to work again - I haven't tried if just one or 2 of these alone would fix it...

Here is how I got there: Chrome OS Settings > Apps > Google Play Store > Manage Android Preferences > Apps & Notifications > See all apps > Spotify . From here there are the various options to clear data files, cache and Force stop