topic Re: Spotify on MacOS breaks in sleep mode or when window is inactive in Desktop (Mac)

Spotify on MacOS breaks in sleep mode or when window is inactive

M1ndKilla — Wed, 14 Jan 2026 16:26:31 GMT

Plan

Premium

Country

Georgia, but I am living in Portugal for now

Device

Mac Book Pro (Apple M3 Pro) 16 inch

Operating System

MacOS Sequoia v 15.7.3 (had same issue on previous versions as well)

My Question or Issue

I use Mac M3 for my job and I like to listening music during the work

And If I open desktop Spotify all works fine. But if I close my notebook or turn it into the sleep mode I have a chance (not 100%) to catch a bug.

Bug looks like I am in offline mode or my internet connection is broken. Sometimes it can play some music which was cached, but if I try to open something new all looks broken

I tried:

- Turn on/off offline mode

- Troubleshooting/Reload

- Turn of/off network

- Hard re-installation of the app from some kind of instruction

What only works for me it is hard reload of the app:

- I see the bug
- I close the app
- I run it again and all works fine

The problem is that it is very annoying to do, cuz when I have meeting or lunch and then I come back it is 99% broken and I need to reload it manually again and again.

More then that, sometimes I have this bug even during the work, when my Spotify just in background. I open the app to start listening and it is broken

Some additional details to help you:

- I have reported the bug by "Help/Troubleshooting/Report issue" for so many times. But I am not sure that you see my reports cuz of this bug. If you don't see these reports, probably you have an issue and you don't see way more bugs

- Because of work I have VPN which is required for my job. Maybe it can affect the application behavior. But it can work fine with this VPN, but maybe the app can't handle some issues with connection and then just ignore any issues

- In very rare cases turning off and then on of the internet connection helps with that. But it is very rare and it also annoying that it can't check connection and retry without my manual actions, cuz it works fine

- I have attached 3 screenshots to show you how it looks like

I hope you can help me with that

Re: Spotify on MacOS breaks in sleep mode or when window is inactive

Joan — Thu, 15 Jan 2026 10:36:55 GMT

Hi there @M1ndKilla,

Thanks for reaching out and providing all this comprehensive info! We'll happily help you enjoy Spotify on your Mac.

When you mentioned you performed a reinstall, is it the clean reinstall steps that you followed? If you didn't do that in full, please do so as it could be the trick needed to get this sorted.

If it persists, could you possibly test if the issue occurs when the MacBook isn't connected via the work VPN? As you can imagine, we also have experience with this kind of setup and while Spotify can indeed work just fine within a VPN like this, we have seen cases where the network might lose connection or require re-authentication when a device is locked, put to sleep or just left inactive for some time. So if possible, please test without the VPN active and on different networks and see if you get the same behaviour.

Let us know how it goes.

Re: Spotify on MacOS breaks in sleep mode or when window is inactive

M1ndKilla — Thu, 15 Jan 2026 10:48:32 GMT

Hello Joan!

Thank you for your answer

I will try to find a time to do that, but I am not sure that it will be soon

Also. I told you that it is hard to reproduce. It triggers not 100%. So It can look like all fine, but it is not

And we can imagine that it is an issue only with VPN, what we should do in this situation? I want to use the app with VPN or without. I would like to have a button for manual reconnect at least. But would be better if Spotify will try to reconnect in background, because it is 100% possible

So. I will try to find some time to try it without VPN, but I would like to see working app in any environment. It is weird that I have to listen to music somewhere else, because of VPN

Re: Spotify on MacOS breaks in sleep mode or when window is inactive

Joan — Thu, 15 Jan 2026 10:58:05 GMT

Hi @M1ndKilla,

Thanks for the quick reply.

Yes, I understand that the issue is sporadic and therefore not the easiest to test. For this, we really appreciate your efforts and cooperation!

The goal of the steps is to try and narrow down what is causing this to happen - the VPN, the network, a background app process or something else. Once we figure things out, we'll do everything possible to get things working so you can enjoy Spotify in your usual environment.

Another possibility worth looking into is if there's any battery and/or RAM optimization settings that manage background processes. Those could be interfering with the app and causing the connection to break.

