Spotify - Song Not Encoded Correctly

Makes sense. My guess is they’re continuing to pass information to Spotify so the engineers at Spotify can fix the servers they’ve assigned to the Sonos client. The question is, based on the rather large number of threads about Spotify currently, are the Spotify engineers doing anything? If I were a Spotify subscriber, I’d be complaining loudly and frequently to Spotify. 

My guess is that the problem is on Sonos’ end.  And that currently Sonos Engineering is focused on the launch of S2 and not bugs/issues on S1.  Hoping this magically fixes itself after I switch to S2.

I don’t see how. Sonos doesn’t store or handle the data stream, other than play it on the speaker. Sonos is merely an aggregator on the software side. All Sonos does is connect to a server address provided by Spotify, and play the stream presented to it by that server. Part of the API that Sonos provides is merely the presentation layer you see in the controller, which is interacting with the data on Spotify’s server.

If this was an issue with Sonos’ player software which runs on the speakers, we’d see hundreds of threads from every streamI guess service. The fact that it is only Spotify indicates to me that the issue is at Spotify’s servers. 

But you’re certainly welcome to have a different opinion. 

No worries Bruce.

Just thinking out loud it could be something as silly as Sonos (app) not handling a particular response code from Spotify (servers) due to a API change.   The big outage a week or so ago...that could have been due to a breaking API change from Spotify and Sonos using duct tape to get it working again but not covering all the bases and so these pesky bugs are now occuring.  

Well, since I’m neither an engineer, nor work for Sonos, I’m not certain. But if indeed there was a change, since there has been no firmware update from Sonos on the speakers for many weeks,  it seems much more likely to have occurred in the Spotify servers. But perhaps I have confirmation bias at work. But if you were to force me to bet on one or the other, I would happily place my money, in this particular case, that, given all the other investigation that you’ve done, the issue is on Spotify’s servers. In setting up their service on Sonos, they agree to provide data in X manner. If they’ve changed that, it isn’t Sonos’ responsibility. 
 

I guess we’ll just need to wait and see. If there is a software/firmware update that gets issued by Sonos, then I’m 100% wrong. If it gets fixed without that happening, then we know the issue is on Spotify’s side of things. I’m not a Spotify subscriber, so it doesn’t impact me directly, either way, but I do feel empathy for users who are impacted, like you are. It’s not a great situation, no matter who is at ‘fault’.  

I’ve begun experiencing this as well in the last couple weeks.  Nothing has changed and no other services exhibit this behavior.  It’s definitely Spotify and SONOS specific and not something I have control over (i.e. My network or equipment).

Upgraded to S2 this morning and problem did not magically go away.  So much for wishful thinking.

Certainly suggests the issue isn’t in the Sonos side of things. 

Bruce, what’s your issue with having to be right?  Chill.   

P.S.  I’m an engineer and work on systems that stream massive amounts of data.  And I design APIs that are used cross-platform and cross-company.

It’s the Internet, our egos are on the line! :)

Still, the problem is between SONOS and Spotify. If this is an important partnership to SONOS, they will work with Spotify to fix this whether it’s their problem or not.

That’s how businesses work.