Alexa can play only from 'Liked Songs' playlist

[Nu-Kuma]

Plan

Family Premium

Country

Thailand

Device

Amazon Echo

My Question or Issue

I've been using my Echo with Spotify Premium for 4 years + and really happy with it. But starting from 3 days ago, Alexa can't search songs or playlist on Spotify anymore. 

Account link, skill, and device seems ok. Is there anything change at Spotify that prevent Alexa to search for songs on Spotify recently?

From my testing: 

- When I ask 'Play Ed Sheeran from Spotify' Alexa replies 'I can't find songs by Ed Sheeran from Spotify' 

- When I ask 'Play Acoustic from Spotify' Alexa replies 'I couldn't find Acoustic songs from Spotify'

- When I ask 'Play favorite playlist from Spotify' Alexa replies 'I can't find the playlist favorite from Spotify'

- But when I ask 'Play my liked songs' Alexa can play song that I liked and saved in my library from Spotify app properly

- I can still able to open Spotify app and select my Echo as device and stream music

What I've tried:

- Remove Spotify and Alexa app then re-install

- Contact Amazon support but they couldn't find any problem on my Echo/account

- Restart router and Echo

- Check my location for content setting in Amazon account, it is USA

- Remove Spotify skill (unlink account) then install skill (link account) again

- Deactivate Echo and remove from my Amazon account then set it up again

[Amossnir]

Same exact problem

[MafeG]

Hi folks,

Thank you for posting on the Community!

@Nu-Kuma Awesome troubleshooting so far! We'd like to investigate this further, so please let us know if you've checked you don't have any pending firmware updates. 

@Amossnir Please give a try to the troubleshooting steps shared by @Nu-Kuma, as they cover a lot of possible solutions. If the issue persists, please let us know in which country your accounts are registered.

We'll be on the lookout.

[Amossnir]

Hi @MafaG

Thank you for the quick reply.

I have tried all the above steps and some additional;

- checked Alexa device location to be US

- unlinked and linked via Spotify app vs via Alexa app

- Alexa firmware was recently updated (which is maybe the source of the bug)

- changed Alexa accounts

nothing helped...

This integration has been working smoothly for the last 2 years and stopped ~ 4 days ago...

I am connecting from Israel

The fact that alexa finds liked songs and doesn't find when a search for specific artist or playlist sounds like an API bug, maybe has to do with language code? Does Spotify know I'm connecting from Israel?

Would appreciate your help with this one, it's funny but it feels like we have electricity outage (music as a life line 🙂 )

Amos

[Amossnir]

Forgot to mention, I have 7 Alexa devices at home and same problem on all of them...

[Amossnir]

and final note:

funny enough, searching the forum similar thing happened in Nov, 4 years ago...

also - attaching a recording.

[Ver]

Hey @Amossnir,

Thanks for the info 🙂

In this case we'd suggest you give these steps a go to see if that helps.

If nothing changes, it's also worth trying the steps @PJB4 mentioned here. Does that make a difference?

Keep us posted.

[Amossnir]

No need to do anything
Someone somewhere fixed it...

[MafeG]

Hey @Amossnir,

Thanks for letting us know that everything is working fine now.

Remember to always keep your app updated, so you don't miss any fixes or new features. Don't hesitate to give us a shout if you have more questions.

Have a great day!

[Nu-Kuma]

Mine is working as well after a week of issue ...

If you do all steps that I listed above and still face the issue. I would recommend you post comment here and wait for a few days.

[Jeremy]

Hi @Nu-Kuma,

Thank you for your reply and confirmation.

We're really glad to see that everything works as it should for you again.

Let us know if we can help you with anything else.

Have a great Friday and a wonderful start of your weekend 🙂

Take care!

[rhara]

Reviving this thread as I am now experiencing this issue. Alexa is able to play Spotify just fine but it’s unable to find my playlists. When I try to do so, it says, “Sorry, I can’t find xx playlist on Spotify.” However, on my Amazon Echo Show 5, when I ask Alexa to show me my playlists, all of them appear and I can command it to play them. But when I ask to play the same playlist out of the blue, it’s unable to do so. 

My Spotify account is based in the Phlippines. Looking at other forums, it appears that many here are experiencing the same issue. Alexa was able to do this before, but now it just can’t. 

[Elena]

Hey @rhara,

Thanks for posting in the Community.

Can you check if Spotify is set as the default music app on Alexa as mentioned in this thread?

Have you also tried the troubleshooting steps other users have mentioned in the current thread?

Keep us posted,

Cheers!

[rhara]

Hi @elena, 

Thanks for the response. Here's everything I've tried so far:
- Uninstall/reinstall Spotify and Alexa apps
- Unlink/Link Spotify with Alexa

- Set Spotify as the default music service, podcast provider

- Factory reset Alexa devices

- Removing access of 3rd party connections
- Connecting to Echo via the Connect feature in the Spotify app
- Renaming playlists to something more distinct
- Using a different Spotify premium account

Here's everything Alexa can do with Spotify:
- Play specific songs, artists, genres
- Play public Spotify playlists (e.g This is Taylor Swift)
- Usual controls (play, pause, skip, go back)

Everything Alexa can't do (but is able to do before):
- Play playlists I've created
- Play custom playlists using the routines feature

Hope this covers it. I appreciate the help!

[Elena]

Hey @rhara,

Thanks for describing the extensive troubleshooting steps you've tried.

You've covered quite a lot of the usual steps we recommend. Could you check if the country in your Amazon account matches the one on your Spotify account? The issue you're experiencing may be connected to a difference in the set regions.

Keep us posted,

Cheers!

[rhara]

Hi Elena,

Yes, I have tried that as well. Both Amazon and Spotify are set to the Philippines. Also, I think that this issue is affecting all Alexa and Spotify users in the Philippines. All my friends are reporting the same issue, playlists used to work before but something happened last month and it stopped working all of a sudden. I also see this issue reported in forums. Hope this can be fixed. Thanks!

[Yordan]

Hi @rhara!

It'd be greatly appreciated if you could ask your friends who are experiencing this to jump in on this thread and provide the following info (feel free to share yours as well):

• Their device's make, model and OS version.
• The model of their Alexa device as well as the firmware version.
• The version of Spotify they're running.

Once we have these details we'll forward them to our developers who'll investigate further.

Thanks and cheers!

[Martin601]

I have exactly the same problem - Alexa will play spotify curated playlist not ones I have created.  Via customer support I have been through all the steps above, unlinking accounts, deleting Alexa and Spotify Apps from all devices, power cycling and resetting all devices, trying devices on different networks. All with no effect, simply get the response from Alexa "I can't find that playlist on Spotify".  Hopefully there is a fix by now ?  It looks like my only solution is to cancel my Spotify subscription and move to Amazon Music!

[Disneysleeve]

I’m bringing this back. I’m in the USA and just today started having issues with my Alexa devices not finding any of my playlists asides from “liked songs” on Spotify. I’ve done all the troubleshooting as listed below as well and still the issue persists. 

Here's everything I've tried so far:
- Uninstall/reinstall Spotify and Alexa apps
- Unlink/Link Spotify with Alexa

- Set Spotify as the default music service, podcast provider

- Renaming playlists to something more distinct

recent problems with Alexa (didn’t have these issues until today):
- Play playlists I've created
- Play custom playlists using the routines feature