iPhone showing music playback when Spotify app is closed/casting to streaming devices

[cwilli40]

Plan

Free/Premium

Country

Device

(iPhone 8, Samsung Galaxy 9, Macbook Pro late 2016)

Operating System

(iOS 10, Android Oreo, Windows 10,etc.)

My Question or Issue

I've been doing a lot of digging and can't find any information on this, so I figured I would start here.

I currently have an iPhone 12 Pro running the latest version of iOS 15. In my home, I use the Google Nest architecture of devices and have smart speakers throughout my home. I enjoy streaming music through these speakers for the obvious benefits over using Bluetooth. Now, here's the issue I'm running into.

If I start playing music from Spotify, whether by using the app to cast the music or by using the voice commands to the Nest devices, the command center on my phone shows the music that is actively playing. I understand this, as casting comes from my phone regardless of how I initiate playback. However, if I force-quit the Spotify app to remove it from my screen, it will magically re-appear sometime later (meaning that it shows back up in my command center and on my lock screen as active playback). This may be 20 minutes later, or several hours later. It's quite inconsistent.

The reason this is a problem: If this happens and I get a phone call, then answering the phone call stops the music streaming because my phone thinks that the music must stop to make way for the phone call. This is essentially the opposite effect that casting is meant to achieve, i.e. uninterrupted music streaming despite other phone activity. Similarly, if I'm in another app and I want to change the volume on my phone (to watch a video on Facebook, for example), then the volume will also change on the Nest streaming devices, even though these controls should be independent of each other.

I want to start here because this only seems to happen when casting from the Spotify app. I have disabled "Background App Refresh" on the Spotify app as well as the Google Home app, yet the issue persists.

Any ideas why my phone will just decide, on its own, to link back to Spotify playback? I should also note that when it does this, I check my background apps to ensure I haven't mistakenly opened back up Spotify, nor has the phone opened it up by itself in the background either. From all that I can tell, the app is still shut down when this happens.

[Eni]

Hey there @cwilli40, 

Thanks for reaching out about this here in the Community. 

Just to make sure, is this started happening after a specific event such as an update either of the app or the OS of your phone?

On another note, we suggest that you try using a different device to see if the issue persists across devices or only on your phone. 

Lastly, could you try running a clean reinstall of the app on your phone? This is more thorough than a regular one and can be helpful to get rid of any cached files that might be causing trouble.

Let us know how it goes.

[MrakC]

Hi there, 

I’m experiencing similar behaviour - here is the bug report submitted to Apple as well:

Every night I cast Spotify to a home speaker for lullabies. I open Spotify, cast the music, and then close the Spotify app. In the past, this allows me to use my phone as usual. Since iOS 15.x I’ve had issues with the volume controls on my phone controlling the smart speaker. I close the Spotify app, and then on my Lock Screen it shows up as though Spotify is still open. If I open my phone and use it, the phone volume controls now control my phone volume and the smart speaker. This was not an issue prior to iOS 15. Once the app was closed, there was no interaction until I opened the app again.
Assuming this is somewhere between an Apple and Spotify issue, I’m going to report to both parties.

iPhone XR

[cwilli40]

Eni,

I will say that the first time I noticed it was after updating to iOS 15. That's not to say it didn't happen before, I just didn't notice previously.

I do not have another device to test the issue with that's not using my Spotify account. I did a test with both my PC/MacBook, which both caused the streaming to appear on my phone when casting even when I never opened the Spotify app on my phone. In terms of that test, then the issue appears to be consistent across all devices signed in to my account.

I did do a clean reinstall with no difference in performance.

[cwilli40]

I'm curious to see if you get a response, and I'm glad to see that I'm not alone here. Please do post a solution here if you get one before this thread does.

[CarlosE]

Hey folks,

Thanks for your posts.

Try unlinking your Spotify accounts from your Google devices > removing Google Home access from your Apps page here > restarting your devices (phones and speakers) > linking your accounts again by following these steps.

Keep us posted on how that goes.

[cwilli40]

Hi Carlos, thanks for the suggestion. I tried this procedure and it made no difference.

[Alex]

Hi @cwilli40,

Thanks for the reply.

We've looked into this matter further and we're also not sure what might be causing this behaviour. It could be related to processes on the OS level, it could also be related to how the devices are set-up in combination, which triggers the app to "wake up".

You're welcome to reach out to our customer support team, so they can look at your scenario more directly, but we suspect it might be difficult to troubleshoot remotely. 

Don't hesitate to give us a shout if you have questions.

[cwilli40]

Just wanted to report the update that somehow, this issue has gotten WORSE. Where before the phone would hesitate to show the music playing over a longer interval, now the music appears on my phone immediately when casting via voice command. Spotify is overriding my iPhone activity settings and this is entirely unacceptable. 

[Jeremy]

Hi there @cwilli40,

Thank you for your reply.

In this case we suggest that you follow @Alex suggestion and contact our customer support so that they can have a closer look backstage.

Let us know if we can help you with anything else in the meantime.

Take care!

[Pringles129]

This is happening to me as well. I wouldn’t mind other than the fact that this causes my iPhone battery to drain. Very annoying and causing me to consider switching to Apple Music. A real bummer because I’ve used Spotify for years.

[cwilli40]

All,

I opened a case both with Apple and with Spotify support and I must say, this is really disappointing. Apple did a thorough investigation with me over the course of two weeks with several phone calls, screen recordings, live sessions, etc. and it was determined that a fault in Spotify's software is causing this and Apple has no direct solution that they can implement.

On the flip side, I talked with Spotify's customer support and was directed to a general support specialist who could not get me in touch with anyone in the technical/engineering departments, nor was I able to receive any kind of direct feedback or confirmation that this case is even being received by anyone in said departments. This issue is still plaguing myself and multitudes of others with no acknowledgment from Spotify. 

I'm going to do my best to keep this thread alive since customer support is just ignoring the problem.

[cwilli40]

Update:

Still no fix, but a change for the worse. I am sitting at my desk working, not listening to any music and not casting anywhere, and Spotify just opened itself on my phone (in the background). The app is not open nor has it been at any point during the day, but my control center shows music playing.

I'm canceling my Spotify account and filing a complaint wherever I can. This is an obscene violation of my phone's privacy and autonomy and it's concerning that this is allowed at all, and that there has been no legitimate response from Spotify regarding the issue. Hopefully, this gets resolved for other individuals who are dealing with the same issues.  

[Basti95]

I was able to fix this issue by going to the Spotify in-app settings --> devices --> disable lock screen other devices.

Hope this helps. Merry Christmas everyone!

[MrDragon1]

For me going to the Spotify in-app settings --> devices --> disable lock screen other devices worked, but I have had to do this more than once. It seems to turn back on every now and then when Spotify updates or something.

My issue was a little different than the OP. When playing music on PC, it would change the volume of my phone.

[mrxindc]

Grateful to find this thread. Basti95’s solution worked for me in iOS 17. But I discovered the root mechanism is the Spotify app being included in the Siri suggestions. Disabling this also fixes the issue. Thanks to everyone for helping me figure this out I was going insane 🤣