Okay – I have installed from both a .deb file and snap and this problem arises, regardless. You try to play something and get an error that says, “This content cannot be played right now” or something on that order. Run the following:
spotify --audio-api=pulseaudio
sudo killall spotify
rm -rf $HOME/.cache/spotify/Storage
Still kinda buggy – a few caveats
Relaunch Spotify and this should work.
However: Sometimes I have to repeat these steps in random order, open and close Spotify a couple of times doing things in different order…etc. It’s a pain in the ass. But, eventually, it will work. And this has to be done every time you reboot, and, every time Spotify is open and closed. There is a workaround I have found – creating a .desktop launcher that includes the required command:
[Desktop Entry] Type=Application Name=Spotify GenericName=Music Player Comment=Listen to music using Spotify Icon=/snap/spotify/current/usr/share/spotify/icons/spotify-linux-128.png Exec=env BAMF_DESKTOP_FILE_HINT=/var/lib/snapd/desktop/applications/spotify_spotify.desktop /snap/bin/spotify --audio-api=pulseaudio %U Terminal=false MimeType=x-scheme-handler/spotify; Categories=Audio;Music;Player;AudioVideo; StartupWMClass=spotify X-SnapInstanceName=spotify
You can download an edited launcher here. If Spotify has been opened, once, without this command you may still have to remove the file containing preferences.