Problems with self-hosting

[Dontknowanusername]

Hey there! So while I very much like the discord bot, I wanted to try self-hosting it but have run into some difficulties that I hope someone can clarify.

I've managed to install Python and Pip and also managed to copy the Github repository. The trouble I'm facing right now is the next step of:

Install Python dependencies:

pip install -r requirements.txt

I've managed to install this, but when I get these errors:

ERROR: "could not find a version that satisfies the requirement data-scrapper (from spotify-scrapper)
ERROR: No matching distribution found for data-scrapper

I have no idea how to fix these.

The next problem I'm facing is this:

Install Playwright browsers (after installing requirements):

playwright install

I have no idea what to do here with the Playwright stuff. The command itself doesn't work. So I'm stuck on both these issues.

Another question I have is about the Spotify application that I made and how I should go about integrating it and what I actually need to do with it. I don't see any further instructions given about it, so I'm stuck here as well.

The discord bot itself is awesome. Any help would be very much appreciated!

[alan7383]

Hey! Thanks so much for trying out the bot and for the detailed feedback. This is super helpful! You've run into a few issues that I can definitely help with.
Let's tackle them one by one.

Installation Errors (requirements.txt)

You're absolutely right, there was a typo in the requirements.txt file which caused that data-scrapper error. My apologies!
I've just pushed a fix to the GitHub repository. To get it working, you'll need to update your local files and then reinstall the requirements. Here are the steps:

• Update your local repository by running this command in the project folder:
  git pull

• Now, install the corrected requirements again:
  pip install -r requirements.txt

  This should now complete without any errors!

Playwright Browsers

This is a common issue. Sometimes the playwright command isn't recognized directly. A more reliable way to run it is by calling it through the Python module.
After the pip install command from the previous step is successful, run this instead:
python -m playwright install

This will correctly install the necessary browsers for Playwright to function.

API Credentials (Spotify & Genius)

Great question, and this is the most important part! In this bot, the API keys are placed directly inside the main Python file.

• Open the main bot file.

• Look for the API Tokens & Clients section near the top of the code. You will find these lines:

  --- API Tokens & Clients ---

GENIUS_TOKEN = "YOUR_GENIUS_TOKEN_HERE"

... (a few lines down)

SPOTIFY_CLIENT_ID = 'CLIENTIDHERE'
SPOTIFY_CLIENT_SECRET = 'CLIENTSECRETHERE'

• You need to edit these lines with your own keys:

  • Replace 'CLIENTIDHERE' with your Spotify Client ID.

  • Replace 'CLIENTSECRETHERE' with your Spotify Client Secret.

  • For the /lyrics command to work, replace "YOUR_GENIUS_TOKEN_HERE" with your API token from Genius.

  You can find your Spotify credentials on your Spotify Developer Dashboard.

Important: Once you have added your keys, never share this file publicly or upload it to a public Git repository, as it contains your secret credentials!
Thanks again for flagging these issues and for your kind words about the bot! Let me know if you run into any other problems. Happy to help!

[Dontknowanusername]

Wow, you're amazing! Thank you for the very quick and detailed reply. Just to confirm, when you say the "project folder" do you just mean CMD / Powershell? If so, the git pull command doesn't work for me (I'll add a picture)

[alan7383]

Hi there! Thank you for the screenshot, it's very helpful and explains the problem perfectly.

It seems the commands are failing because they are not being run inside the project folder. The command prompt (CMD or Powershell) is just the tool you use, but you have to first tell it where the code is located.

The git pull command also only works if the project was downloaded using git clone.
Let's start over with a fresh, clean method that is much simpler.

1. Delete the Old Folder

• Find the old project folder you downloaded (it might be in your Downloads folder) and delete it completely. This will ensure we start fresh.

2. Clone the Project Correctly

• Open your command prompt (CMD or Powershell).

