Spotify not sending metadata to car head-unit (Pioneer 2-DIN)

[MartinAronsen]

Hi,

This has been an issue for quite a while now. Not sure which update killed it.

It seems to mainly occur while playing music from a playlist set to be available offline, but it does happen on other playlists too. "Non-cached" tracks from search results displays the song info, so clearly it's not an issue with my Pioneer player.

Other music apps, like SpotOn, are also sending the data to the player.

iPhone 4S, running iOS 6 beta 3, but the issue also happened on iOS5. 

-Martin

[David]

Hey Martin!

Sadly we're not entirely compatible with iOS6 quite yet - Further updates may look into supporting it, however.

[MartinAronsen]

I stated that the issue occurs on both iOS5 and iOS6, just to point out that it's not a core bug in iOS.

[David]

So you did.

How are you connecting? USB or Bluetooth?

[MartinAronsen]

USB

[MartinAronsen]

Did some more testing, and it seems to only occur when the playlist is available offline. 

And the car stereo is a Pioneer AVH-P4100DVD

[gabrielneu]

I'm having a similar issue just tagging along so maybe they'll get back to you.  Making it worse my stereo will flash cannot play - cannot play even though it is playing just not displaying track info.

[MartinAronsen]

I have done even more testing, and the root of the problem is the number of tracks in the playlist Spotify reports. The max number of songs Spotify will send to the player is 51, and all songs that are above that number in the playlist will show up blank, and it will show for instance "423/51" (song 423, of 51). The metadata may be sent, but not displayed. This was in both search, offline and online playlists. 

This is an issue with Spotify, and not the player, as I do not have the same issue with iPod playlists that have 1300 songs in them.

[dragon2611]

I have a simular problem with a BMW 1 series (F20) where it will either not display any data for the music or it will sometimes display the name of a track but then not update when the track changes.

I also cannot use the car's audio controls to change track.

I use offline playlists extensively as obvisouly you can't gurantee good enough 3G coverage to support live streaming when driving around.

[Deraj]

I was hoping that I would search this up and the problem be resolved. But the same issue is happening to me too. I am plugged up through USB and worked on my stock unit just fine until an update came through.

[Thndr]

Same issue for a while. It works on my Pioneer, displays 51 songs. and no track data. This same issues appears to crash my OEM GM Nav unit as well. I only listen to Spotify in my car. Why hasnt this been fixed? It is not like this is a free app, we are paying money....

[martijnthe]

I have seen this issue as well.

You don't need a car head-unit to determine that Spotify does not always set the metadata.

If you lock the phone and then press the home button twice, you will see media controls and the song metadata.

Very often, this metadata on the lock screen of the phone is also incorrect.

In fact, the incorrect info that appears on the lock screen of the phone is also what you see on your car head-unit.

[Darksquall]

I have the same issue with a pioneer head unit in that any song in a playlist above 51 does not display the metadata. Would love to see a fix for this as its highly annoying.

[Darksquall]

Also the elapsed song time displays incorrectly on the same unit

[kman2123]

I am having the same issue. Pioneer radio as well. Track switching is buggy as well. Even with playlists less than 51 tracks. I switched over the bluetooth streaming with my Galaxy S4 which I found out Spotify app doesn't send bluetooth metadata. Which it should, google play music has that ability as well as the built in music app.

[rtik13]

As of the last update, I'm happy to report that I'm no longer having this problem.

iPhone 4S, iOS 7.0.4

[wolf39us]

I have a different issue with my new Honda Civic EX.  The metadata comes through (ios 7)... but randomly the car will read back (unsupported).  This behavior ONLY happens with the Spotify app.

My solution so far has to just simply switch to Bluetooth (which I don't hear much if any difference).  But sadly, the bluetooth profile doesn't support Metadata.

Oh Well