Sonos Move starts Spotify in the middle of the song

  • 26 November 2021
  • 34 replies
  • 1276 views

I’m using a Sonos Move. When I play a song from Spotify through an iPhone X, Sonos starts playing in the middle of the song.  Does anyone know how to resolve this issue?


34 replies

I’ve been experiencing this issue at least for 2 years now, and I’ve always thought it was something wrong with my setup. Same problem: Spotify, two Ikea/Sonos speakers, and songs that start playing not at the beginning.

It’s annoying it didn’t get fixed after all this time…

My daughter in law had a similar issue with her Spotify account on Sonos and with my help, what she did was the following…

  • Logged into Spotify online account and then selected the option to log out of Spotify everywhere.
  • Removed the Spotify App from Sonos
  • Set her routers 2.4Ghz WiFi band to use a fixed non-overlapping channel 1, 6 or 11 and a channel-width of 20Mhz only and rebooted the router.
  • Powered off all Sonos speakers and brought them all back online and then reinstalled the Spotify service via the Sonos App.

Spotify then all worked for her perfectly after doing these things and she has not had an issue since. If she groups her speakers, she now mostly starts that group-playback using the most modern Sonos speaker in her setup, which in her case, is a Sonos Five - So that new(ish) device is usually the group co-ordinator - it has a decent processor/storage for sending all the music to the other devices for playback in sync.

So perhaps see if these things may work for you. 

Thank you for all the steps you listed! I will try as soon as possible :)

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Hi @sweetOlive 

Having not seen diagnostics, I have no real opinion.

I highly recommend anyone experiencing this issue get in touch with technical support. If it is indeed a bug, it needs to be documented with cases to be investigated. If it is a bug but not in our software, we can identify it and inform Spotify - this also needs to be documented with cases.

Been like this for me for a couple of years. Happens from iPhone, Mac, iPad ++

Any time I start Spotify and use Spotify Connect to play from any Sonos speaker or setup, the first song I play starts in the middle. Every single time.  System wide.

Using the Sonos app?

Using the Spotify app and Spotify Connect?

Using the Spotify app over Airplay?

Using the Spotify app over Bluetooth?

 

We need rather more data.

In that case your local network traffic could be choked. Maybe the Move’s WiFi connection is marginal. Submit a Sonos diagnostic after an occurrence and post the confirmation number. 

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Hi @beansiegal 

Can we get this (better) documented Corry so that it can be fixed?  I’d guess that many others who aren’t reporting it are experiencing this issue too.  

Yes - but only by calling in. Hearsay is no good to our engineers - they need hard evidence to work off of, as well as sound troubleshooting to isolate any actual software issues from environmental ones.

I’ve been experiencing this issue at least for 2 years now, and I’ve always thought it was something wrong with my setup. Same problem: Spotify, two Ikea/Sonos speakers, and songs that start playing not at the beginning.

It’s annoying it didn’t get fixed after all this time…

My daughter in law had a similar issue with her Spotify account on Sonos and with my help, what she did was the following…

  • Logged into Spotify online account and then selected the option to log out of Spotify everywhere.
  • Removed the Spotify App from Sonos
  • Set her routers 2.4Ghz WiFi band to use a fixed non-overlapping channel 1, 6 or 11 and a channel-width of 20Mhz only and rebooted the router.
  • Powered off all Sonos speakers and brought them all back online and then reinstalled the Spotify service via the Sonos App.

Spotify then all worked for her perfectly after doing these things and she has not had an issue since. If she groups her speakers, she now mostly starts that group-playback using the most modern Sonos speaker in her setup, which in her case, is a Sonos Five - So that new(ish) device is usually the group co-ordinator - it has a decent processor/storage for sending all the music to the other devices for playback in sync.

So perhaps see if these things may work for you. 

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@Jraward So what did Sonos say when you called them as advised above?

Happens to me all the time now, very easy to replicate. Also happens on a brand new Sonos system on a different network that I have.

Probably going to switch to Apple Music, hopefully the issue will go away then. Spotify and Sonos don’t play well together these days.

Also happening here, either with Roam or Sonos One (on independent and new systems).

Happens 100% of the times!

Using spotify connect.

Have you tried the things mentioned earlier in this thread? If so, then you are perhaps best to speak to Spotify Support and if no joy there, then goto  https://support.sonos.com/s/contact and speak with Sonos Support Staff about the matter.

I also have this issue. When playing songs from Spotify on Ubuntu or on Android. It consistently starts in the middle of the song, but the spotify progress bar incorrectly shows that it starts playing from the start. Pressing |< (back) starts the song from the beginning.

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I also have this issue. When playing songs from Spotify on Ubuntu or on Android. It consistently starts in the middle of the song, but the spotify progress bar incorrectly shows that it starts playing from the start. Pressing |< (back) starts the song from the beginning.

