[spotify-lyrics][BUG] Lyrics not showing despite python daemon working

[NaiveInvestigator]

Submission checklist

• I have searched existing issues and confirmed this is not a duplicate.
• I am using the latest available version of Noctalia and of the plugin.
• This is a bug in a community plugin, not in Noctalia itself (those belong in the noctalia repo).

Plugin

spotify-lyrics

Plugin version

1.2.0

Bug description

as mentioned in title, daemon works but noctalia doesnt pick it up.

Steps to reproduce

1. PLay song
2. Open Lyrics panel

Expected behavior

SHow lyrics when playing music

Actual behavior

i open the lyrics panel and it says "No Music playing", even though the daemon picked up the song from MPIS

systemctl --user status noctalia-lyrics.service
● noctalia-lyrics.service - Noctalia Lyrics Daemon
     Loaded: loaded (/home/maelstrom/.config/systemd/user/noctalia-lyrics.service; enabled; preset: enabled)
     Active: active (running) since Wed 2026-08-26 15:09:39 +06; 46min ago
 Invocation: 150707dd09a44bc982a446baf4b54237
   Main PID: 181115 (python3)
      Tasks: 2 (limit: 8483)
     Memory: 32.5M (peak: 35.1M)
        CPU: 9min 55.547s
     CGroup: /user.slice/user-1000.slice/user@1000.service/app.slice/noctalia-lyrics.service
             ├─181115 /usr/bin/python3 /home/maelstrom/.local/bin/spotify_lyrics_daemon.py
             └─214679 playerctl -l

Aug 26 15:09:39 LEGION systemd[1098]: noctalia-lyrics.service: Scheduled restart job, restart counter is at 1.
Aug 26 15:09:39 LEGION systemd[1098]: Started Noctalia Lyrics Daemon.

the current.json also changes to the lyriscs:

cat ~/.cache/noctalia/lyrics/current.json 
{"status": "Playing", "title": "They Don't Care About Us", "artist": "Michael Jackson", "prev_prev": "I'm a victim of police brutality, now (Mhhm)", "prev": "I'm tired of bein' the victim of hate", "current": "Your rapin' me of my pride", "next": "Oh, for God's sake", "next_next": "I look to heaven to fulfill its prophecy", "art_path": "/home/maelstrom/.cache/noctalia/lyrics/art/214c31f57f2ec17ae2399b9148586537.jpg"}⏎                                                                                                                                                     
~
❯ cat ~/.cache/noctalia/lyrics/current.json
{"status": "Playing", "title": "They Don't Care About Us", "artist": "Michael Jackson", "prev_prev": "Oh, for God's sake", "prev": "I look to heaven to fulfill its prophecy", "current": "Set me free", "next": "Skinhead, deadhead", "next_next": "Everybody, gone bad", "art_path": "/home/maelstrom/.cache/noctalia/lyrics/art/214c31f57f2ec17ae2399b9148586537.jpg"}⏎                  
~
❯ cat ~/.cache/noctalia/lyrics/current.json
{"status": "Playing", "title": "They Don't Care About Us", "artist": "Michael Jackson", "prev_prev": "Skinhead, deadhead", "prev": "Everybody, gone bad", "current": "Trepidation speculation", "next": "Everybody, allegation", "next_next": "In the suite on the news", "art_path": "/home/maelstrom/.cache/noctalia/lyrics/art/214c31f57f2ec17ae2399b9148586537.jpg"}⏎                   
~
❯ cat ~/.cache/noctalia/lyrics/current.json
{"status": "Playing", "title": "They Don't Care About Us", "artist": "Michael Jackson", "prev_prev": "Everybody, allegation", "prev": "In the suite on the news", "current": "Everybody, dog food", "next": "Black man, black mail", "next_next": "Throw the brother in jail", "art_path": "/home/maelstrom/.cache/noctalia/lyrics/art/214c31f57f2ec17ae2399b9148586537.jpg"}⏎              
~
❯ cat ~/.cache/noctalia/lyrics/current.json
{"status": "Playing", "title": "They Don't Care About Us", "artist": "Michael Jackson", "prev_prev": "Throw the brother in jail", "prev": "All I wanna say is that they don't really care about us", "current": "All I wanna say is that they don't really care about us", "next": "Tell me what has become of my rights", "next_next": "Am I invisible 'cause you ignore me?", "art_path": "/home/maelstrom/.cache/noctalia/lyrics/art/214c31f57f2ec17ae2399b9148586537.jpg"}⏎                                                                                                           
~
❯ cat ~/.cache/noctalia/lyrics/current.json
{"status": "Playing", "title": "They Don't Care About Us", "artist": "Michael Jackson", "prev_prev": "Tell me what has become of my rights", "prev": "Am I invisible 'cause you ignore me?", "current": "Your proclamation promised me free liberty, now", "next": "I'm tired of bein' the victim of shame", "next_next": "They're throwin' me in a class with a bad name", "art_path": "/home/maelstrom/.cache/noctalia/lyrics/art/214c31f57f2ec17ae2399b9148586537.jpg"}⏎                                                                                                               

when i open the lyrics panel i get this warning:

