Playing an empty queue on free Spotify

[Lostflares]

I am using the free plan of Spotify on a Google Pixel 6a. Twice now I have tried to listen to a playlist on my phone (which I had had no problems with in the past) in which one song will play before playing a song from the "queue". Now, I did have a queue on desktop, but I listened to the queue in its entirety and thus cleared it. The songs playing from the queue are songs I had already listened to and cleared from any queue I had. I looked up how to fix this issue, and all solutions I came across required you to have premium or be near your desktop. I only listen from my phone when I'm away from my computer, and I am on the free Spotify plan.

Today was the 2nd time I've had the issue, and before I went to far I went back to my computer and double checked that the queue was empty. Thus, the one solution I can do as a free Spotify user was rendered not applicable, since the queue had no songs in it (and certainly not the songs I'd already listened to). Since this has only happened twice, I don't know if it will happen again, and I really hope for a better solution than skipping the songs and/or letting them play out.

Between the first time it happened and the second time, I did not add any songs to the queue at all. Also, after the app played through what it thought was in the queue, the top banner changed from saying "playing from play queue" to "playing suggested song", but all the suggested songs were from the playlist I was trying to play. That might just be a small bug, but the queue issue is way more annoying.

Any solutions would be appreciated. Hopefully better ones than "just clear your queue".

[Yordan]

Hi there @Lostflares,

Welcome to the Spotify Community!

Sounds like you have Autoplay toggled on - the feature automatically generates a new queue when the current one ends so that the music never stops. You can disable it from Settings > Playback.

It's also worth noting that the mobile app does not fully support on-demand playback for free users: there are up to 15 Spotify playlists (found in the Made for You section under Search), where you can pick and play any song you want, but the rest is only accessible in Shuffle mode. More info in this article.

Hope this info helps.

Cheers 💚

[Lostflares]

Unfortunately, this is not the case. I don't have autoplay on (in fact, when this queue issue started I double checked that it was off). I also am aware that the playlists will be in shuffle mode, the issue was that it wasn't shuffling the playlist, it was going into a nonexistent queue (the queue that had already been listened to to completion on my desktop version). Regardless of autoplay, or the nature of shuffle for the playlists, it should not be playing a queue at all. The queue was empty.

[Yordan]

Thanks for the reply @Lostflares.

Does this happen when connected to an external Bluetooth/Wi-Fi device? Could you share a short screen recording which captures the described behavior in action so we can take a direct look at what's happening on your end? Feel free to also share the exact version of Spotify you're running.

If you're unable to attach the screen recording here in your reply, you can instead upload it to YouTube as unlisted video and share the URL, or to a could service like Google Drive (just make sure the file's accessible by anyone with the link).

Cheers 🤘

[Lostflares]

I would love to record a screen recording, but the last time I listened to Spotify on my phone it didn't happen... It might've solved itself (by running through the queue the second time), but I will come back with a screen recording the next time it happens.

[Ivelina]

Appreciate the cooperation @Lostflares!

We're here and don't hesitate to let us know if anything else comes up in the meantime.

Have a good one 🙂