Same problem on iOS. Every time I start up Spotify and play on a Sonos speaker, I have to restart the song since it plays servals seconds in (not necessarily the middle). 

What did Sonos say, when you contacted them, as has been suggested several times?

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@Corry P 

So this has nothing to do w/ wifi interference, old versions of software etc…. it took me a while to understand it but I think it’s a simple bug in somebody’s software.  My interpretation:

Basically there is a time pointer that keeps track of where you are in the data of the song.  When you stop a song in the middle, and sometime later, play a different song, that time pointer doesn’t get properly reset to 00:00, but rather is still on the position of where you left the last song.  For some odd reason the GUI display of the timeline DOES get reset to the beginning of the song, but the code that is actually pulling the song data does not.  That explains the mismatch between the timeline display showing the song playing from the beginning but the song not actually doing that.

 

I’ve been experiencing this for years, and every time it happens, i think “f’ing buggy code”...


 

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So this is a Spotify problem?

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Good question: I think that yea, the fault probably lies w/ spotify, but I’d be interested to hear what Corry et.al. think….

On the other hand I’ve think I’ve only experienced the problem with sonos+spotify, but to be honest, that’s how I do most of my spotify listening except for maybe the car?

Heavens know spotify has lots of other bugs that have haunted it for years (e.g. trying to play downloaded songs when out in the woods away from a data signal: I finally figured out that I have to put my phone in airplane mode to snap spotify out of it’s eternal, animated-dot loading mode)

I’m only using Spotify ‘Free’ here, but not seeing the issue with the ‘Connect’ feature, nor with Airplay. Maybe if anyone uses Airplay, it might be worth trying that, just to see if the same thing happens, in which case it could just be a local wireless connection issue, which might be solved (hopefully) simply, either by switching WiFi bands in some cases, or a change of router/SonosNet channel (perhaps)?

I read in other threads here too, that signing out of Spotify ‘everywhere’ via the users online account and removing/reinstalling both the native Spotify App and the Spotify Service in the Sonos App can often assist with such issues too, so perhaps consider giving that a try (if not tried already).

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Hi @acmove @wefef @ryanbv @tiaskillen & @danielrosenq 

Please ensure both your Sonos systems and your Spotify apps are fully up-to-date. Reboot your speaker, your device running the Spotify app, and your router. If the issue persists after these steps, I recommend you get in touch with our technical support team, who have tools at their disposal that will allow them to give you advice specific to your Sonos system and what it reports.

I hope this helps.

Yep, same here.  This has been happening to me as well for years.  I think there’s clearly a real bug going on.  Whether that’s on the Spotify or Sonos side, I don’t know.  I suspect though it’s based on the Sonos side.  I have tried other wireless speakers with Spotify and have not had this issue with any of them.  

Can we get this (better) documented Corry so that it can be fixed?  I’d guess that many others who aren’t reporting it are experiencing this issue too.  

Same thing for me. I have an iPhone 12 Pro and 2018 MBP i7. Whenever I stream from the Spotify app using the “select a device” feature to any of my Sonos speakers, it’ll start blasting from the middle of the song. This has been happening for 2 years. In terms of internet, our ISP is Xfinity. We have fairly decent wi-fi speeds on account of our mesh TP Deco router. We get about 500Mbps down near the main router and no less than 50Mbps at our furthest part of the house.

 

Using the Sonos app?

Using the Spotify app and Spotify Connect?

Using the Spotify app over Airplay?

Using the Spotify app over Bluetooth?

 

We need rather more data.

Using the Spotify app and Spotify Connect

In that case your local network traffic could be choked. Maybe the Move’s WiFi connection is marginal. Submit a Sonos diagnostic after an occurrence and post the confirmation number. 

Here's the confirmation number: 940341039

Exactly the same problem with Sonos amps, Sonos Move, Sonos One with Spotify connect on a freshly rebooted system. Do it every time. Frustrating.

Don’t happen with playlist, only when launching single hits.

Exactly the same problem with Sonos amps, Sonos Move, Sonos One with Spotify connect on a freshly rebooted system. Do it every time. Frustrating.

Don’t happen with playlist, only when launching single hits.

Have you tried going to your Spotify account online via a browser and signing out of ‘all devices’, then removing both the Spotify native App and the Spotify Service from the Sonos App on your controller device… and then rebooting/power-cycling All hardware, including the local router and then reinstalling the software (Spotify native App first) to see if that may resolve your issue?

Nope… Nor I unplugged all the speakers as well as uninstalled the Amps, change the wires, cut the electricity for a week and burnt incense…

Many thanks but I just expect it to work as a pricey system without hassle like that every now and then.

A precision: appart from Move, everything is wired (RJ45 cat. 6), MacBook Pro included.

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