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Sonos steals my music when I'm on the road

Forum|Forum|3 years ago
June 18, 2023
66 replies
2285 views

I play Spotify from my iPhone 14 on my Sonos 5 and ERA 100 at home. Then I leave and play Spotify through a bluetooth headset (Sena 30K0 on my motorcycle. I’m happily riding along and the tunes stop. When I can check the phone, I find that Spotify has switched to Sonos. I switch back, but a few minutes later it happens again.

I’ve made sure I have the latest update of the Sonos and Spotify apps, closed the apps, and powered off the phone, but it still happens. Any idea what is going on and how I can stop it?

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AcuffAuthor

Trending Lyricist I

Jaime,

Thanks, but this does not explain the problem I have. I have told Spotify to play to my bluetooth, which clearly means I don’t want to play to Sonos any longer. Something about the interaction between Sonos and Spotify makes the connection change back to Sonos when that is clearly not the right thing to do. This is an error and should be fixed. It isn’t clear if the problem is with Sonos or Spotify, but they should work together to fix it. Telling me how to work around the error is kind of you, but it should be fixed. However, note that the setting I found in Spotify (described in my comment above) is a better work around.

There’s nothing to fix here…your mobile device is what switches it’s output from the phones internal speaker connection, to output the playing audio to the paired Bluetooth speaker (the Sena 30K0 headset), but you are ‘still’ leaving your Spotify App defaulting to its last connected Sonos speaker (API connection).

So you need to disconnect the Spotify App output, so it plays back to your mobile speakers …and in-turn, the mobile will auto-divert that audio to the ’paired/connected’ Bluetooth device.

I think you are just misunderstanding how the mobile BT pairing works, which really is not Spotify related, as any App on the mobile will use the BT pairing to output audio… The BT audio-out is independent to the Spotify ‘Connect’ API connection.

You just need to break the ‘Connect’ API connection. The options are mentioned above. So there’s nothing that needs fixing here - it’s more about understanding how the different connections work.

Ken,

I guess I’m just not explaining it well since several of you seem to be missing the point. It isn’t about how the speaker is connected, it is about the fact that my selection of speaker is changed without direction from me. There is never a situation where I want a speaker that I happened to have used in the past to just grab my audio from the device I had selected and start playing it. That is not a feature, it is a bug, no matter how that speaker is connected.

buzz

Grand Maestro

I believe that you are the only person to report this issue to the Community. In order to research the issue, SONOS will need some data from your SONOS system and this data must be taken from your SONOS system within 10 minutes of an “event”. Unfortunately, logging this data will be inconvenient.

Position yourself outside of your WiFi coverage area, and play Spotify on your phone, but position yourself such that you can return to your WiFi coverage area within the 10 minute window. After the “event”, return home, submit a diagnostic, log the confirmation number, and contact SONOS phone support. If this drama involves a SONOS player, there will be tracks in the diagnostic. Submit the diagnostic from the same phone that you were using to play Spotify and don’t close any Apps on the phone until after you submit the diagnostic.

A

AcuffAuthor

Trending Lyricist I

I believe that you are the only person to report this issue to the Community. In order to research the issue, SONOS will need some data from your SONOS system and this data must be taken from your SONOS system within 10 minutes of an “event”. Unfortunately, logging this data will be inconvenient.

Position yourself outside of your WiFi coverage area, and play Spotify on your phone, but position yourself such that you can return to your WiFi coverage area within the 10 minute window. After the “event”, return home, submit a diagnostic, log the confirmation number, and contact SONOS phone support. If this drama involves a SONOS player, there will be tracks in the diagnostic. Submit the diagnostic from the same phone that you were using to play Spotify and don’t close any Apps on the phone until after you submit the diagnostic.

Buzz,

Sorry, I’ve got to work to make enough money to pay for these very expensive speakers, so I don’t have extra time to also volunteer for Sonos by spending hours collecting data for a report that will most likely be ignored.

buzz

Grand Maestro

Maybe someone else will experience the issue and be able to follow through.

A

AcuffAuthor

Trending Lyricist I

Maybe someone else will experience the issue and be able to follow through.

Or maybe someone could look at the problem with the information at hand instead of expecting a paying customer to do all the work for them. But I won’t hold my breath...

Ken_Griffiths

Or maybe someone could look at the problem with the information at hand instead of expecting a paying customer to do all the work for them. But I won’t hold my breath...

…there you go, it’s fixed. Just hit the ‘end session’ button in the Sonos App:

Alternatively - switch the Spotify app back to the mobile device speaker before connecting to your Bluetooth headset…as shown here:

A

AcuffAuthor

Trending Lyricist I

Or maybe someone could look at the problem with the information at hand instead of expecting a paying customer to do all the work for them. But I won’t hold my breath...

