How To Use Another Audio Device In Spotify Client

[agent_kith]

No luck I’m afraid...

It seems as if all outputs except USB have now been successfully disabled for all players.

The MPD player and upnp plays just like before.

However Spotify now fails to play at all but instead for each song comes up with the error ‘song unavailable’. This error typically comes when a computer is offline, however this is not the case as other internet functions are there.

Have sent you the diagnostics file.

Everything looks good as far as i can tell. The ALSA output can't be muted, because MPD is working.

Are you playing songs from Spotify, or local?

Can you go into Spotify settings, under advanced, make sure "Show Unavailable songs in playlists" is off? This looks more like a Spotify issue, probably need to ask them.

[OscarH]

Hi agent_kith,

Thanks for checking. It’s rather mysterious... all settings are as they should. Everything plays fine on all other computers in the home network.

I can also control any other Spotify Connect device through the VNC on the snakeoil machine and they still play. Yet somehow no songs are available to the snakeoil machine.

Will investigate whether Spotify have an equally dedicated support... doubt it...

[agent_kith]

One last hail mary, maybe can SSH into the PC and run the following:

Code:

sudo rm ~/.config/spotify/ -rf

Also, can you run the following and let me know what it says?

Code:

ls /etc/asound.* -l

Restart the PC. You should be prompted to re sign-in to Spotify. now see if you get audio out your USB.

[OscarH]

One last hail mary, maybe can SSH into the PC and run the following:

Code:

sudo rm ~/.config/spotify/ -rf

Also, can you run the following and let me know what it says?

Code:

ls /etc/asound.* -l

Restart the PC. You should be prompted to re sign-in to Spotify. now see if you get audio out your USB.

For the last piece of code it said: no such file or directory

Somewhat uncertain about whether it successfully ran the first code.

Spotify still does the same: declares all songs unavailable.

I have restarted the computer between all above attempts.

I might give at a 64 bit install another go...

[agent_kith]

For the last piece of code it said: no such file or directory

That part is correct

Somewhat uncertain about whether it successfully ran the first code.

if you restart Spotify and it asked you re-login, then it's working.

Spotify still does the same: declares all songs unavailable.

I have restarted the computer between all above attempts.

I might give at a 64 bit install another go...

Maybe there's a bug with 32 bit version. Certainly give the 64 bits a go and let me know how it goes. Hopefully this weekend I can run the 33 bit code and see if it works.

[OscarH]

Just for completeness I went back to the original kernel. Spotify now plays fine through the headphone out again, just like before. And all the output options are there for the other players.

Seems the DSD kernel doesn't work with Spotify, but possibly the audio output part of it has some value?

Will try to create a new bootable media. Not sure why the 64 bit didn't want to install last time.

[agent_kith]

Just for completeness I went back to the original kernel. Spotify now plays fine through the headphone out again, just like before. And all the output options are there for the other players.

Seems the DSD kernel doesn't work with Spotify, but possibly the audio output part of it has some value?

Will try to create a new bootable media. Not sure why the 64 bit didn't want to install last time.

The DSD kernel only works with the USB audio driver, hence your observation above. Because your onboard audio output is the first audio device, it'll work.

For all intents and purposes it seems Spotify is "hard coded" to always use the first audio device (i.e. card 0). The DSD kernel still treats the USB audio as card 1, even though it's the only audio device. This is just a suspicion atm and I'll try and verify this later when I can.

So, as strange as it may sound, have to figure out how to disable your onboard audio. I'm just surprised I can't seem to find the option to do that in the manual.

[OscarH]

The DSD Kernel somehow corrupts the Spotify functionality - i.e. the songs come up as unavailable. So it’s not certain whether the audio would in fact go to usb, despite this being called “1”.

[agent_kith]

Hmm.

Using the DSD kernel, remote desktop to the virtual desktop, quit Spotify. Then right click with your mouse and start a new terminal. Run the following commands:

Code:

spotify --show-console

Now start to play some music again. You should see a lot more output in the background now (called a console). Cut and paste the contents and hopefully there's something informative in there.

[OscarH]

I’ve sent you the Spotify console output.

I won’t have access to the snakeoil computer the coming week. When I get back I’ll try the 64-bit install.