In August 2021, Microsoft’s Chief Product Officer Panos Panay announced a redesigned Alarm Clock app for Windows 11, featuring a new interface and integration with Spotify. The app was designed to help users focus on work and study tasks by playing soothing music from a curated Spotify playlist. Panay touted this as a game-changing feature, but it appears to have been short-lived.
In recent months, numerous users have reported being unable to link their Spotify accounts to the Alarm Clock app. Despite a large number of complaints, Microsoft has yet to address the issue, and the feature remains unusable, with users encountering a blank screen when attempting to log in.
Frustrated users turned to the Spotify forums for assistance, where the company revealed that the problem lies not with Spotify, but with an expired certificate in the Windows client, preventing proper connectivity. According to Spotify, this is a known limitation in Windows, and with the expired certificate, any oAuth headers sent to the Spotify API are no longer valid. The company stated that it is unable to resolve the issue and advised users to contact Microsoft for assistance.
Based on user feedback, the feature has been nonfunctional for at least three months. Typically, Microsoft would replace an expiring certificate well in advance. It remains unclear why the company has not yet addressed this issue, even though fixing it should be relatively simple.