Playing different Spotify content in different rooms no longer working

B
Userlevel 1
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I’ve been using Sonos with Spotify for many years now, and have always been able to play different songs in different rooms without any problems.

However, after receiving and setting up my Roam earlier today, this is no longer the case… :-(

Every time I try to start playing one song in one room, and then start another in another room, the first room stops playing, and the Sonos App (S2) says the following:

«Playback stopped in XXX. The Spotify account is beeing used elsewhere» (May not be 100% correct, as it is loosely translated from norwegian, but anyway)

And yes, before anyone suggest the limitations related to Alexa/Google etc; this is using the native Sonos App only. No Spotify Connect involved either ;-)

If there has been made any changes to the terms and conditions, and/or how the integration with Spotify (and other services) works, and this is the case, I cannot recall being «warned» about this.

The ability to play different content in different rooms with one (1) Spotify-account has always been one of Sonos’ core strengt in my opinion.

I REALLY hope that this is just an temporary issue, or a bug introduced with one of the latest software-versions? Otherwise, the Sonos+Spotify experience is rendered somewhat useless… :-(

If anyone else is experiencing the same, please reply. I also hope that a representant from Sonos also reads this and can give feedback on this issue.

 

 

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62 replies

C

I have found that the Sonos Roam cannot switch spotify accounts. I can ask my Sonos One to switch accounts and it works every time. Hopefully this will get fixed. 

B

Update: After unplugging all of the speakers, I can confirm everything is functioning back to normal! 

B

I have the same exact problem except the error message I receive is "unable to play (song name), connection to spotify was lost" Prior to last week, everything was working perfectly. A few days ago, I could stream the same song to different rooms, but couldn't stream different songs to different rooms. And now, I can't even stream to any room. Please help!

A

Yep. Waiting for a response. Looks like this problem goes all the way back to 2016… hopefully there’s a solution. 

106rallye
Userlevel 7
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Have you tried contacting Sonos?

A

I’m frustrated to tears. I can’t get back the hours I’ve poured into this. My Sonos is acting like I’m trying to play multiple streams from Spotify except I can’t even play ONE stream. It’s unusable. How can I fix this from my end? I’ve exhausted every forum, every article, every q&a. I’ve disconnected and reconnected the sonos, force signed out all Spotify logins, etc. I want to just return all my Sonos speakers at this point. I’ve spent two hours just today working on it… not to mention all the other days from when I added the roam speakers. 

B

I can confirm its now working again too - thanks to the Community for raising the issue and Sonos/Spotify for resolving it.  

 

What a relief!

F
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It’s working again for us as well!!!  Thanks Sonos!  

As a note, I have automatic updates enabled, but didn’t have to manually apply a new update.  So, it either updated itself to a new version or they fixed it on the backend without creating a need to update locally.


Spotify fixed the problem. ;) And I can confirm it’s fixed.

 

https://community.spotify.com/t5/Other-Partners-Web-Player-etc/Different-music-in-different-rooms-Sonos/td-p/5191774/page/2

I was guessing it was a Spotify problem, but Sonos had to work with them to resolve the issue.  

Airgetlam

Yea, it’s hard to conceive of this as being a Sonos issue, since the stream isn’t handled by Sonos at all until the point it reaches the speaker. I suspect they had a misconfigure of their server, but that’s only a guess. 

Bruce
K
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It’s working again for us as well!!!  Thanks Sonos!  

As a note, I have automatic updates enabled, but didn’t have to manually apply a new update.  So, it either updated itself to a new version or they fixed it on the backend without creating a need to update locally.


Spotify fixed the problem. ;) And I can confirm it’s fixed.

 

https://community.spotify.com/t5/Other-Partners-Web-Player-etc/Different-music-in-different-rooms-Sonos/td-p/5191774/page/2

F
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It’s working again for us as well!!!  Thanks Sonos!  

As a note, I have automatic updates enabled, but didn’t have to manually apply a new update.  So, it either updated itself to a new version or they fixed it on the backend without creating a need to update locally.

M

Opened a discussion today in the morning about this exact topic, but in German SONOS forum …

Using SONOS für 3 years, right now 4 Play:1 and 1 Move.

Problem started to occur yesterday in the evening.

Hope that it is fixed when I’m at home today in the evening; post by @ullefutz makes me hope for the best. 

Xander P
Userlevel 6
Badge +15

Glad to hear it @ullefutz, too early to say if this is working for all who were affected, but certainly a good sign!

U

The problem has been fixed. For us it works again as before. Thank you very much!

J

@sdaless . OK I admit I was mistaken in thinking a dedicated Spotify ‘family member’ for Sonos was unusual. But in some cases this appears to have been adopted because users don’t realise that every family member can add their Spotify login to a single Sonos system.  The Spotify account to which a controller defaults can be chosen independently for each controller, although each controller can play from any of the Spotify accounts.

If everyone just uses their own account and not yours, you have no problems using your account when away.

I guess it’s good that these different ‘models’ are available to fit different users’ requirements.

