Preview URL is always null, even for available markets

Tried a number of IDs and keep getting preview_url: null. When using the ID directly from the API documentation, it returns the preview URL.

I don’t think it matters since it’s just a wrapper, but I’m using the node.js version.

The function call:

spotifyApi.getTrack('2cWBwpqMsDJC1ZUwz813lo',
        function(err, data) {
            if (err) {
                console.error('Something went wrong!');
            } else {
                result = data.body;
            }
        }
    );

The returned JSON.

{
  album: {
    album_type: 'album',
    artists: [ [Object] ],
    available_markets: [
      'AD', 'AE', 'AR', 'AT', 'AU', 'BE', 'BG', 'BH',
      'BO', 'BR', 'CA', 'CH', 'CL', 'CO', 'CR', 'CY',
      'CZ', 'DE', 'DK', 'DO', 'DZ', 'EC', 'EE', 'EG',
      'ES', 'FI', 'FR', 'GB', 'GR', 'GT', 'HK', 'HN',
      'HU', 'ID', 'IE', 'IL', 'IN', 'IS', 'IT', 'JO',
      'JP', 'KW', 'LB', 'LI', 'LT', 'LU', 'LV', 'MA',
      'MC', 'MT', 'MX', 'MY', 'NI', 'NL', 'NO', 'NZ',
      'OM', 'PA', 'PE', 'PH', 'PL', 'PT', 'PY', 'QA',
      'RO', 'SA', 'SE', 'SG', 'SK', 'SV', 'TH', 'TN',
      'TR', 'TW', 'US', 'UY', 'VN', 'ZA'
    ],
    external_urls: {
      spotify: 'https://open.spotify.com/album/2cWBwpqMsDJC1ZUwz813lo'
    },
    href: 'https://api.spotify.com/v1/albums/2cWBwpqMsDJC1ZUwz813lo',
    id: '2cWBwpqMsDJC1ZUwz813lo',
    images: [ [Object], [Object], [Object] ],
    name: 'The Eminem Show',
    release_date: '2002-05-26',
    release_date_precision: 'day',
    total_tracks: 20,
    type: 'album',
    uri: 'spotify:album:2cWBwpqMsDJC1ZUwz813lo'
  },
  artists: [
    {
      external_urls: [Object],
      href: 'https://api.spotify.com/v1/artists/7dGJo4pcD2V6oG8kP0tJRR',
      id: '7dGJo4pcD2V6oG8kP0tJRR',
      name: 'Eminem',
      type: 'artist',
      uri: 'spotify:artist:7dGJo4pcD2V6oG8kP0tJRR'
    },
    {
      external_urls: [Object],
      href: 'https://api.spotify.com/v1/artists/1Oa0bMld0A3u5OTYfMzp5h',
      id: '1Oa0bMld0A3u5OTYfMzp5h',
      name: 'Nate Dogg',
      type: 'artist',
      uri: 'spotify:artist:1Oa0bMld0A3u5OTYfMzp5h'
    }
  ],
  available_markets: [
    'AD', 'AE', 'AR', 'AT', 'AU', 'BE', 'BG', 'BH',
    'BO', 'BR', 'CA', 'CH', 'CL', 'CO', 'CR', 'CY',
    'CZ', 'DE', 'DK', 'DO', 'DZ', 'EC', 'EE', 'EG',
    'ES', 'FI', 'FR', 'GB', 'GR', 'GT', 'HK', 'HN',
    'HU', 'ID', 'IE', 'IL', 'IN', 'IS', 'IT', 'JO',
    'JP', 'KW', 'LB', 'LI', 'LT', 'LU', 'LV', 'MA',
    'MC', 'MT', 'MX', 'MY', 'NI', 'NL', 'NO', 'NZ',
    'OM', 'PA', 'PE', 'PH', 'PL', 'PT', 'PY', 'QA',
    'RO', 'SA', 'SE', 'SG', 'SK', 'SV', 'TH', 'TN',
    'TR', 'TW', 'US', 'UY', 'VN', 'ZA'
  ],
  disc_number: 1,
  duration_ms: 297786,
  explicit: true,
  external_ids: { isrc: 'USIR10211066' },
  external_urls: { spotify: 'https://open.spotify.com/track/4xkOaSrkexMciUUogZKVTS' },
  href: 'https://api.spotify.com/v1/tracks/4xkOaSrkexMciUUogZKVTS',
  id: '4xkOaSrkexMciUUogZKVTS',
  is_local: false,
  name: "'Till I Collapse",
  popularity: 85,
  preview_url: null,
  track_number: 18,
  type: 'track',
  uri: 'spotify:track:4xkOaSrkexMciUUogZKVTS'
}

[kevinguebert]

Yeah, that’s super weird. I may dig into it more as I am trying to understand the use case for not providing it with client credentials. Maybe since it never refreshes or times out, someone could abuse that token and preview URL?

Nothing open-sourced right now, unfortunately. Depending on your project and if you need user authentication or not, there is a passport.js helper for Spotify that’s pretty easy. I currently use Firebase with Firebase Functions for my Spotify auth. That is all requiring multiple user accounts though…hm for you I would maybe look into https://github.com/thelinmichael/spotify-web-api-node and putting your access token on a server that refreshes it. Then instead of making calls directly to the Spotify API from your web app, you would call your server API that handles the Spotify API request. I’m not a security expert though so don’t quote me on that 🙃

[kevinguebert]

Ohh looks like you did catch something. I did not receive back a preview_url from my client credentials but I did receive one from my user flow. That’s strange but it looks like you may have to go with your refresh token solution