Best way to play Spotify playlists without using the queue

[beibean]

Hello everyone,

I'm working on a project to control Sonos devices and I'm running into an issue specifically with playing Spotify playlists (e.g., spotify:playlist:...).

My primary goal is to play these playlists in a way that:

Correctly loads the playlist metadata (like the playlist name).

Works for users with Spotify Free accounts.

What I've Tried

Method 1: Direct SetAVTransportURI

My first attempt was to use device.SetAVTransportURI(uriToPlay). However, this method consistently fails when used with a Spotify playlist URI (I often receive UPnP errors like 714 or 804).

Method 2: Fallback to _playItemOnQueue

As a fallback, I am using a function to clear the queue and add the playlist URI to it. This is the function I'm currently using:

/**
 * Clears the queue, adds a new URI, and seeks to the first track.
 * @param {SonosDevice} device The SonosDevice instance to control.
 * @param {string} uri The URI to add to the queue (e.g., 'spotify:playlist:y').
 */
async _playItemOnQueue(device, uri) {
  await device.AVTransportService.RemoveAllTracksFromQueue({ InstanceID: 0 });
  const addQueueResult = await device.AddUriToQueue(uri);
  await device.SwitchToQueue();
  await device.SeekTrack(addQueueResult.FirstTrackNumberEnqueued);
  await device.Play();
}

The Problem

This _playItemOnQueue method works for Premium accounts, but it has two major downsides that I'm trying to solve:

• Missing Metadata: When the playlist starts playing, the Sonos app (and device events) do not show the playlist name. It just shows the name of the first track.

• Requires Spotify Premium: This method fails entirely for Spotify Free accounts. It returns a UPnP Error 804, because free accounts are not permitted to manipulate the queue (AddUriToQueue fails).

My Question

Is there another method in the library to play a Spotify playlist that avoids using the queue?

Ideally, I'm looking for a way to start playback just as if the user had selected the playlist from their favorites in the Sonos app itself, which (as far as I can tell) does load the correct metadata and does work with Spotify Free accounts.

Thanks for any insights you can provide!

[svrooij]

I didn't even know about a way to use free spotify on sonos speakers. Always assumed you would need premium for that.

for your _playItemOnQueue function, you can have a look at the source of the AddUriToQueue function. In combination with the information about external music services you should be able to form better metadata.

I think the sonos player does not load any information about a sonos playlist if you add something to the queue. I think the mobile app does that work instead and sends it to the sonos speaker when it wants to play a song.

[beibean]

Hi @svrooij,

Thanks for the quick reply and the suggestions. I appreciate the pointers towards the AddUriToQueue source and the external music services documentation for building the metadata.

After reviewing, I've decided to stick with our current _playItemOnQueue implementation for now, despite its known limitations. The main reason is that using the music services API to fetch metadata would require user to perform an explicit login/authentication for the service and I want to avoid this so far.

Interestingly, we have seen other third-party hardware integrations like Logic Machine that are able to handle this. When playing a Spotify playlist, SONOS app correctly displays the playlist name and manages playback without requiring a Premium account.

This suggests there might be another UPnP method to start playlist playback (perhaps not using AddUriToQueue or SetAVTransportURI?) that mimics the official app's behavior more closely.

Since this seems to be a common challenge, if anyone in the community discovers a way to achieve this using this library, I'd be very grateful if you'd share your findings in this thread.

Thanks again for your time and for maintaining this great library!