Web player skips tracks or freezes after 9 seconds

[J471395]

Browser

Vivaldi 3.4.2066.94

Operating System

Windows 10

My Question or Issue

If I go to https://open.spotify.com/playlist/37i9dQZF1DX4sWSpwq3LiO and select the first track then it skips through the first 5 tracks, plays an ad, and then plays 9 seconds of the 6th track which then freezes and isn't resumable or seekable. The same thing happens in private windows.

The same thing happens in Chromium 87.0.4280.66 Portable (https://chromium.woolyss.com/#win64-stable-sync-hibbiki) after installing Widevine 4.10.1610.0 via chrome://components. It doesn't seem to be a Widevine problem since https://demo.castlabs.com/ works fine.

[Alex]

Hi there @J471395,

Thanks for reaching out about this in the Community!

Can you tell us if you've tried using a different connection like a Mobile Hotspot? Also, have you tried a different browser or using an incognito window?

We'll be on the lookout for your reply 🙂

[jsim0809]

Hi, I'm having the same issue as OP. The web player skips songs immediately instead of playing them. It usually skips 4 songs, and then starts playing ads (ads have no problem playing).

Connecting from a different internet source (mobile hotspot) does not resolve the issue.

Clearing cookies does not resolve the issue.

Updating my browser does not resolve the issue.

Using a different browser (Chrome, Vivaldi, Brave, Microsoft Edge) does not resolve the issue.

Incognito mode does not resolve the issue.

Playing songs using the desktop app or using my phone app DOES work. But I need it to work in my browser too. Any idea what the problem could be? Thanks.

-- Edited to include this screenshot of console errors:

[Alex]

Hi there @jsim0809,

Thanks for the detailed info on what troubleshooting you've already gone through.

We weren't able to reproduce this from our end, so this brings me to the thought that it might be account related.

Can you tell me what happens when you let the ads play without skipping them and if tracks skip and freeze even when you're playing podcasts?

If that doesn't make a difference could you try to create a new test account with another email address and try playing music from the web player?

Will be on the lookout for your reply 🙂

[Berbard]

I have the same problem into the vivaldi browser. And it is start to happens about month ago or even earlier. I've checked issue in crome and FF and seems that it reproduce only in vivaldi.

I've diabled all ad blocking addons but it doesn't help.

Attached few screenshots from console. Maybe its help.

[Alex]

Hi there folks,

Thanks for sharing those screenshots and your troubleshooting info.

As we are not able to pinpoint exactly where the issue is coming from we suggest using a different browser for the time being or installing our desktop app, which has also additional optimizations and features.

Cheers.

[jsim0809]

Hi Alex! Thanks for the quick reply. Hope we can get this fixed!

The current behavior is it skips the first 4 songs, one after another. Then it plays ads.

When I let the ads play, it plays 3 or 4 ads, and then proceeds to the 5th song in my playlist.

The 5th song plays for exactly 9 seconds, and then the whole app freezes. It becomes unresponsive after that.

I tried it with podcasts -- it also skips podcasts.

I tried creating a new account -- the problem is still there.

I tried one more browser -- Safari -- and the problem is gone! So I think the problem is limited to Chromium browsers for me.

Are you able to look into my account and see what the issue is? I actually need Spotify to work for me on Chrome because I'm a Spotify Developer using the Developer SDK.

[Alex]

Hi there @jsim0809,

Thanks for getting back to us.

We don't have direct access to your account info from our side.

What you can do is reach out to our Developer Customer support team. They'll be happy to help you further and give you more detailed info.

Hope this helps 🙂

[J471395]

Hi @Alex

I've found that it works in Chrome 87.0.4280.66, as long as I don't already have the web player open in Vivaldi/Chromium (since otherwise it will try to play audio in Vivaldi/Chromium even if you click the play button in Chrome).

Looking at the Network tab in F12 devtools, the main difference is that POST requests to https://gew-spclient.spotify.com/widevine-license/v1/audio/license?exp=... succeed in Chrome 87.0.4280.66 (response code 200) but fail in Chromium 87.0.4280.66 and Vivaldi 3.4.2066.94 (response code 403).

Please let me know if I can provide any more detail to help you repro / track down the cause. Thanks.

[Berbard]

In last vivaldi release(3.5) this issue has been fixed.