Casting problems of Liked Songs playlist

[raulkg]

Plan

Premium

Country

Mexico

Device

(Samsung Galaxy

Operating System

Android 

My Question or Issue

When casting the playlist Liked Songs (6,530 songs) to my TCL Tv, the app crash. Casting is all good on albums, other playlists (mine and others longer than 220 hours) and radios. The crash is as it follows: Whenever I reproduce a song (on my tv) the time mark freeze, the song keeps going. Next two song plays (the tittle and time mark appears on tv, but no on my phone app, where the first image is only show) and thats all. The music just stops. The buttons can go up to the third song but just that. When I disconnect my tv, the next song is from other playlist. Is like the app percives the tv like other different user. This is a very annoying issue, so I'm considering stop using Spotify if I cannot find any solution. 

[Ver]

Hey @raulkg,

Thanks for posting here.

Could you restart your device, log out and then log back in again to see if that makes a difference?

If possible, it's also a good idea to try casting to your TV while using another device. Are there any changes?

It's also important to make sure that the firmware of both devices is up-to-date. 

If the issue persists, could you please share with us a video recording of the issue? Just make sure that any sensitive or private info is hidden. We'll look into this further.

Keep us posted.

[Pokced]

Hello,

I would like to tell more details about this issue as I have been investigating it for a while because I can't seem to find the fix.

Here is a screen recording video (link to google drive as the file is big).

The sound of the device is on (loud music) and the microphone is on (music that seems far away)

- At first I play music on my device, nothing fancy, and I jump on the progress bar so we are not at the beggining of the song (Y.M.C.A.)

- Then I decided to connect my smart device (Google Home Mini)

- When you saw the progress bar disappear, the music picked up at the right progress on my smart device (one minute and a couple seconds into the song)

- Although the music plays on my smart devices, Spotify connect doesn't show my connected device AND the progress bar isn't there

- I then go to the smart device app (Google's "Home" app) and we can see the song currently playing as well as its progress bar

- I try to put the volume up and total crash, both service (Google and Spotify) disconnect from one another

- I start the process again and this time you can hear when the song plays on my smart device (microphone)

- I try to change the song on Spotify but it doesn't work and my smart device still plays Y.M.C.A. (we can see the smart device is still trying to connect on Spotify Connect and no progress bar, as if out of sync)

- I go back to "Home" and see everything is normal

- I go back to Spotify and we can see Spotify Connect is connected, although no progress bar (still out of sync)

- I try changing the song through Spotify again even though I know it seems out of sync... Not working on my smart device

- I go back to "Home" just for proof

- Go back to spotify, bam, not showing the next song but Y.M.C.A. again... (are they synced? There is no progress bar)

- I try again to change the song, no success

- I go in "Home" and try changing the song. It works! Although it is NOT the same song as shown by spotify as the "next one"

- I go back to Spotify, it is blocked on Y.M.C.A.

IF I was to let the music play, after the 2nd or 3rd song (which is not the one in the Spotify Queue) the music stops playing but both services stay connected together because when I manually disconnect them on Spotify connect with "this device", my Smart Device tells me: "Sorry, your music stopped playing since your Spotify account is being used on another device"... But it wasn't playong anything.

In my opinion, both service are "connected" but do not share info.

I also

- Disconnected Spotify from my Google Account

- Uninstalled both "Home" and Spotify

- Reset my Home Mini

- Installed both app again

- Set up my Home Mini through "Home"

- Linked back my accounts

Not working.

- I used a brand new phone (well used but factory reset)

- Took a Home Mini I was being given (give away by a store if I bought for X $). It was brand new, out of the box.

- Set it up ina  totally isolated environment at my parents place (new network)

Nothong will do.

[raulkg]

This is a very similar problem. I've made the volume test and surely diconects when I up or down the volume of my tv from my phone. I hope someone can explain why this is happen. 

[raulkg]

Neither of this has fix the problem. The user Pokced has posted a video in this conversation showing this erratic behavior. Is pretty much the same problem i described. Thanks!

[Pokced]

After further testing, the issue also appears with regular BIG playlist.

Not only the "Liked Songs" Playlist.

And it obviously isn't an issue with smaller playlist. I've been playing "Tropical House" for multiple hours.

[raulkg]

Can you share with me the aforementioned playlist to do the test?

[Pokced]

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/37i9dQZF1DX0AMssoUKCz7?si=OW8J4ljWQCK4dKKEVUxQ7Q&utm_source=copy-l...

[Ver]

Hey folks,

Thanks for the info.

Could you also please share with us the following if you haven't already? We'll investigate this further.

• What device you're casting from as well as the receiving device.
• The exact Spotify version that is running on the device.
• How many songs are in the playlist that you're trying to play?
• Does this happen only with large playlists?
• If the devices disconnect when you try changing the volume from the casting device

Keep us in the loop.

[raulkg]

Casting: Samsung Galaxy A52 - TCL TV Q647

Spotify Version: 8.7.141332

Songs on Liked Songs: 6592 songs

Playlists: Yes, it only happens on large playlist.

Volume thing: Yes, when the Spotify app freeze turning up or down the volume cause disconnection.  

