topic Re: Tracks are playing, but there is no sound in Desktop (Mac)

Tracks are playing, but there is no sound

midnight_315 — Sat, 04 May 2019 11:01:11 GMT

Plan

Free

Device

Macbook Pro 2018

Operating System

macOS Mojave 10.14.4

Spotify Version

1.1.5.153.gf614956d

My Question or Issue

The app seems to be working completely fine except the fact that there is no sound whatsoever. I've tried rebooting the mac and reinstalling the app as described here with no success.

There is also no sound when using wireless devices (AirPods and bluetooth speakers) as well as 3.5 mm jack headphones.

Re: Tracks are playing, but there is no sound

Katerina — Wed, 05 Jun 2019 12:09:23 GMT

Hey @midnight_315,

Thanks for reaching out and welcome to the Community!

If the app appears to be playing, but you can’t hear anything from your device:

Check the correct audio output is selected in your device’s volume settings. You can refer to the manufacturer for help with volume settings.
Check your audio hardware is working properly. You can test this by playing audio from somewhere other than Spotify.
Since you mention that this is happening on a desktop device, it’s worth checking your soundcard driver software and update it if there's any pending updates. You can refer to your device’s manufacturer for help with this.
Check the device you want to listen on isn’t playing to an external device with Spotify Connect, Bluetooth, or any other wireless connection method.

If none of these do the trick, it'd be helpful if you could try using your account from a different device to see if the issue persists.

If it only happens from the original desktop device, it'd be a good idea trying a clean install of the app on that device. There's steps on how to do this in this Spotify Answer.

Let us know how you get on! We'll be happy to lend a hand if you're still having troubles.

Have a lovely day 🙂

Re: Tracks are playing, but there is no sound

tzoby7b0hpw9tkn — Tue, 21 Jan 2020 22:40:44 GMT

None of these suggestions worked for me. MacOS Mojave 10.14.6 running on a MacBook Pro, all other apps can play audio just fine. I also uninstalled and reinstalled Spotify and that didn't work either. Never had this problem until today. Doesn't matter whether I use headphones are the internal speakers. I don't get any audio from Spotify, but all other apps for playing/streaming music work just fine.

Re: Tracks are playing, but there is no sound

vickiecherry — Mon, 03 Feb 2020 21:59:48 GMT

I un-paired and re-paired a fe times and it finally started working for me. Hope that helps!

Re: Tracks are playing, but there is no sound

korrekorre — Thu, 19 Mar 2020 12:47:59 GMT

Yes this is so annoying. Happens a lot. All other apps works just fine with sound and everything but Spotify is not working, no sound is coming through.

Re: Tracks are playing, but there is no sound

maxmfoto — Thu, 19 Mar 2020 15:04:53 GMT

This same issue was happening to me, couldn't get sound out of Spotify but YouTube, etc. was fine – dumb fix and I'm sure you already did this but check the app volume in the bottom right corner of the Spotify app. Mine was turned all the way down for some reason and I typically control the volume of music through the Mac OS volume control. Hope this helps!

Re: Tracks are playing, but there is no sound

luck-us — Wed, 25 Mar 2020 04:04:33 GMT

i've tried all the above but it will restart playing only if I switch devices (music will play on them) then go back to the desktop mac. It will then play for about 5 minutes and cut out again. What gives??

Re: Tracks are playing, but there is no sound

parisi2274 — Thu, 02 Apr 2020 14:15:41 GMT

This just started happening to me this past week...

I opened Spotify on my iMac, and noticed there was no sound. I checked the output and it said "This Mac," then I checked my BT settings to make sure my airpods were not synced or something and they werent. I then switched audio output to my Echo dot and it started to output sound, when I switched back to my Mac the sound stopped again. If I open Apple Music or Amazon music or anything like that, the music plays fine through the speakers connected to my mac, so the issue is definitely isolated to Spotify somewhere.

Re: Tracks are playing, but there is no sound

IvesSmith — Tue, 19 May 2020 09:53:26 GMT

Spotify, please can you resolve this bug.

Re: Tracks are playing, but there is no sound

JOSEPH1154 — Fri, 01 May 2020 21:38:22 GMT

its extremely annoying they need to get it fixed. especially when you're paying for it and you can't even hear the music. it defeats the whole function of the app.

Re: Tracks are playing, but there is no sound

eug1 — Wed, 13 May 2020 13:52:50 GMT

This is still happening on mac with premium. I have to constantly restart the app. It's not my computer drivers or output, every other app's sound works fine.

Re: Tracks are playing, but there is no sound

hobogo — Mon, 18 May 2020 08:53:34 GMT

I have the same issue. Looks like Spotify shuts volume after using some other apps with it's audio (e.g. youtube in safari) and then playing again on Spotify. So that's an easy bug to reproduce. should be definitely fixed.

Re: Tracks are playing, but there is no sound

LegitosaurusRex — Tue, 19 May 2020 05:13:57 GMT

Same issue with the two different sets of bluetooth headphones I have. The song bar will start moving when I click play, but no sound, and the blue bar will drop down saying there was an issue playing the song. No problems with playback with other apps, just Spotify.

Restarting the headphones or disconnecting and reconnecting them works.

Re: Tracks are playing, but there is no sound

BobmanBob — Mon, 22 Jun 2020 21:17:43 GMT

When trying to play Spotify the sound on my MacBook Pro Catalina 10.15.4 keeps going off and back on. All up to date software. Tried restarting spotify and Mac but issue ongoing.

Same issues when using Beats or MacBook speakers. Sound level show they are up. I can adjust the sound (when it plays) by using the Command and up arrow (or down arrow) or go in to settings, or use the slider on Spotify bottom right BUT the SOUND KEEPS GOING OFF AND ON!

When it goes off there is a message at the top in a blue bar that shows up and says "Can't play the current song."

Plays fine on my iPhone though

Re: Tracks are playing, but there is no sound

Calypsis — Fri, 26 Jun 2020 15:50:42 GMT

This has been an issue for YEARS with the desktop version of Spotify. This is definitely a software issue for Spotify that they still haven't addressed after all this time. The alternative would be to use their web player. Spotify's desktop app is junk.

Re: Tracks are playing, but there is no sound

rylt — Thu, 09 Jul 2020 12:16:47 GMT

Only thing that works for me is to restart the spotify app..

Re: Tracks are playing, but there is no sound

btz1 — Fri, 10 Jul 2020 01:47:18 GMT

Same here

Re: Tracks are playing, but there is no sound

user-removed — Wed, 19 Aug 2020 13:18:39 GMT

Spotify version 1.1.40.508.gd5bc2931 on OSX 10.15.6, by BT and this freaking error keep happening.

Re: Tracks are playing, but there is no sound

jkrosas — Sun, 23 Aug 2020 19:14:07 GMT

Found in the bottom right corner there is a volume slider. This enabled music to be heard for me. Thought I would share in case it works for someone else.

Re: Tracks are playing, but there is no sound

FOXACID — Tue, 25 Aug 2020 22:17:44 GMT

Yeah, been having this problem for about a year or so. Only happens when my AirPods are connected. Everything works except Spotify. I restart the app, it works. If I pause the song for and watch YouTube for instance it won't work again