“Now playing” not in sync with Bose SoundTouch speakers

[user-removed]

Plan

Premium

Country

Australia

Device

iPhone 7+

Operating System

iOS 12

My Question or Issue

Scenario: I’m playing a Spotify playlist directly through my Bose SoundTouch speakers, then I open the app on my iPhone to use it as a remote. At this point I’m asked whether I want to listen on my iPhone or my Bose speaker, so I select the latter. This is where the problem starts...

The song listed as “Now playing” on my phone doesn’t match what’s coming out the Bose speakers. If I hit “next track” enough times it eventually syncs up.

Note: I get this same issue on both my Bose SoundTouch 30 and 300, and both speakers have the latest updates installed, and I’ve already tried deleting-reinstalling-rebooting the app on my phone too. My wife’s iPhone (using a different Spotify account) also experiences the same issue.

[Jemi]

Hey @user-removed,

Try restarting all your devices (and speakers). Also:

• Restart your router.
• Make sure all devices are on the same WiFi network.
• Make sure your Spotify app is up-to-date. 
• Make sure that all devices’ software is up-to-date. If you don't know, check with your devices' manufacturers for how to update the version software. 

If possible, try switching between different networks and see if that helps.

Let us know how it goes 🙂

[user-removed]

Hi Jemi,

All devices are up to date, all are on the same network (otherwise the remote function wouldn’t work at all), and everything has been rebooted — still no luck unfortunately.

[user-removed]

This issue is intermittent, and so my hunch is that this has something to do with playlist caching...

When playing music via my Bose SoundTouch speakers directly, I almost always just hit one of the presets (which are linked to specific Spotify playlists). I suspect that when the incorrect song is listed as “Now playing” in the app, it’s because the playlist has been recently updated and the Bose speakers are using a ‘stale’ copy - at least initially. Hitting ‘next track’ a few times eventually fixes the issue, so it must force a sync / refresh.

Is this feasible?

[user-removed]

I also should add: while the incorrect song is listed as “Now playing”, I can still scrub backwards and forwards and the time elapsed/remaining updates accordingly, so the iOS app is functionaing correctly as a remote at some level.

[Jemi]

Hey @user-removed,

So you mean that if a playlist hasn't been updated since you last used it with your speakers, the issue doesn't occur? Can you try and confirm that?

Also, does this happen with all the playlists? What happens if you for instance look up an artist and play directly from their artist page?

Can you also let us know your Spotify version?

Lastly, a screenshot would be very helpful here. 

Keep us posted 🙂

[user-removed]

FYI, this issue is still occurring 1 year later (intermittently, as before).

I still think this happens after the playlist has been recently updated. Today I saw some slightly different symptoms though:

1. I played a Spotify playlist via the Bose SoundTouch app, and this was displaying the correct song under “Now playing” — let’s pretend it was called “Song 1”
2. I then opened Spotify on my iPhone, and the correct song was also displayed in “Now playing” here too (i.e. “Song 1”)
3. I then turned on shuffle (via my iPhone), which instantly changed the “Now playing” song on my iPhone from “Song 1” to “Song 2” (this is not expected behaviour), while “Song 1” was still playing through the speakers (this is expected; the song should only change when you click ‘next’)
4. The iPhone app and the speakers were now out of sync, and pressing next/previous didn’t fix it — the iPhone was always one song ‘ahead’