• It's best to navigate to a place you like to store projects, for example, your Desktop. You can do this by typing:
  cd Desktop

• Now, run this command to download the project properly. This will create a new folder for the bot.
  git clone https://github.com/alan7383/playify.git

3. Navigate Into the New Project Folder

• Once the command above is finished, a new folder has been created. You must move into it using the cd (Change Directory) command. If the repository name is discord-bot, for example, you would type:
  cd discord-bot

  Your command prompt should now show that you are inside the folder (e.g., C:\Users\lissye\Desktop\discord-bot>).

4. Install Everything

• Now that you are in the correct folder, you can run the installation commands, and they will work:
  pip install -r requirements.txt

• After that finishes successfully, run the Playwright command:
  python -m playwright install

5. Add Your API Keys

• Finally, open the Python file inside the project folder with a text editor and add your API keys as explained in the previous message.
  This method should resolve all the errors you were seeing. Let me know how it goes!

[Dontknowanusername]

Hey there! So I think I managed to do all of it correctly and have been able to invite my bot into my own server, but the problem now happens to be that there aren't any commands for me to use. There is no r/play or anything else. When tagging, the bot also doesn't respond either. I'm not sure what I did wrong here. Even when getting the bots list in the chat by typing the / command and looking at the sidebar it doesn't appear in it. I'm not sure what the problem might be.

Edit: I also definitely added the Application.commands scope, so I don't think that's the problem.

[alan7383]

Hey, thanks for the update! It's really helpful to know you've already sorted out the applications.commands scope. That means we can rule out the most common problem.

Okay, in that case, the next most likely culprit is a different setting on the developer portal called Privileged Gateway Intents. Even if your invite link is perfect, the bot itself needs these master permissions turned on to be able to read messages or see server members properly.

Could you go back to the developer portal, click on the "Bot" tab, and scroll down to that "Privileged Gateway Intents" section? Please make sure all three of those toggles are switched on (they should be blue). This is a super important step that's very easy to miss.

After you've enabled them, you'll need to completely stop your bot's script (press Ctrl+C in the terminal) and restart it.

Here’s another key tip: fully restart your Discord client as well. Sometimes Discord's app caches the command list and doesn't update right away. A quick restart (you can use Ctrl+R on the desktop app) forces it to fetch the new commands from your bot. It's a good habit to do this anytime you add a bot or change its commands.

If it still doesn't work after all that, the only other thing it could be is the token itself. To be 100% sure, you could try clicking "Reset Token" on the "Bot" tab and pasting that new, fresh token into your code before restarting the script one last time.

My bet is on the Privileged Intents needing to be turned on, followed by a quick restart of both the bot and your Discord app. Let me know if that does the trick!

[Dontknowanusername]

Hey there, thank you again for the quick reply. I've turned on the privileged Intents and restarted my discord as well. I've then kicked the bot and added it again and restarted. The problem however stil persists. Where exactly would I put the Bot token? Into the Python Playify file? If so, where exactly? You've been amazingly helpful and I'm very grateful for it.

[alan7383]

Hey there! You are so welcome, and honestly, thank you for being so patient and sticking with this. Your question is the perfect one to ask, and it sounds like we've found the final missing piece to the puzzle!

You are exactly right—the Bot Token goes into the playify.py file. That token is the main "password" that connects the Python script to your specific bot application on Discord.

Here’s what to do:

First, go back to your Discord Developer Portal, select your application, and go to the "Bot" tab. Click the "Reset Token" button and copy the new token it gives you.

Now, open the playify.py file with a text editor and scroll all the way down to the very last line. You will see this exact line of code:

bot.run("TOKEN")

All you need to do is replace the long token inside the quotes "" with your own token that you just copied.

Once you save the file with your own token and restart the script, it should finally spring to life! You're right at the finish line. Let me know how it goes!

[Dontknowanusername]

Alright so I'm guessing something must have gone horribly wrong because it still doesn't work. I've added the token but there still aren't any slash commands for it oddly enough. I restarted the app, kicked the bot and reinvited it again, checked all of the permissions, I've even tested it out in a newly created server, just to see if it may have been a server issue and the slash commands still don't show up. I'm not sure where else the issue could lie..

