Spotify no longer playing through Amazon Alexa in South Africa

[GregGuy]

I've had an Amazon Alexa for almost 4 years now and had no issues playing my Spotify music selections through 'her highness'.  All of a sudden this has stopped working and when I request a song to be played it cannot do it unless I have Amazon Unlimited Music (which is not available in South Africa). I got in touch with Amazon and they tell me that you need 2 USA (or other compatible countries) addresses for the functionality to work. I'm not sure why this has happened all of a sudden and was wondering if anyone else has had such an issue. Is it a Spotify issue or an Amazon issue?

I have tried the 'standard' tricks and versions of recommendations that I can find on various communities (disabling skill, re-enabling skill, installing, uninstalling etc) but nothing seems to work.

[UncleRotten]

I'm also having lots of problems getting Alexa to play Spotify. Some days it will, and some days it won't. I don't do anything different so I don't think I am the problem.

[Alex]

Hey folks,

Thanks for the posts.

Amazon Alexa Skill has limited functionality in some countries, however requesting songs through the device to play on Spotify should be working everywhere.

What we'd recommend is restarting your router/ connecting all home devices to a different network, like a mobile hotspot and checking if the issue persists.

Keep us posted on how you get on.

Cheers.

[familyinsa]

I also live in South Africa, have had my Alexa device for over a year with a Premium Family Spotify Account. As of today, I now get the error message in the Alexa App:

"You are not eligible to enable this skill due to geographical restrictions"

According to Jennifer E. from Spotify, it is an Amazon Alexa problem because Spotify still works on my phone, and according to Anjana from Alexa Support, Spotify have restricted the skill in Alexa from being available in South Africa, using our IP address as an identifier.

So both are pointing fingers at each other, I've bought an Echo Dot, am paying for a Premium Family Account, and cannopt get the skill to work.

Not too sure where to turn, so assume that canceling my Spotify subscription is the first port of call, along with every other Spotify Subscriber in South Africa who is using Alexa.

Do we have that right?

[familyinsa]

Okay, I've gotten it sorted out, but jeesh it's wrong and border-line unethical and only Thanks to Amazon Support did I come right...but this was my process:

 Because Spotify has now blocked the Spotify Skill from being used in South Africa through Amazon Alexa, this is what they told me to do:

1. Log into my Amazon Account, and then in the same session, go to the following URL: https://www.amazon.com/a/addresses
2. Add in any random US based address. I used the following URL (https://www.randomlists.com/random-addresses) to get a random non-existant address, and then put in a street number "1", so as to ensure that the address exists
3. Then set that as your Default Address, so that you now have two addresses in your profile - one which is US, the other which is for RSA
4. Then go to the following link and Enable the Skill: https://www.amazon.com/Spotify/dp/B07FK56GVY
5. Once that is done, your Alexa account will now have the Spotify skill enabled in it, and you'll be able to carry on, as usual, bearing in mind you will forever (or until Spotify no longer restricts their Skill in Alexa for South Africa) have someone else's US Based address in your profile.

I don't like the fix, I don't like the fact that I've got some poor persons address in my profile, so please Spotify, correct this as soon as possible as you are forcing your clients to make challenging alternative solutions for a service that you are being paid to provide.

Good luck!

[familyinsa]

Just an update to this...if I ask Alexa to play any music, it now only plays through Amazon Music (note the logo at the top of the App):

I have already set the default Music and Podcast Player to Spotify, so this is not the problem:

If I open Spotify on my phone, I can play Spotify music through Alexa: 

So Spotify works perfectly on my phone, but not on Alexa, and if I ask Alexa to "Play music from Spotify" the response is: "I'm having trouble playing from Spotify. Please try again."

I can imagine both service providers pointing fingers at each other, but I thinkif this carries on much longer, I'm going to be forced into using Amazon Music (bleargh!)

[Kiril]

Hey @familyinsa,

Thanks for your reply and your information.

We passed it now to the right folks, who will further investigate this situation backstage. Keep an eye on this thread for us posting any news regarding developments on this situation, yet currently we're not able to provide you with an exact timeframe when to expect that. 

Hope it gets sorted out soon. If you need anything else, the Community is here for you

[Mogg]

I'm suddenly having exactly the same problem, but I'm in Malta.  2 years without problems, and suddenly the voice activation from Alexa to Spotify won't work.  Alexa won't let me link to Spotify, saying "you are not eligible to enable this skill due to geographical restrictions".   

[Amossnir]

This didn't work for me I still get

i can't fine zero 7 in Spotify 

I live in Israel so I guess it's a bug for non us locations

[Amossnir]

Thanks. Waiting for a solution hopefully soon...

[nsela]

Hey!

I'm living in Israel as well and I'm encountering the same described issues.

In the past week, Alexa suddenly stopped finding songs on Spotify while I can still search and use Spotify without a problem. Following this thread, I tried everything.. from un-linking to re-linking the account, changed addresses, restarted the device, removed Alexa's app cache and what's not.

None of the resolutions have helped so far.

Would appreciate your help here.

[Ver]

Hey folks,

Thanks for posting here 🙂

Can you give the steps @familyinsa mentioned in the thread a go to see if anything changes?

If  that doesn't make a difference, it's also worth trying these steps. 

Let us know how it goes.