Trouble Casting Spotify & Pandora, but Youtube Music Works

[btrayn1]

Hello community,

Looking for help solving an audio casting problem that started a few weeks ago.  We have 2 Google Nest Hubs and 1 older Google Home speaker in various rooms around our house. In our main family room we have a TV and a sound bar/subwoofer that has a built-in Google Chromecast. In the Google Home app, we have Spotify set as our default music provider and the soundbar as the default speaker for both Nest Hubs. We set all these up when we moved into our house 3 years ago and we could reliably tell any one of our Nest Hubs to "play music" and Spotify would start playing on the sound bar almost immediately. For some reason, that stopped working a few weeks ago. When we say "play music", each one of the Nest hubs responds right away with "Sure. Music from Spotify. Playing on the sound bar." And now, nothing happens.

At first, I thought it was our sound bar, so I did a factory reset on it and removed it from Google Home and then reinstalled it as if it were new, but that did not solve the problem. I assumed the problem was still with the sound bar, so I just purchased a new sound bar from a different manufacturer and installed it last night and went through the same process of removing the old sound bar from the Google Home app and adding in the new one. Same problem - asking Google to "play music" gets an affirmative response from the Assistant, but no music on the sound bar. We can manually start playing music from Spotify on one of our Pixel phones and then select the Chromecast icon and select the sound bar and it plays fine. After searching the forums here today, I also tried a couple different music providers - Pandora and Youtube Music. Pandora has the same problem as Spotify with no music, but surprisingly, Youtube Music starts playing just fine! I then found a post recommending we unlink Spotify from our Google account so I did that and re-linked it, but that did not help either.

So, I apparently have another sound bar I didn't need and still no way to play Spotify from our Nest Hubs. Any additional suggestions would be much appreciated!  Thanks!

[Muddi]

Hello btrayn1,

Thanks for reaching out. I know how challenging it is when you're having issues playing music on your Google Nest Hub. A few questions: which Google Nest Hub do you have (1st, 2nd gen, Hub Max)? Do you have a premium subscription with Spotify? What is the firmware version of your Nest Hub? What is the brand and the cast firmware version of your soundbar?

Let's try the steps below on one of your Nest Hubs:

1. In the Google Home app home screen, tap the device’s tile they’d like to reset.
2. Tap Settings.
3. Select Audio.
4. Tap Default music speaker or Default TV and then select Reset.
5. Check if you can play Spotify.

Let me know how it goes.

Cheers,

Muddi

[btrayn1]

Thanks for the help, Muddi!

We have to Google Home Hubs, model H1A, both running firmware version 10.20221207.2.109. We do have a premium subscription with Spotify and are logged in with that account. And the soundbar is a Polk Audio Signa S3 with cast firmware 1.56.310669.

I followed the steps you recommended and removed the sound bar as the default and the Google Home Hub then played Spotify just fine from it's own speaker. 

I then readded the sound bar as the default speaker and the Assistant would acknowledge my request, but Spotify did not play from the sound bar. However, when I asked it to play music from Youtube Music, it played from the sound bar just fine.

[Muddi]

Hey btrayn1,

Thanks for trying. Could you try asking your Nest Hub to play music on your soundbar? Please say, "Hey Google, play Spotify on <name of device>"

Keep us posted.

Cheers,

Muddi

[btrayn1]

Thanks for the follow up! I tried telling the Hub "Hey Google, play Spotify on Soundbar" and it answered "Sure. Playing music from Spotify on Soundbar" and nothing happened. Same thing when I tell it to play Pandora on Soundbar - and affirmative response but no music. Interestingly, music plays just fine when I say ""Hey Google, play Youtube Music on Soundbar". 🤷‍♂️

[WEBudo]

I'm having the exact same issue. And also started around mid april 2023.

The issue I have is that nest speakers play music right away, but chromecast devices just confirm "sure, playing music from spotify on <speaker name>" but nothing happens.

When I play from spotify app selecting the speaker, it does work (only voice commands are failing).

Tried unlinking spotify to google home app, reseting devices, logging out all devices from spotify account administration with no success.

@btrayn1 : did you get to solve this?

It's so annoying 😞

[Lubor]

I have the same issue. Third party speakers stopped working. I found a workaround by creating a speaker group with just one device. I could use the voice commands again but it stopped working about two days ago. When I request music nothing happnes. It works only with Google speakers. I tried to reconnect Spotify, I tried to reinstall it, I tried reinstalling Google Home, I even shut down power to the whole apartment to reset everything. Strangely, when I play the music on a Google speaker and then say "Hey Google, move the music to..." it works with any device, even the third party ones. I have two AV receiver from Pioneer, two NVIDIA Shields, Philips soundbar with Google Assistant... It drivers me crazy. I am pretty sure the problem is on Spotify or Google side. If it was, the "move the music" command wouldn't work.

[btrayn1]

I've read some articles lately (Inc, ChromeUnboxed, etc). that mention how Google doesn't want to pay Sonos for some of their patented technologies and had to remove them from Nest/Home devices and that Google has also been moving some of the Nest/Home engineers over to the AI team, so I'm guessing this won't be getting fixed anytime soon. 🤬

[Muddi]

Hello folks,

Sorry for the delays. I'm just checking in to see if the recent updates on Google Home or Nest speakers and displays have resolved the issue? Let us know by updating the thread, and we're glad to further assist you.

Cheers,

Muddi

[WEBudo]

I started working around thursday (last week).

I was about to sell my devices and change them to Alexa hahaha. It was SO anoying!

Thanks for the update @Muddi 😉

[Lubor]

Thank you! I confirm that it has been fixed.

[Muddi]

Hey Lubor,

I appreciate the update! 

Cheers,

Muddi

[Muddi]

Hi WEBudo,

Great! I'm glad to hear that your issue has been resolved. I will keep the thread open for a few more days to allow other users to confirm that they are no longer experiencing the same issue. If you encounter any unusual issues with your device, please don't hesitate to update the thread.

Cheers,

Muddi

[Muddi]

Hi everyone,

It's been some time since this thread was updated. Does anyone here need assistance?

Cheers,

Muddi

[Muddi]

Hi folks,

 I'm just checking in to see if you still need help with your device.  Let us know by updating the thread, and we're glad to further assist you.

Cheers,

Muddi
 

[Lubor]

It drivers me insane so I constantly test it... I've just found out that if I request a specific band, the music starts playing... But if I just say "Play Spotify", Google speaker confirms my request and nothing happens. Only if I request the music to be played on a Google speaker. Google! Do something with this please!