Listenbrainz "now_playing" scrobbles showing up as "single" entries.

[jacksaturn]

I'm setting up a configuration where I scrobble from Audirvana Studio on a Mac to myLz (ListenBrainz endpoint) on MS. From there, I'm having MS distribute the info to three clients: ListenBrainz, Last.fm and Koito.

The script to send the scrobbles to myLz is one I wrote myself, so I'm not ruling out operator error. But I wanted to check in to see if maybe there's an issue on the MS side.

The problem is that scrobbles that I submit as "now_playing" to myLz are showing up on the ListenBrainz client as "single" entries, meaning they show up in the scrobble feed and are never posted in the actual "Now Playing" section.

This is the format of the command that I'm using to submit the entries to myLz:

curl -X POST -H 'Authorization: Token XxxXXxxX-XXxx-XxXX-XXXX-xxXXXxXxxXXx' -H 'Content-Type: application/json' -d '{"listen_type": "now_playing", "payload": [{"track_metadata": {"artist_name": "Some Artist", "track_name": "Some Track", "release_name": "Some Album"}}]}' http://192.00.00.01:9078/1/submit-listens

Any ideas?

[jacksaturn]

I've been getting further acquainted with multi-scrobbler as I test this further. For the time being I've turned off the part of my script which sends the "now playing" curl commands, and am only sending the "single" entry. What I noticed is that each time I send the "single" entry — at the end of the track being played — it shows up in the multi-scrobbler web UI as the "Now Playing" track.

This makes me wonder if I'm misunderstanding how I need to address myLz as my "middleman." Should I only be sending a scrobble at the beginning of the track playing, and multi-scrobbler will handle sending an updated "single" once a new track starts playing? There's also a chance I have something misconfigured.

[FoxxMD]

Can you provide some logs? Also please provide the configuration you are using to setup the endpoint and client.

If I understand your setup correctly:

Audirvana Studio -> Listenbrainz Endpoint Source -> Listenbrainz Client ?

I used Navidrome + Listenbrainz scrobbling to test your issue. It sends now playing and scrobble listen_type payloads.

I think you are using the wrong listen_type. The listenbrainz docs and the openapi spec show playing_now, not now_playing.

https://listenbrainz.readthedocs.io/en/latest/users/json.html#submission-json
https://rain0r.github.io/listenbrainz-openapi/#/lbCore/submitListens

MS is also looking for playing_now.

You can verify if this is working correctly in MS by setting the env DEBUG_MODE=true and looking for log lines like this, after a new Play is sent to the LZ endpoint:

[2025-11-06 09:20:07.967 -0500] VERBOSE: [App] [Sources] [Endpointlz - lzTest] [Player undefined-SingleUser] New Play: Louie Zong - the road to fuchsia city
[2025-11-06 09:20:07.967 -0500] DEBUG  : [App] [Sources] [Endpointlz - lzTest] [Player undefined-SingleUser] Started new Player listen range.
[2025-11-06 09:20:07.970 -0500] DEBUG  : [App] [Scrobblers] [Listenbrainz - lz] [Now Playing] Queueing NoDevice-SingleUser Louie Zong - the road to fuchsia city from lzTest-endpointlz
[2025-11-06 09:20:08.942 -0500] DEBUG  : [App] [Scrobblers] [Listenbrainz - lz] [Now Playing] Now Playing has not yet been set! Should update
[2025-11-06 09:20:14.291 -0500] DEBUG  : [App] [Scrobblers] [Listenbrainz - lz] [Now Playing] Now Playing updated

What I noticed is that each time I send the "single" entry — at the end of the track being played — it shows up in the multi-scrobbler web UI as the "Now Playing" track.

I need to verify the behavior on the LZ side of things. It may automatically set Now Playing when a single is sent.

[jacksaturn]

Thank you!! Somehow in all my back-and-forth troubleshooting I somehow overlooked my obvious typo ("now_playing" instead of "playing_now"). Everything seems to be working perfectly now!

I'll be curious what you find out re: the playing now / single thing with ListenBrainz. For now I'm sending both, but I'm occasionlally seeing double scrobbles. I'm not reading too much into these results yet, though, because I'm still ironing out the specifics of my script.

[FoxxMD]

Based on my testing:

• sending only a single payload to listenbrainz does not update the "Now Playing" information on listenbrainz.org.
• sending only playing_now payloads to listenbrainz only updates the "Now Playing" information on listenbrainz.org. It does not eventually result in a scrobble actually occurring.

MS is also updating LZ's "Now Playing" status when it makes a scrobble submission...and since you are limiting your script to only send the scrobble it is doing both at the same time. But this shouldn't be making it double scrobble, based on the behavior I saw from above.

As for the behavior you see in MS's UI, it doesn't exactly mirror what you see (or would use) on Listenbrainz. The "Now Playing" shown in the MS dashboard is superficial only, it's only there for your benefit.

To see what MS is doing in terms of actually communicating with Listenbrainz, start MS with DEBUG_MODE=true env. Then, look for these log lines:

This indicates that MS sent a playing_now payload to Listenbrainz.

[2025-11-10 13:04:42.872 -0500] DEBUG  : [App] [Scrobblers] [Listenbrainz - lz] [Now Playing] Updated Now Playing matches and was last updated 29s ago, not updating
[2025-11-10 13:04:47.872 -0500] DEBUG  : [App] [Scrobblers] [Listenbrainz - lz] [Now Playing] Now Playing has not been updated in > 34s, should update
[2025-11-10 13:04:48.258 -0500] DEBUG  : [App] [Scrobblers] [Listenbrainz - lz] [Now Playing] Now Playing updated.

In the below lines, the Submit Payload and Submit Response lines indicate that MS sent an actual scrobble to Listenbrainz.

[2025-11-10 12:58:35.409 -0500] INFO   : [App] [Sources] [Endpointlz - lzTest] Discovered => Louie Zong - wild pokemon! @ 2025-11-10T12:57:34-05:00 (S)
[2025-11-10 12:58:35.412 -0500] DEBUG  : [App] [Scrobblers] [Listenbrainz - lz] Updated queued scrobble cache
...
[2025-11-10 12:58:36.045 -0500] DEBUG  : [App] [Scrobblers] [Listenbrainz - lz] [API - ListenBrainz - lz] Submit Payload: {"listen_type":"single","payload":[{"listened_at":1762797454,"track_metadata":{"artist_name":"Louie Zong","track_name":"wild pokemon!","release_name":"surfin' GBA","additional_info":{"artist_mbids":[""],"submission_client":"multi-scrobbler","submission_client_version":"rocksky-5abe0bc","artist_names":["Louie Zong"],"release_artist_name":"Louie Zong","release_artist_names":["Louie Zong"]}}}]}
[2025-11-10 12:58:36.427 -0500] DEBUG  : [App] [Scrobblers] [Listenbrainz - lz] [API - ListenBrainz - lz] Submit Response: {"status":"ok"}

[jacksaturn]

All of this mirrors what I've experienced. I have the script set up now to scrobble a "playing_now" entry to myLz every 15 seconds, then I send a permanent "single" entry after the track is complete. Seems to be working perfectly so far!