Cannot Remove Device as "Device is Unavailable"

[RossMc]

 

Plan

Premium

Country

UK (mine) and Germany (the connected device I want to remove)

Device

iPhone XS Max and MacBook Pro Mid-2015

Operating System

iOS 14.1 & macOS 11.2.1

My Question or Issue

I have a device in my Device menu I need to remove but cannot as it is 'Unavailable'.

This is the chronological list of how things happened:

- I had an Amazon Prime household with another person

- I moved to Germany but kept my Spotify as UK (as I only had a UK Bankcard)

- All of my Echo devices ran two Spotify UK subscriptions one per Amazon account

- I moved back to the UK, they were still on my Amazon Prime household

- They purchased an Echo and changed their Spotify account to German, their Spotify on Echo worked fine.

- I turned on all of my Echos and reconnected them after two months in storage

- It stopped the other person from listening to Spotify on their Echo completely

- I removed them from the Amazon Prime household

- Their Spotify service returned however...

- I am now left with a '[Other persons] Echo' in my device menu that says "Unavailable for listening on"

- I know it's unavailable and have no intentions of ever listening on it but I cannot remove it from my device menu as the three dots do not appear like the other devices.

I think that's all of the events. But I cannot get this problem sorted. Hope this can be fixed as its annoying and will likely lead to awkward conversations in the future...

Thanks in advance!

[RossMc]

I was experiencing the same issue after removing a device from my Alexa app a week prior. Not sure exactly what I did that fixed it, but here's what I did do, so if someone else wants to try recreating any of these steps...

1. Open Spotify software on computer (I see my unavailable device is still listed).

2. Go to Spotify website > account settings > apps: "Remove Access" to Alexa.

3. Open Alexa app on phone: relink Spotify skill.

4. Spotify software (computer): click on "Connect to a device" icon, leave the device list open (still seeing unavailable device).

5. Alexa app (phone): Disable the Spotify skill.

6. Check Spotify application (computer), see that all the echo devices are gone.

7. Alexa App (phone): activate Spotify skill (all connected devices reappear, but not the removed unavailable one!)

[Novy]

Hey there @RossMc, 

Thanks for reaching out about this in the Community and sending over all this info. 

Could you let us know if you're able to remove the access for the device from this page? 

Keep us posted on how you get going with this.

[RossMc]

Hi Novy,

I can remove access to Alexa as a whole but not individual devices. All my external devices, bar one Sonos, run on Alexa.

Cheers,
Ross

[Novy]

Hi @RossMc, 

Thanks for getting back to us. 

In this case, we'd recommend activating the option to show local devices only in the app's settings. 

If this doesn't do the trick, you can try a clean reinstall as it can help to remove the device.

Let us know how it goes. We'll keep an eye out for your reply.

[tlaredo]

Hello, I'm experiencing the same issue. There's no way for me to remove the Kitchen Echo from my list of devices on either desktop or iOS app. I tried doing clean re-installs for both apps and toggling "Show local devices only" in the iOS settings doesn't do anything. I also removed Alexa from the list of apps in my profile. Is there anything else we can do to remove this device?

Thanks!

Tyler

[Alex]

Hey @tlaredo,

Thanks for the post.

You can try to Log out of all device, like described Here.

Let us know if that works.

[tlaredo · Accepted solution]

I think I finally solved the issue!

tl;dr You need to disconnect your Spotify account from an Alexa device before performing a factory reset. To do this, you need to remove the Spotify Alexa Skill in the Alexa app, which will terminate the connection between Alexa & Spotify.

Summary:

I purchased an Amazon Echo Dot and played music on it with my Spotify account. After trying it out, I decided to return the device. So I followed these instructions  to de-register the device from my Amazon account and effectively perform a factory reset. However, I still saw my device (“Kitchen Echo”) on my Spotify Connect devices, despite the fact that I performed a factory reset. Then I made this original post.