[alan7383]

Hey there, I'm really sorry to hear it's still being so stubborn. You've honestly done all the Discord-side configuration steps perfectly. At this point, I'm almost certain the issue isn't with the bot's settings, permissions, or token anymore.

It's very likely that the Python script itself is running into an error on your computer right after you start it, which causes it to crash before it can properly connect to Discord and load the commands. We just need to see what that error is.

Could you please do this for me?

Open your terminal/CMD.
Run the bot again using your command (e.g., python playify.py).
Copy everything you see in the terminal window, from the command you typed until the very end, and paste it here.

If there's any error message (especially if it's in red text), that log will tell us exactly what's wrong with the local setup and we can fix it for good. Thanks again for your amazing patience with this!

[Dontknowanusername]

Sure thing! When you say ""using your command" what command are you exactly referring to?

[alan7383]

The command to run the script is python playify.py

[Dontknowanusername]

Alright so I managed to actually fix the issue of the slash commands not showing up (apparently Discord web developer was doing this weird thing where it wasn't saving any of the options I selected in OATH2, so I had to do the Bot section first and then the OATH section.

Now that the slash commands do show up, I somehow have a new problem with getting an error message when searching for a song (it says "the application could not respond). Both Youtube links and just normal searches. At least one issue with the slash commands were fixed though however!

[alan7383]

Hey, just a quick thing to fix based on your console log. I noticed a warning that says Privileged message content intent is missing.

While this probably isn't the cause of the "application did not respond" error, it's still important to fix to prevent other potential issues.

To clear that warning, just go to your Discord Developer Portal, click on the "Bot" tab, find the "Message Content Intent" toggle, and make sure it's switched on

[Dontknowanusername]

Hey man, sorry for dropping off so abruptly, had some things to take care of!

So I've managed to fix the issue of Message Content Intent not showing up by opening the playify.py file with Notepad and adding the line intents.message_content = True under the Intent section.

Now I've checked it again in CMD and found that the error message is gone. I then went to discord and pressed the CTRL + R button to refresh while the bot was still in my server. The problem however with the commands not working as shown in the picture above still persists however sadly. I'm not sure what else I can do to fix it.

[alan7383]

Hi,
Thanks for your report! This issue is indeed quite annoying.

First, could you check if the bot shows as connected on your Discord server?
If it is connected, please try the following:

1. Update your playify.py file — I noticed you’re using an older version. Replace it with the latest one from the repository.
2. Try the simplified Windows self-hosting version I’ve developed, which might also solve your problem.

---

If the latest playify.py update still doesn’t fix it, please follow these steps and let me know if it works for you:

Code modification steps

1. Find the problematic function

   • Open playify.py, press Ctrl+F, and search for "play a link".
   • This should take you directly to the related command.

2. Locate the following block:

   @bot.tree.command(name="play", description="Play a link or search for a song")
   @app_commands.describe(query="Link or title of the song/video to play")
   @app_commands.autocomplete(query=play_autocomplete)
   async def play(interaction: discord.Interaction, query: str):
       if not interaction.guild:
           await interaction.response.send_message("This command can only be used inside a server.", ephemeral=True)
           return
   
       await interaction.response.defer()  # <-- add this line
   
       guild_id = interaction.guild.id
       is_kawaii = get_mode(guild_id)
       music_player = get_player(guild_id)
   
       if not interaction.response.is_done():  # <---------
           await interaction.response.defer()   # <----- delete these two lines
   
       if IS_PUBLIC_VERSION and re.search(r'youtube\.com|youtu\.be|music\.youtube\.com', query):
           await show_youtube_blocked_message(interaction)
           return
   
       voice_client = await ensure_voice_connection(interaction)
       if not voice_client:
           return

3. Apply these changes:

   • Add await interaction.response.defer() right after the if not interaction.guild check.

   • Remove the following block:

     if not interaction.response.is_done():
         await interaction.response.defer()