diff --git a/settings/hyprland.nix b/settings/hyprland.nix
index 4c9fb94..0718d0e 100644
--- a/settings/hyprland.nix
+++ b/settings/hyprland.nix
@@ -276,7 +276,23 @@ in
             -- on them reads as "reset this thing", not "close it".
             local scratchpads = {
               ["dev.fred.scratchpad"] = "ghostty --class=dev.fred.scratchpad --title=scratchpad",
-              ["dev.fred.spotify"] = "ghostty --class=dev.fred.spotify --title=spotify-player -e spotify_player",
+              -- Waits for DNS before starting spotify_player. If its cached Web
+              -- API token cannot be refreshed it falls back to an interactive
+              -- browser login (auth.rs: the refresh `Err` arm re-runs the PKCE
+              -- flow), and a "network unreachable" refresh counts as failure —
+              -- so starting at hyprland.start, before the link is up, meant a
+              -- browser window and a fresh Spotify login on every single boot.
+              -- Costs nothing once the network is up, and also covers the
+              -- respawn path firing right after a resume.
+              ["dev.fred.spotify"] = "${pkgs.writeShellScript "spotify-player-scratchpad" ''
+                n=0
+                while [ $n -lt 60 ]; do
+                  ${pkgs.glibc.bin}/bin/getent hosts accounts.spotify.com >/dev/null 2>&1 && break
+                  ${pkgs.coreutils}/bin/sleep 1
+                  n=$((n + 1))
+                done
+                exec ghostty --class=dev.fred.spotify --title=spotify-player -e spotify_player
+              ''}",
             }
             local shutting_down = false
             hl.on("hyprland.shutdown", function() shutting_down = true end)