Contributor II

Answered

Playing Spotify podcasts via Sonos

Forum|Forum|5 years ago
November 27, 2020
39 replies
24786 views

A podcast I have listened to on Stitcher via Sonos for some time has just moved to be on Spotify only. Now searching via Sonos app for this does not find the podcast. When I search in Spotify app, it is there and I can play on my iPhone but when I try to switch playback to Sonos device, get error message for all Sonos devices “can’t play this right now”. This seems to affect only podcasts rather than playlist or artist searches. Am I correct in assuming that Spotify podcasts can be played via Sonos ? This seems odd if true. Any ideas welcome. Thanks

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Best answer by controlav

In case there is still some belief that this is not a Spotify problem, go here:

https://sonos-pmap.ws.sonos.com/spotify_pmap.24.xml

This is the Spotify metadata file, even if you can’t read XML, go look at the SearchCategories section, and you will see this:

Note: no Podcast entry. This is either a bug in Spotify, or a deliberate decision by them.

However, if you look at the end of the file, at the QuickSkips section, you will see that there is podcast support for jumping forward/backward 15 seconds. Curious. I am going to guess that someone accidentally deleted the podcasts entry in the SearchCategories section.

Suggest someone who wants this feature sends this post to Spotify and tell them to fix it. This is as clear a bug report as could be presented to them.

Show previous replies

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b0bby_DK

Lyricist I

Just because BBC doesn’t technically allow it doesn’t mean that Spotify doesn’t - it could easily be lazy development from Sonos. Hopefully they will be transparent and tell us what the holdup is.

Airgetlam

The extent that Sonos is involved in the stream is that they point to someone else’s servers, and play what is presented to them by that server.

Bruce

E

Emmtee

Lyricist II

I used to have a tab at the top of my sonos app called podcasts. Right along side “artists” “songs” “genre” “playlist” etc. But randomly a few weeks ago this tab was removed. Guessing it was an update thats the result of some legal squabbling or something but man is it suuuuper annoying to have to open my spotify app and send to my sonos speaker. The controls within spotify dont work great for the sonos speaker and i end up then having to go back to the sonos app to control the sound and fast forward etc.

please fix the app back to the way it was! Or at least let us know that the feature was removed and why...

controlav

Lead Maestro

I used to have a tab at the top of my sonos app called podcasts. Right along side “artists” “songs” “genre” “playlist” etc. But randomly a few weeks ago this tab was removed. Guessing it was an update thats the result of some legal squabbling or something but man is it suuuuper annoying to have to open my spotify app and send to my sonos speaker. The controls within spotify dont work great for the sonos speaker and i end up then having to go back to the sonos app to control the sound and fast forward etc.

please fix the app back to the way it was! Or at least let us know that the feature was removed and why...

That list (of search categories) is supplied by each music service. The app just displays it, it comes from the service (except in the case of local library). In your case either the service changed or you are looking at a different service.

Author of the leading independent Sonos apps for Android, MacOS, iOS, Windows and Xbox.

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Emmtee

Lyricist II

So then why does my spotify still show podcasts and a podcast tab but my sonos app does not? Any idea on how to get podcast search functionality back into my sonos app?

controlav

Lead Maestro

Sticher and TuneIn are the only music services I have on Sonos that support a search category of podcast. Spotify does not.

So then why does my spotify still show podcasts and a podcast tab but my sonos app does not?

Because Spotify chose not to include podcasts as a category in their SMAPI service. Search categories are exposed via this API: https://developer.sonos.com/reference/sonos-music-api/search/#Sample-presentation-map-configuration

Author of the leading independent Sonos apps for Android, MacOS, iOS, Windows and Xbox.

controlavAnswer

Lead Maestro

In case there is still some belief that this is not a Spotify problem, go here:

https://sonos-pmap.ws.sonos.com/spotify_pmap.24.xml

This is the Spotify metadata file, even if you can’t read XML, go look at the SearchCategories section, and you will see this:

Note: no Podcast entry. This is either a bug in Spotify, or a deliberate decision by them.

However, if you look at the end of the file, at the QuickSkips section, you will see that there is podcast support for jumping forward/backward 15 seconds. Curious. I am going to guess that someone accidentally deleted the podcasts entry in the SearchCategories section.

Suggest someone who wants this feature sends this post to Spotify and tell them to fix it. This is as clear a bug report as could be presented to them.

Author of the leading independent Sonos apps for Android, MacOS, iOS, Windows and Xbox.

E

Emmtee

Lyricist II

In case there is still some belief that this is not a Spotify problem, go here:

https://sonos-pmap.ws.sonos.com/spotify_pmap.24.xml

This is the Spotify metadata file, even if you can’t read XML, go look at the SearchCategories section, and you will see this:

Note: no Podcast entry. This is either a bug in Spotify, or a deliberate decision by them.

However, if you look at the end of the file, at the QuickSkips section, you will see that there is podcast support for jumping forward/backward 15 seconds. Curious. I am going to guess that someone accidentally deleted the podcasts entry in the SearchCategories section.

Suggest someone who wants this feature sends this post to Spotify and tell them to fix it. This is as clear a bug report as could be presented to them.

Awesome- thank you for the thorough investigation! I definitely would not have figured it out and now feel like an idiot for my original post/speculation. I think i will just add a new service to get the podcast search feature back. THANK YOU SIR!!! (Or madam)

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Emmtee

Lyricist II

Added tunein and now i can find my favorite podcast via the sonos app. I hope good karma finds you, thanks again.