[Pokced]

Device casted to:
Google Home Mini (I could try other devices if need be)

Devices casted from:
Samsung Galaxy S10 (8.7.14.1332)
Samsung Galaxy S9 (8.7.14.1332)
iPhone SE (1st version of the SE) (8.6.64, I can't get the latest version as I can't get iOS 13 on this model)

There is 5828 songs in my "Liked Songs"

Yes, it only occurs with large playlist as I casted "Tropical House" all day yesterday. I've posted the playlist earlier in this thread.

Volume Change:
When I touch the volume up/down on the the smart device: Crash
When I change the volume in the smart device's app: crash (as seen in the video)
When I change the volume of the smart device through Spotify: Crash

[Pokced]

For some reason, my reply can't seem to go through as it ends up being detected as "Spam"
So I have written my reply on Google Docs, here's the link

And now it is considered I am "flooding" as I am trying to send this message within 300 seconds... At some point Imma just give up and send a meme to see if it works xD

Private messages do not work as I'd have sent it this way *facepalm*

[Pokced]

The link:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1UTab92qgcDe0mI3WrsETYWiepvXVrbUHUrDZ5KUMTdM/edit?usp=sharing

[raulkg]

I wonder whats the number of tracks in a playlist that eludes this issue. According with your answer and my testing, we know that 5828 songs is sufficient to trigger this behaviour, while the equivalent of 220 hours it is not. Sorry for my english btw.

[CarlosE]

Hey everybody,

Thanks for posting back to the Community.

We recommend that you log out everywhere here. Afterwards, restart your devices and let us know if the issue still persists. If so, we suggest checking for available updates (OS & firmware for your hardware).

We'd also like to know if this started happening after a specific event, such as an update.

We'll be here standing by.

[raulkg]

Like I already said. Logging out from all devices or restarting don't fixed the issue. About when this happened, the only info that I can give is the date: march 23. 

[Pokced]

@Ver

@CarlosE

I've been running more test and there was an update I could do but I've decided to download the past 10 versions of the app and the problem doesn't stem from the Spotify version or the firmware update as it's an issue occuring even on up-to-date iPhone 13 (my roomate's phone), outdated iPhone, outdated Android and up-to-date Android. Just to give you an idea, I have tried 50 possibles cases (phones related) all resulting towards the same conclusion. It is just a matter of playlist size and the communication between Spotify and "casted" device (assuming without casting devices, smart devices like Google Homes uses the same protocol as casting...)

Furthermore, it seems to be an issue occuring even without phones! Hence the "casted"

I have disconnected EVERY devices through the Spotify Settings. Linked ONLY my Google account through a BROWSER and not the app. I have then asked my Google Home Mini to play my spotify playlist "Liked Song" and it bugged the same way. I have tried the spotify playlist "Tropical House" and it worked just fine for multiple hours until I stopped it.

So the issue is not related to the Spotify version of the CASTING DEVICE or the casting device itself for that matter as it occurs even without casting device.

As for the time the issue started occuring, I wasn't home this weekend so I can't say exactly, but Tuesday 22nd for sure and possibly the 21st but I don't believe playing my "Liked song" playlist. The 19th wasn't problematic. (March 2022)

Finally, it is not the first time there is issues with BIG playlists. I had a time the music wouldn't start playing and just load for 15 minutes. I had other times manually selecting a song I hadn't played for a while from the playlist would just take forever to load but could be manually played from the search bar in an instant during the loading...

So for your question of when this issue started occuring, I think the best reply would be forever since big playlist exist but if I had to be specific about this very specific issue, between the 20th and the 22nd. (March 2022)

You can ask me to do any special combination as I have access to pretty much every special devices. MacOS, Windows, Linux, Android, iOS, FireTV, AndroidTV, AppleTV.

Also, one thing I noticed: As long as the device has ANY version of Spotify, it'll play it. For example, casting to my FireTV results in the FireTV opening spotify and there is no issues. The issue only occurs on devices which do not have Spotify installed.

It needs to be confirmed but I am pretty sure the original poster doesn't have Spotify on the TV itself. For my case, a Google Home Mini doesn't have spotify installed on it.

Take it as you want, but I would be looking at how Google gets the music it needs to play when there is no casting device and just voice requests. It has to be taking the music somewhere and create itself a cue (which is then out of sync).

I would then look at the behavior when there is a casting device and if the data on the casting device and the casted to device are in sync.

[Yordan]

Hi folks,

Thank you for your replies so far.

This seems to affect only larger playlists. Due to how Connect functions and that the devices don't actually stream data from one another (but just exchange instructions via the API), it sounds like there's some sort of buffer overflow when the playlists are quite large. As a workaround, you can try splitting such large playlists up into a few smaller ones. We'd recommend doing this from the desktop app by using the standard copy-paste keyboard-and-mouse shortcuts as it'd make things easier and quicker.

The Community is always here if there's anything else you need assistance with.

Cheers!

[raulkg]

This is unnaceptable. First Spotify removed the shuffle button and now this. Worst player ever. 

[chvancooten]

Would just like to +1 on this issue. Every long playlist (with a proper spotify URI) works well, but the 'liked songs' playlist locks up my Spotify Connect / Google Cast devices every time, from multiple devices (phone, home assistant, web / app player, etc). Spotify doesn't seem interested in fixing it either. Very disappointing.