Songs play without sound/unresponsive

[Eyedolon]

I've been using an iPod Touch and Spotify Premium as my car audio source for years. In the last year or so, it's started behaving oddly. I leave the iPod in my car hooked up at all times. This has happened with two different vehicles, first with a JVC stereo and now with Benz COMAND 5.2. I am not using CarPlay for obvious reasons.

When I start my vehicle, Spotify doesn't "resume" what I was playing. It does, but it doesn't play sound, and the iPod falls back on its itunes library. I hear Sum 41's A.N.I.C. every time I start my car, without fail, as it's the first alphabetical song in my itunes. When I open my iPod, Spotify app is up and "playing". Hitting next track, previous track or pause does nothing. If I back out to the playlist view and pick another track in the current playlist, "sometimes" it works and starts playing (fading out itunes as it should). Other times it doesn't. Spotify will display the song as playing, but no sound and itunes continues on its way. If I go into ANOTHER playlist, it "usually" works. Once in a while, maybe one out of ten times, I have to close Spotify and reopen it entirely for it to start playing audio.

I have tested this on a 5th gen IPT and a brand new 6th gen (the app has gotten miserably slow on the older IPT, if nobody's reported that). My files are all downloaded from WIFI, and WIFI enabled/disabled makes no difference to this problem.

Let me know if further information is required. The 6th gen IPT is less than two weeks old.