Premium account and Sonos - spotify has been paused because account is used somewhere else

[verdenvilbedras]

I keep getting the error message "spotify has been paused because account is used somewhere else" whenever I attempt to playying music on my computer while the kids are on Spotify.

This should not be a problem with a premium account, should it?

This question may have been on this forum before, in that case I appologize.

What is the limit to number of devices playing at the same time with a premium account?

Thanx!

[Richard]

You can only stream Spotify in one place at once - Premium or not. We're only licensed for personal use at this time.

I hope that clears things up a bit.

[verdenvilbedras]

Thank you, Richards. 

That was definately clearifying.

Having multiple Sonos comoponents in my house, it is a little annoying not being able to stream from Spotify at more than one place at the time. Something to work out for Sonos, I guess!

[Richard]

Sonos does have some kind of multi-room functionality I think - but I've never been able to get to grips with exactly how this works with Spotify.

But yeah, if your kids are playing Spotify somewhere, that'd stop playback on your Sonos. I'd recommend creating a new account for them.

[Ursulanyc]

When I purchased spotify premium it said for three users. I also receive this same message if I'm listening to spotify (even offline) and so is my daughter. How can this be?

[David]

Hello,

I believe there may have been some misunderstanding here. Users with Premium subscription are able to use offline playlists with Spotify on three devices. For example, offline playlists on a work computer, mobile phone and a home laptop. However, Spotify is only able to be used on one device at any one time. 

[ping_ch]

What we're all waiting for is this:

http://community.spotify.com/t5/Spotify-Ideas/Discount-Family-Subscriptions/idc-p/220270

Spotify is clearly missing a subscription that covers a demand for so many people. 

[user-removed]

http://www.spotify.com/se/sonos/

In this Spotify demo video is is said that "with Sonos expandable music system you can enjoy different tracks in different rooms"

I have until recently been able to play different tracks in different rooms with Spotify.

And Sonos does not support several Spotify accounts.

Please explain to me how I, "with my Sonos expandable music system can enjoy different tracks in different rooms" ?

[Richard]

Thanks for that Kaatman

Does anyone with a Sonos have any experience of using the multi-room functionality with Spotify? I don't have any info to hand as to how to get this to work.

[21five]

This is insane. There are two people in my house, each with a Spotify Premium account. What you're saying is that if we want to use Spotify on a single, fixed, shared device, like Sonos - but one of us may be out of the house using Spotify on our mobile - we actually need to buy a third Spotify Premium account (and double the effort to keep playlists in sync across accounts).

There's something wrong when a house needs more Spotify Premium accounts than it has people (there's only ever two simultaneous users at any one time). Perhaps I'll give one to the dog for Christmas.

Family account bundling would just make this version of insanity a little cheaper. I'd be much happier to buy additional simultaneous users on a single account.

- M.

[verdenvilbedras]

After doing some more research on this, it should really be possible to play multiple rooms with Sonos and only one Spotiy subscription. At the store where I purchased my Sonos they were able to play 10 different Sonos items with different music at the same time. 

On and off, I am also able to play more than one. As many as three at the time.

However, there seems to be a bug somewhere causing the annoying message "spotify has been paused because account is used somewhere else"

[Andersbla]

I have for about a month with my premium membership been able to stream different songs to several sonons devices in forut different rooms. This functionality is heavely marketed by every store selling Sonos. However this stopped working yesterday trigging the same alert: " spotify has been paused because account is used somewhere else".

Does anyone know if this is a result of Spotifys produckt policy?

Can anyone confirm that they (still) are able to stream different songs at the same time using Sonos?

[verdenvilbedras]

Andersbla,

I know of several subscribers of Spotify that work this out just fine. Hence, it cannot be a product policy by Spotify.

To me, it seems that there must be some bug in the Sonos-app. For me it works on and off - which makes it even more confusing. 

Are you using Sonos on an iOS or Android (or some other OS)?

In my house we have several Androids and one iOS. I am wondering whether this can be some source of this problem...?

[21five]

I can confirm that Spotify can stream different songs to different Sonos devices on the same network. So, as advertised, I can listen to different songs in different rooms - both streaming from the same Spotify account.

That's not the issue from the original post: if you have a Premium account, you can't have it playing on Sonos and on another device (eg PC or iPhone) at the same time - this triggers the "Spotify has been paused..." message.

In the short term, the only solution to that problem is having a Spotify Premium account just for the Sonos device. An expensive solution but one which should prevent this error. Longer term, Sonos could (should!) support multiple Spotify accounts - so you are able to select the correct account to use at the time of listening.

[Andersbla]

Versenvilbedras,

thanks for your reply. I experience the same

problem regardless what kind of product I use to control my sonos speakers.

cool nick, by the way!

[verdenvilbedras]

21five,

The problem of Spotify/Sonos not working at multiple stations is apparent even when no other device is being run with Spotify. 

Hence, it is not as you say that this is about using Spotify at multiple devices. It is about playing different music at multiple Sonos devices simultanously (without any other interference). And that is something that should work for everyone - but doesn't.

[21five]

All I can say is that it works for me (checked this morning on 3 sets of speakers with UK premium subscription). That said, I have seen a few complaints on the Sonos forum that suggest load on their servers is an issue, implying that Sonos devices use a different set of servers (or go via a different set of servers) than an ordinary Spotify client. This has triggered many kinds of errors, including this one.

[marvelmaster]

There seem to be a change in Spotify policies making it not possible to stream to several rooms from the same spotify premium account ...

[ThierryD]

If this problem presists, I will soon be an ex-spotifty premium-user!

[Gaub]

Hi Richard,

I can explain it.
About a week ago I discovered a change in how Spotify works on Sonos.
How it worked before: The Sonos system let you enter a Spotfy account. It only works with Premium. You can stream different playlists to each Sonos device using the same account. From the retailer where I bought it they said up to 16 or 32 parallel streams of depending on the bandwidth on the LAN. I only have three devices in the house though. And we have often used two sometimes three parallel audio streams.

A week ago that stopped working. When audio stream #2 is started, the control device on which this is initiated comes up with a pop-up that states that Spotify only allows one stream at a time. And when the buffer runs out on Sonos #1 ten seconds after, this stops playing. Devaluating Spotify for Sonos a lot.

Of course if the same account is used on another device, the streaming cannot run on Sonos simultaneously, but within Sonos parallel streaming have worked so far.

Personally I find this a showstopper for our family, and we will start looking for another streaming service if this will not be reverted to "normal" soon.

Hope this can enlighten the issue 🙂