Starting Spotify automatically on a headless small server is tricky
A headless is being used as a Spotify playback device, but playback cannot start by itself. spotifyd, librespot, and raspotify have already been tried, and the logs show that the Spotify login details are accepted. The blocker is that the device does not become usable for playback until Spotify is opened first on another device.
can start playback and change volume after the device appears. Scripts can also be run remotely on the through SSH. The goal is to start Spotify playback from the headless device with a rough cron job.
Snapcast has also been used, but it only helps with multiroom audio and still has the same Spotify startup problem. Possible next steps include a Spotify tool, spotify-player if it can work on aarch64, or switching away from Spotify to another music service.
Key points
- spotifyd, librespot, and raspotify accept the login but do not start playback alone.
- The device appears as a playback target only after Spotify is opened on another device.
- can automate playback and volume after the device becomes available.
- SSH access makes s possible, so a cron job is the desired control path.
- Snapcast helps with multiroom audio but does not fix the Spotify startup behavior.