Try and see if deselecting "MIUI optimizations" at the bottom of "developer options" works for this issue. For some reason I could not set Chrome as default browser before doing this.
How strange. It initially didn't work when I turned MIUI optimization off. But it did work when I turned it back on. Would not have thought to do this if not for your suggestion. Many thanks!
Now to wait and see if the Google frameworks crashing and blank Spotify track details problem clears.