16:01:10.953 [WRN] [ui-tree] ui tree: 'column' has no prop 'overflow', ignored

Logs / error output

Noctalia version

v5.0.0 (beta 9-3_dirty) (from prebuilt cachyos repos)

Compositor

Hyprland

Environment information

.-------------------------:                    maelstrom@LEGION
          .+=========================.                    ----------------
         :++===++==================-       :++-           OS: CachyOS x86_64
        :*++====+++++=============-        .==:           Host: 82B1 (Lenovo Legion 5 15ARH05H)
       -*+++=====+***++==========:                        Kernel: Linux 7.2.0-1-cachyos
      =*++++========------------:                         Uptime: 4 hours, 49 mins
     =*+++++=====-                     ...                Packages: 1521 (pacman)
   .+*+++++=-===:                    .=+++=:              Shell: fish 4.8.1
  :++++=====-==:                     -*****+              Display (BOE08DF): 1920x1080 in 15", 144 Hz [Built-in]
 :++========-=.                      .=+**+.              WM: Hyprland 0.56.2 (Wayland)
.+==========-.                          .                 Theme: Fusion [Qt], adw-gtk3-dark [GTK2/3]
 :+++++++====-                                .--==-.     Icons: elementary [GTK2/3]
  :++==========.                             :+++++++:    Font: Noto Sans (10pt) [Qt], Sans (10pt) [GTK2/3]
   .-===========.                            =*****+*+    Cursor: default (24px)
    .-===========:                           .+*****+:    Terminal: kitty 0.48.2
      -=======++++:::::::::::::::::::::::::-:  .---:      Terminal Font: NotoSansMono-Regular (12pt)
       :======++++====+++******************=.             CPU: AMD Ryzen 7 4800H (16) @ 4.30 GHz
        :=====+++==========++++++++++++++*-               GPU: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060 Mobile [Discrete]
         .====++==============++++++++++*-                Memory: 2.20 GiB / 7.12 GiB (31%)
          .===+==================+++++++:                 Swap: 107.59 MiB / 7.12 GiB (1%)
           .-=======================+++:                  
             ..........................                   
                                                          Local IP (wlan0): 192.168.10.197/24
                                                          Battery (L19M4PC0): 60% [AC Connected]
                                                          Locale: en_US.UTF-8

Additional context

No response

[github-actions]

CC @goatnath

[goatnath]

Thanks for reporting this!

Root cause: State publishing was handled solely by the bar widget (bar.luau). Bar widgets only run when explicitly placed on your bar layout. If you toggled the panel via keybind or CLI without having the lyrics widget on your bar, noctalia.state was never populated — so the panel stayed empty despite the daemon working fine.

Fix: #511

1. Added a headless [[service]] (service.luau) that starts automatically with Noctalia and continuously bridges the daemon's current.json into noctalia.state — no bar widget placement required.
2. Added direct disk-read fallback in the panel and desktop widget.
3. Removed the invalid overflow property from ui.column (the warning you saw).
4. Hardened player matching and position parsing in the daemon.

[NaiveInvestigator]

Could be a possible reason actually, since i didn't use the default bar widget and just edited the existing media bar widget and made it open the music panel when i right click it

Initially when i was using it first, i did use the default bar widget so checks out

This is out of scope here but i was wondering if you could also add romanisation support for lioe japanese lyrics too, and for other languages too that would be very cool!

[goatnath]

Hmm.. hadn't thought about that as I myself don't listen to other languages as such ,but yeah I could try to implement it . How would you prefer it to be?

1. Showing English version as subscript below Japanese(or any other language) lyric or
2. Just show the English version only.

[NaiveInvestigator]

Hmm.. hadn't thought about that as I myself don't listen to other languages as such ,but yeah I could try to implement it . How would you prefer it to be?

1. Showing English version as subscript below Japanese(or any other language) lyric or

2. Just show the English version only.

I think going with the easiest and maintainable route is the best, ig just show the japanese texts and put the romanised text under it