…there you go, it’s fixed. Just hit the ‘end session’ button in the Sonos App:

Alternatively - switch the Spotify app back to the mobile device speaker before connecting to your Bluetooth headset…as shown here:

Ken,

Those aren’t fixes, they are work arounds if they work. I don’t see “End Session” in my Sonos app. I had selected my phone before having the problem about ½ the time, so I’m not sure they would even work as work arounds. Again, the problem isn’t that the connections exist, it is that the connection is moved without my input.

Ken_Griffiths

Those aren’t fixes, they are work arounds if they work. I don’t see “End Session” in my Sonos app. I had selected my phone before having the problem about ½ the time, so I’m not sure they would even work as work arounds. Again, the problem isn’t that the connections exist, it is that the connection is moved without my input.

I have no idea why you think these various options are ‘workarounds’ - it’s how this has always worked with ‘Spotify Connect’ (direct control), I’m afraid it’s your understanding that’s at the centre of the issue here of how the Spotify ‘Connect’ feature works …and just to also add, it’s the same with any 3rd party speaker that uses that Spotify ‘Connect’ feature.

The reason your App switches back to Sonos is because you have left the earlier audio-output ‘Connect’ (session) ‘open’ and in situ …and then gone onto use a totally different and separate connection using the mobile devices Bluetooth connection. That latter connection is not related to Spotify it’s part of your mobile device operating system and hardware and it can be used for Bluetooth audio output by any audio player on your mobile device, not just Spotify.

You just need to end your Spotify ‘Connect’ session, before using the mobile Bluetooth connection… it’s not a workaround, there are just a variety of different ways to end the ‘Connect’ session. All of which have been ‘clearly’ explained in this thread. I’m sorry if my screenshots are still outside your understanding, but i can assure you the ‘End Session’ is in the Sonos App and the ‘switch-to-mobile’ (speaker) feature is in the Spotify App to use your mobile Bluetooth link.

A

AcuffAuthor

Trending Lyricist I

Those aren’t fixes, they are work arounds if they work. I don’t see “End Session” in my Sonos app. I had selected my phone before having the problem about ½ the time, so I’m not sure they would even work as work arounds. Again, the problem isn’t that the connections exist, it is that the connection is moved without my input.

I have no idea why you think these various options are ‘workarounds’ - it’s how this has always worked with ‘Spotify Connect’ (direct control), I’m afraid it’s your understanding that’s at the centre of the issue here of how the Spotify ‘Connect’ feature works …and just to also add, it’s the same with any 3rd party speaker that uses that Spotify ‘Connect’ feature.

The reason your App switches back to Sonos is because you have left the earlier audio-output ‘Connect’ (session) ‘open’ and in situ …and then gone onto use a totally different and separate connection using the mobile devices Bluetooth connection. That latter connection is not related to Spotify it’s part of your mobile device operating system and hardware and it can be used for Bluetooth audio output by any audio player on your mobile device, not just Spotify.

You just need to end your Spotify ‘Connect’ session, before using the mobile Bluetooth connection… it’s not a workaround, there are just a variety of different ways to end the ‘Connect’ session. All of which have been ‘clearly’ explained in this thread. I’m sorry if my screenshots are still outside your understanding, but i can assure you the ‘End Session’ is in the Sonos App and the ‘switch-to-mobile’ (speaker) feature is in the Spotify App to use your mobile Bluetooth link.

I’m sorry that you have such trouble understanding why someone would consider having their music stop playing on the road at random times when they had not asked for that a bug.

From my perspective, when I tell Spotify to play through the bluetooth device, I am telling it to end the previous session as I don’t want to have 2 sessions. Seems pretty simple to me.

Again, I have switched to “this phone” in Spotify many times, only to have it switch back to Sonos. That doesn’t work. The “End Session” in Sonos I have seen sometimes, but it does not appear reliably.

Ken_Griffiths

I’m sorry that you have such trouble understanding why someone would consider having their music stop playing on the road at random times when they had not asked for that a bug.

From my perspective, when I tell Spotify to play through the bluetooth device, I am telling it to end the previous session as I don’t want to have 2 sessions. Seems pretty simple to me.

Again, I have switched to “this phone” in Spotify many times, only to have it switch back to Sonos. That doesn’t work. The “End Session” in Sonos I have seen sometimes, but it does not appear reliably.

Well it works how I expect a ‘direct control’ (cloud) connection to work …and in the end, they are each just audio output features, one within the Spotify App, and the other is your own mobile devices Bluetooth connection.

Sonos is just the speaker at the end of the Spotify ‘direct control’ connection, in much the same way as your headset is at the end of your mobile Bluetooth connection. In your case you’re using both at the same time, despite there being numerous options to end the Spotify direct control connection, including those that Sonos provide within their own App to assist you… in fact there are several ways to ‘end the session’, which the Staff here outlined earlier in the thread and Spotify provide options in their App too.

So no sorry, I’m not personally seeing it as a bug.

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