The Fix:

I then re-set up the Echo by connecting it to my Amazon account. I re-authorized Spotify to connect with Alexa, both in Spotify and in the Alexa App, and then I was able to start playing music through the Echo again. After some trial and error, I went to the Alexa app to remove the Spotify skill (Alexa App > More > Music & Podcasts > Spotify > Disable Skill). I then no longer saw the device in my devices list. I then factory reset the Echo device and proceeded with my return.

[MafeG]

Hey @tlaredo,

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

We'll keep in mind the steps you shared so we can keep assisting other users. Also 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!

[elbadgero75]

Why not just re-add the option to remove unavailable devices instead of making people search forums to do something which should take a single click?

[user-removed]

I am having the same problem. Please see image attached. I had an Echo device which is still appearing as unavailable. A multi-room speaker setup is also in the list as unavailable despite me deleting this in the Alexa app. I have followed all steps listed under the solution but I'm still experiencing the problem. I've also tried the show local devices only and reinstalled the Spotify app but hasn't helped. Any more suggestions I could try? Thanks!

[tlaredo]

@sean_ius

You might want to try disassociating your Amazon account from Spotify and seeing if that removes all of your Alexa devices (including the speaker group and unused Echo) from Spotify Connect. You can see my thread above about how to uninstall/reinstall your Amazon account from Spotify: 

https://community.spotify.com/t5/Other-Podcasts-Partners-etc/Cannot-Remove-Device-as-quot-Device-is-...

Give that a try and lmk if that works!

[user-removed]

Thanks for your reply, I did try this already but thought I'd try it again. I disabled the Spotify Skill in the Alexa app and revoked Alexa access under my Spotify account page. Now for some bizarre reason, it's still left with Echo Show and the unavailable devices. And Echo Show appears to still be playing music despite the disabling of the skill and revoking of access. Any other ideas? Thanks for your help.

[user-removed]

Echo Show has now disappeared which makes sense. However, despite disabling the Spotify Skill and revoking Alexa access, these devices are still hanging around.

[Jeremy]

Hi @user-removed,

Thank you for your reply and confirmation.

Can you disassociating your Amazon account from your Spotify account once again and then perform a clean reinstall of the app to see if the issue persists?

Let us know how it goes.

Take care!

[darkdreamingdan]

 I just disconnected my alexa skill and reconnected it, but they still all appear. All they needed to do was allow us to remove inactive devices in the interface.  Also being told to reinstall the app because they can't be bothered to help is infuriating. Especially because these connections presumably are polled on a remote server and local app would have nothing to do it with. So instead of support helping, we're just being asked to stab in the dark on their behalf. I currently have accumulated 6 devices that I can't remove from my Spotify, making finding the real ones a pain in the ass. This is not a feature request, this is a bug. 

In the web app this is even worse, because the inactive devices aren't even greyed out. 

Asking us to factory reset is not a reasonable solution. Maybe I should buy a new set of echo devices while I'm at it? Or a second Spotify account?

Please provide an actual solution to this. 

[Bej202]

Hey there from Germany!

i got the exact same problem and tried as many ways as I can imagine.

We just would like the get a button, which would give us the possibility to delete old, greyed out Devices. This is really no question for a special feature. It’s just a bug!

[Bej202]

Question: which kind of Alexas do you use?

[Arose13]

Same problem here! 

I recently added an additional Amazon Alexa device (Echo dot 4th Gen). 

Ultimately the device showed as "Unavailable to control." To delete it from the device list, I tried every step and protocol listed above, several times and unsuccessfully. It even ended up duplicating the "Unavailable to control" device! 

Additionally, my historical devices are now challenging to connect to as they randomly also show as "Unavailable to control." 

This issue is impacting our listening and user experience.

Spotify, could you please bring back the option to remove an "Unavailable to control" device or contact us to resolve this issue? 

Thank you!

[Arose13]

I agree with you.

[v9i4t]

any news on this issue?
still got the same problem