Spotify unable to cast to Vizio Soundbar

[Ken69]

Plan

Family Premium

Country

U.S.

Device

Samsung Galaxy 9+, Macbook Pro 2019, Google Home Mini

Operating System

Android 10, macOS Catalina

My Question or Issue

I have two Vizio Soundbars (SB4451-C0, SB3651). The cast stopped working about a month or two ago. I initially thought maybe a temporary glitch, but this has been broken since then. The soundbars are still listed as cast targets in the Spotify app on both Android and Mac. But it hangs on Connecting... for a while every time I try and then drop. The lights on the Soundbars indicated that some action started and then dropped. Every other casting app still works fine, including Youtube Music (I started a trail just for this). Many people reported on Reddit that they are having the same problem. If this doesn't resolve soon, I'm seriously thinking about switching to Youtube Music.

https://www.reddit.com/r/VIZIO_Official/comments/jgu8oi/im_trying_to_cast_my_spotify_onto_the_smartc...

(I realized that this might not be the best place for the problem, but I don't seem to be able to find a better place, "Open Issues" will be the right home but I cannot create a topic)

[Elena]

Hey there @Ken69,

Thanks for reaching out and welcome to the Community.

As a first step, we recommend running a clean reinstall of the app on your devices by following these steps. This can be helpful to get rid of any cached files that might be causing trouble.

Also, make sure that both the Spotify app and your soundbars' firmware are up to date.

If this doesn't do the trick, we'd recommend trying this out on a different network - for example you can create a hotspot on your phone and use that.

If you have any questions, give us a shout.

Cheers!

[Ken69]

Dear Elena, I had done that before and just did it again. Same problem! I'm sure many people having the problem had done those basic troubleshooting steps as well. Look at the Reddit, I cannot believe so many people suddenly start to have same problem at the same time was a result of some random issue.

[Mihail]

Hey @Ken69,

Thanks for keeping us in the loop.

As we haven’t seen any similar posts about this recently, we feel this is most likely isolated to your device or specific setup. Could you please confirm that you tried with a different network or unplugged the router and restarted it? If that and the clean reinstall didn't fix things, it's a good idea to perform a factory reset of your sound bar. It's possible that some of the firmware has gotten corrupted and causing such connectivity issues.

Keep us posted. We’ll keep an eye out for your reply.

[mc1175]

I've been having the same issue as Ken here with a Vizio SB3821-D6 soundbar. Attempting to cast from my phone (Samsung Galaxy S8+) or Windows laptop leads to the same behavior, the soundbar lights flash but it never fully connects. I'm also able to cast to it via google home and other apps, it's just Spotify that has the issue. All started about a month ago around when that reddit thread began. Tried resetting Vizio firmware, network settings, Spotify cache, all no go. Seems like it was an update to the Spotify app or backend that broke connectivity, unless somehow all these Vizio devices updated at once which seems very unlikely. 

[Ver]

Hey @mc1175,

Thanks for getting in touch with us 🙂

The troubleshooting steps that you've tried so far are very good. In this case we'd suggest you get in touch with Vizio. The folks there can look into this further and give you more information about the soundbar.

If you have questions, don't hesitate to reach out to us. We'll be happy to help.

Stay safe! 

 

[Ken69]

Seriously? Did you actually read what @mc1175 wrote? First claimed that I'm the only one having the problem by disregarding the Reddit link I provided, or had you ever bother to click on it? Now with @mc1175 confirms the issue, you simply blame Vizio?

Listen, every other apps EXCEPT SPOTIFY from mobile phone or PC all worked VERY WELL with Vizio. It's the Spotify failed to cast. It failed for many people to various models of Vizio soundbars around the same time frame. And Spotify is infamous of breaking connection (just search this forum), at this moment, it also has problem casting to LG soundbars: https://community.spotify.com/t5/Ongoing-Issues/Spotify-not-working-with-LG-Soundbar/idi-p/5060580

Come on, don't burry your heads in the sands.

[Mihail]

Hey everyone,

Thanks fore reaching out and reporting this to us.

Apologies for the mix up, since the thread has started we've seen an increase in reports of issues with Vizio soundbars. We appreciate the time you took to report this and the troubleshooting you've done so far. We've gathered your feedback and forwarded it to the relevant team that has been investigating this. 

It would seem that the issue isn't something that we can influence as this is dependent on how the device itself functions. We recommend that you reach out to Visio to check if there're any firmware updates that improve the cast functionality and to receive the best advice for your device.

Hope this info is useful. Let us know if there's anything else we can help with.

[Ken69]

December 12, 2020 update fixed the cast problem to Vizio soundbars. LG soundbars issue topic reported the fix so I updated my phone to the new version of Spotify, and it worded immediately after the update but my wife phone with old version didn't work until I also update hers. It again CERTIFIES that the root cause was the Spotify's failure, not Vizio nor LG.

I'm a software engineer and I understand all software has bugs, and sometime we break existing features. I'm glad that they fixed it. But what bothers me is the attitude of Spotify support, ALWYAS blame others, disregards all the facts, and never acknowledge their own problem.

BTW, the first try of my every reply resulted in exception in this forum, I had to refresh and retype every again to get it posted.

[garisoain]

Hi! 

Since the update I can cast again to my Vizio Soundbar, but now the music is interrupted constantly, this doesn't happen with YTM in the same Soundbar, and neither with streaming content on the TV (Youtube/Amazon/Netflix)

Any ideas?

[Novy]

Hey @garisoain, 

Thanks for reaching out about this. 

Would you mind letting us know which troubleshooting steps you've already tried? This will help us give you better suggestions. 

Keep us posted. We'll be on the lookout for your reply.