S

UPDATE: Chatted with Sonos Tech Support and they said they will have the engineers look into it, but they seemed to insist that I needed to use multiple Spotify logins, which was a bit “frustrating”.  

INTERESTING FINDING: @James L. I’m having the same problem, but using my iPhone I did just figure out that I can use the Sonos App to play a Spotify stream on one speaker and then go into the Spotify App and play a different stream / song by connecting through the Spotify App to another Sonos speaker. It’s only a partial workaround and only because it’s probably identifying two different users in that scenario.

@John B I too have created a dedicated “home” family member user on my Spotify Premium Family Account that I have used for at least 5 years. This way the Sonos speakers in my house are always using that dedicated “home” username and if anyone else in the family wants to use Spotify through their app when they are away from the house, they can do that… in fact I had no idea there was any other way that you can have a setup like this WITHOUT doing that, so I’m in the same boat as @kingofcomedy and others here.

I have multiple iPads in the house for general use and Alexa, so all these devices use the same “home” family member account. I think it’s actually an elegant solution for the setup with the exception of our personal Spotify favorites not showing up. But if I need that, I just launch Spotify on my iPhone which is linked to MY account and playlists, which I then connect to whatever Sonos speakers I want.              

N

@Sonos are you in touch with Spotify to solve this ? It’s quite crazy that this issue seems normal to erverybody while it were working for years….

J

@ChrisHolzer - that’s a fair point about Alexa, which does place additional restrictions.

That apart, a Family account does  allow each family member to play from their Spotify account on Sonos in different rooms at the same time.

However, as far as multiple Spotify streams from a single account is concerned, it does seem that something has changed recently for some but not all Spotify users on Sonos, and it doesn’t sound like it was intentional.   We await developments.

 

C

@kingofcomedy You are the first user I have come across who uses one of the Spotify Family accounts specifically for Sonos.

I did the same when I we had an alexa because alexa would always use *my* spotify account when my wife asked her to play music - which then caused that spotify stopped playing on my phone while I was running outdoors……

A dedicated “sonos” user for spotify fixed that problem.

Now my wife and kids use their own spotify accounts in the SONOS app, but frequently one of use still plays different playlists in different rooms at the same time (home-office plays different playlist than kitchen, bathroom plays a different playlist too - throughout the entire day).
Which worked fine for many years.

J

@kingofcomedy . How you use Spotify on Sonos is your business. You are the first user I have come across who uses one of the Spotify Family accounts specifically for Sonos.

I was just suggesting that you might like to use Spotify Family on Sonos like most other families seem to do. Each family member has an account within the Family subscription and adds that to the Sonos system. So everybody has their own playlists, favourites etc, and those are the same whether Spotify is being used on Sonos or on a mobile device.

But if that doesn't appeal, no problem.

(I realise that this does not address the issue raised iin this thread, which I imagine is still being investigated.)

K
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We have the same problem, which is really annoying.

 

Spotify Premium Family Account (2 adults, 2 kids, 1 account for sonos) and I have added a roam lately, too, which might just be a coincidence. Hopefully this problem is fixed by sonos and/or spotify soon.

@kingofcomedy-  If you have a family Spotify account, I would expect you still to be able to play different streams using the different family accounts, whatever may have happened to the ability to play different streams from a single account.  Have you added all the Spotify family account details to Sonos?  I am not sure what you mean by ‘one account for Sonos’.

The account for Sonos is another Adult-Member of the Spotify Premium Family Account, which was created for and only used on Sonos. If I add my Spotify-Account it is working, but that’s not what we want. If both kids are listening to music, I can’t. Does Spotify want me to register one account per Sonos-Device?! Well, I don’t think I’ll create another family-account to use Sonos as before. ;)

D
Userlevel 2
Badge +4

My Spotify has also gone crazy since introducing the Roam(s) to my house.

In my case the now playing display on the app no longer updates when the songs change,  and the play timeline sits at 00:00.i can't fast forward or rewind. Although I can skip tracks, the now playing screen doesn't update.

I can no longer play 2 songs on Spotify at once. 

A song I listened to a week ago is still stuck on my now playing screen and I can't clear it by deselecting all the rooms. 

H

My play 1 has always been connected to my spotify premium account because we use 3 different sonos speakers for my office. I have never had any problems playing 3 different playlists, one on each speaker, until this week. I hadn’t even updated the system until i started getting that error message. The update didn’t fix the problem, reauthorizing the spotify account on sonos did not fix the problem either. 

N

Hi,

 

Same problem with my Sonos infra

Spotify Premium Account

Started somwhere between last Friday & Saturday

 

Thank you for you help on this

J

I have the exact same problem since last Friday!

Spotify Premium Family account.

And Spotify support says that they did not change anything!!!!!

Same question as to @kingofcomedy  - have you added all Spotify Family accounts to Sonos and can you play from two different accounts simultaneously?  (I know this doesn’t address the single account question, but may allow you to listen as you wish until that is settled.)

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