Lua functions for conky doesn’t update independently

I have two Lua functions, getSongLyrics and getSongTitle, whose outputs are displayed in a conky window.

getSongLyrics uses a python script that runs sptlrx pipe and outputs it into a FIFO file, which is read by the function and then displayed in conky using conky_displaySongLyrics.

getSongTitle uses playerctl to get the title and artist of the current song playing, which is then displayed directly to the conky window using conky_displaySongTitle.

The problem happens when a new song plays or is changed, the output display for getSongTitle in the conky wndow only gets updated whenever getSongLyrics is updated (i.e. a new lyric line). This problem is further shown whenever a song doesn’t have any lyrics available, thus conky_displaySongLyrics never gets updated, which causes conky_displaySongTitle to never get updated from the previous song, until a song with lyrics plays.

I’m assuming that it’s because of the FIFO file waiting for a new line from sptlrx pipe that causes this update problem, but I’m not quite sure how to make it so that conky updates getSongTitle independent of getSongLyrics.

How do I make it so that these two functions are ran independently from each other, so that conky_displaySongLyrics does not affect conky_displaySongTitle, and vise versa?

---

scripts.lua

-- read file and print contents of file
function readPrintFile(file)
    local f = io.open(file, "rb")
    
    -- if file doesn't exist, return nil
    if not f then return nil end

    local content = f:read("*a")
    f:close()

    return content
end

-- get song title from a music source
function getSongTitle()
    local command = io.popen("playerctl metadata --player spotify --format '{{ artist }} - {{ title }}'", "r")
    local title = command:read("*l")
    command:close()
    return format:gsub("\n", "")
end

-- get song lyrics from a music source
function getSongLyrics()
    local lyrics = readPrintFile("/tmp/sptlrx_lyrics") or ""
    return lyrics:gsub("\n", "")
end

function conky_displaySongTitle()
    return getSongTitle()
end

function conky_displaySongLyrics()
    return getSongLyrics()
end

sptlrx_lyrics.py

import os
import subprocess

pipe_path_lyrics = "/tmp/sptlrx_lyrics"
try:
    os.mkfifo(pipe_path_lyrics)
except FileExistsError:
    pass

process_lyrics = subprocess.Popen(["sptlrx", "pipe"], stdout=subprocess.PIPE)

for line_lyrics in iter(process_lyrics.stdout.readline, ""):
    with open(pipe_path_lyrics, "wb") as lyrics:
        lyrics.write(line_lyrics)

conky.conf

conky.config = {
    lua_load = "$HOME/.config/conky/scripts.lua",
    ...
}

conky.text = [[
${if_running spotify}\
${alignc} ${lua displaySongTitle}
${alignc} ${lua displaySongLyrics}\
...
${endif}
]]