Let us know how it goes. We'll be keeping an eye on this thread.

Re: Spotify on MacOS breaks in sleep mode or when window is inactive

M1ndKilla — Thu, 15 Jan 2026 15:52:53 GMT

Hi @John, again!

I didn't try to catch this issue without VPN, but I caught this bug 3 times today and if I turn off my VPN and wait for few seconds (sometimes it is fast, sometimes it is not) it starts working.

More than that, if I turn VPN back after some time (20-30 seconds) I come back to this broken mode

But as I told you before, if I kill Spotify application and lunch it again all works fine even with VPN

I can add that we use https://www.paloaltonetworks.com/ in our company which is kinda popular and issue could be harmful for many people like me

I hope this info will be enough to find a reason

Re: Spotify on MacOS breaks in sleep mode or when window is inactive

AlejaR — Fri, 16 Jan 2026 23:14:07 GMT

Hey there @M1ndKilla,

Thanks for your reply and for the info shared.

Another thing worth trying is to flush the DNS. You can follow these steps to do it:

Open the terminal by using Spotlight Search or by pressing Command + Space and then type Terminal.
Double-click the application icon for Terminal to open it.
Type in “sudo dscacheutil -flushcache;sudo killall -HUP mDNSResponder” without quotes
Enter your Mac’s password
Press Enter to complete.

Nonetheless, from what you kindly mentioned, it does seem to be a behavior related to the VPN. Spotify does not currently block VPN usage, but we also do not support it and we can't guarantee that the service would work as expected when using one. In that regard, we'd recommend you take some time to see if you can reproduce this one when the VPN is fully deactivated. This will help us to narrow down further this issue. We fully understand this might take time, so no rush.

We really appreciate all your help with this one.

Keep us in the loop!

Re: Spotify on MacOS breaks in sleep mode or when window is inactive

M1ndKilla — Sat, 17 Jan 2026 08:40:30 GMT

Hello, AlejaR!

I have already mentioned that it is macbook for a job, not my personal. So I don't have sudo rights to do so. More than that it can break something else

The problem is not with VPN. Because if VPN was the reason, reloading the app would had no effect. But it does.

So yeah, VPN probably changing something in network, but the app can't restore connection properly

I have so many different apps, even based on Electron which handle it well, but Spotify can't for some reason.

Also, DNS setting is also static I guess, and if it is DNS, it wont work for all cases, not only random cases

And I told you before and I want to repeat, that it is kinda popular VPN and many people could have this kind of issue. So it would be better to fix that if you going to care about your audience

Re: Spotify on MacOS breaks in sleep mode or when window is inactive

MihailY — Sat, 17 Jan 2026 13:18:59 GMT

Hey @M1ndKilla,

Thanks for your reply.

We've had reports in the past about similar behavior when using a VPN and in general, we can't guarantee that the app will work as expected when a VPN is active on your device.

We've noted your report, however, we can't confirm when it will be addressed. In the meantime, we'd recommend keeping your app up to date.

We're here if there's anything else you wish to address.

Re: Spotify on MacOS breaks in sleep mode or when window is inactive

M1ndKilla — Sun, 18 Jan 2026 12:56:32 GMT

The problem is not in VPN. The problem is that application can't support dynamic network

Some dns caching or something like breaks behavior

Re: Spotify on MacOS breaks in sleep mode or when window is inactive

Joan — Mon, 19 Jan 2026 14:45:39 GMT

Hi there @M1ndKilla,

Thanks for the reply.

I absolutely get what you mean, we still believe that the non-standard network connection is the most likely root cause here - it's probably a few factors including some possible restrictions of your work network as well as the use of VPN. We've seen many cases where VPNs and proxy servers, especially in work environments, can prevent proper connection and cause the app to not work as expected. I've experienced issues along these lines in our secured networks at times as well, but quite intermittently with no pattern from Spotify's end.

While Spotify can work through a VPN, we cannot fully guarantee flawless performance if you are not using an open public network. Nevertheless, we thank you for all your feedback and your cooperation on this thread.

Let us know if there's anything else we can do for you.