Spotify unable to play music

SeagullFish · 2026-05-03 21:09:45

Hello.

A few weeks ago, Spotify failed. And it’s been that way since. The application starts without any problems, but when I click a button to play a song, regardless of what song, Spotify won't play. Instead, it presents a toast-message stating:

Spotify can’t play this right now. If you have the file on your computer, you can import it.

I have done some troubleshooting on my own, and I have asked Lumo for help. This is what I know this far:

Initially, I had only spotify-launcher installed, but I have also tried installing and running spotify[AUR]. I get the same error, no matter which of the applications I run.
The web application at https://open.spotify.com also fails to play songs in Brave Browser[AUR]. However, it works in Mozilla Firefox.
When running Spotify from terminal, I get the following output:

$ spotify

(spotify:9345): libayatana-appindicator-WARNING **: 22:51:36.368: libayatana-appindicator is deprecated. Please use libayatana-appindicator-glib in newly written code.
$ spotify-launcher
[2026-05-03T20:52:49Z INFO  spotify_launcher::config] Loading configuration file at "/etc/spotify-launcher.conf"
[2026-05-03T20:52:49Z INFO  spotify_launcher] No update needed

(spotify:9576): libayatana-appindicator-WARNING **: 22:52:50.615: libayatana-appindicator is deprecated. Please use libayatana-appindicator-glib in newly written code.

I believe that the warning regarding libayatana-appindicator is not related to the issue. And I get no more output when clicking a play-button in Spotify.

Because the web application works with Firefox, but not with Brave, and none of the embedded Spotify applications work, Lumo suspects that the error could be related to a missing Widevine plugin. (More specifically, the file libwidevinecdm.so.) I’m not sure if this is the case, also I can’t find any package that provides such an exact plugin for Spotify.

Any ideas, anyone?

jl2 · 2026-05-04 07:42:14

Have you tried clearing all application data including the cache? (e.g. all spotify folders in .config, .local/share and .cache)
Perhaps also from within the app settings, including a logout?

edit: What sound server do you use? https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Sound_ … nd_servers

Last edited by jl2 (2026-05-04 07:54:54)

SeagullFish · 2026-05-05 20:15:01

jl2 wrote:

Have you tried clearing all application data including the cache? (e.g. all spotify folders in .config, .local/share and .cache)
Perhaps also from within the app settings, including a logout?

Yes. I have tried terminating Spotify, removing all spotify-folders stored in ~/.config, ~/.local/share and ~/.cache, and then starting Spotify again. This causes me to have to log into Spotify again, but the same error still persists when I click the play-button.

jl2 wrote:

edit: What sound server do you use? https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Sound_ … nd_servers

I'm not sure. I see that I have the following packages installed:
alsa-lib 1.2.15.3-2
alsa-plugins 1:1.2.12-5
alsa-topology-conf 1.2.5.1-4
alsa-ucm-conf 1.2.15.3-1
pipewire 1:1.6.4-1
pulseaudio 17.0+r98+gb096704c0-1
pulseaudio-alsa 1:1.2.12-5
pulseaudio-bluetooth 17.0+r98+gb096704c0-1

Thus, it seems that I have both pipewire and pulseaudio installed. But I'm not sure which one of them is actively being used by my system. Both are required by different packages related to Cinnamon (my current DE).

Packages requiring pipewire:
muffin 6.6.3-1
mutter 50.1-1
qt6-multimedia 6.11.0-1
xdg-desktop-portal 1.20.4-1

Packages requiring pulseaudio:
cinnamon-settings-daemon 6.6.4-1
gnome-settings-daemon 50.1-1
pulseaudio-bluetooth 17.0+r98+gb096704c0-1

jl2 · Yesterday 10:27:04

Having both of them installed is probably a bad idea. Replace pulseaudio and pulseaudio-bluetooth with pipewire-pulse, it should seamlessly replace it and satisfy the dependencies. Then log out/reboot and try if spotify works.

Arch Linux

#1 2026-05-03 21:09:45

Spotify unable to play music

#2 2026-05-04 07:42:14

Re: Spotify unable to play music

#3 2026-05-05 20:15:01

Re: Spotify unable to play music

#4 Yesterday 10:27:04

Re: Spotify unable to play music

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