topic Re: Mac App Video Issue in Desktop (Mac)

Mac App Video Issue

Pedro89 — Mon, 19 Jan 2026 06:49:22 GMT

Good day,

In the Spotify desktop app on Mac, podcasts that are available as videos cannot be played. A message always appears saying that the content cannot be played. A screenshot is attached.

However, it works on my iPhone and in the web application.

I have already tried the following:

Reinstalling the app

Logging out and back in

Thank you in advance for your help!

Plan

Premium

Country

Germany

Device

MacBook Pro 2024

Operating System

macOS 26.2 (25C56)

Re: Mac App Video Issue

Ivelina — Mon, 19 Jan 2026 12:03:31 GMT

Hello @Pedro89,

Thanks for reaching out via the Community and welcome! Kudos for already performing some troubleshooting and for sharing the screenshot.

There could be different reasons as to why you're seeing this error message and it would be great if you could test with the following steps in case any of them make a difference for you:

Clean reinstall with these steps (a bit more detailed and includes clearing the corrupted cache).
Another network connection (Wi-Fi or even mobile data shared via hotspot).
Disable any VPNs that you may be using.
Disable Hardware Acceleration via the Help menu on the top left > Troubleshooting.

Let us know how it goes and if the behavior persists we'll continue looking into this together. Cheers 🙂

Re: Mac App Video Issue

Pedro89 — Mon, 19 Jan 2026 14:26:23 GMT

Hi Ivelina,

thank you very much for the quick response.

I have followed all the steps, but unfortunately the issue still persists.

Even when I try to switch to a music video, the same error occurs.

Re: Mac App Video Issue

Ivelina — Mon, 19 Jan 2026 15:16:27 GMT

Thanks for your effort @Pedro89.

Since this is not limited to podcast videos, there are some other steps to go over that might help:

Lower the streaming and download quality within Spotify's settings.
Follow the steps under Mac in this help guide in order to clear the hosts file.
Make sure your sound drivers are updated.
Flush the DNS by:
- Opening the Terminal.app.
- Entering one of the following commands:
  1. sudo dscacheutil -flushcache
  2. sudo killall -HUP mDNSResponder

Appreciate your cooperation and we'll be on the lookout.

Re: Mac App Video Issue

Pedro89 — Mon, 19 Jan 2026 16:03:48 GMT

Hi Ivelina,

I have also tried all of these steps, without any improvement.

Re: Mac App Video Issue

snipecookie — Mon, 19 Jan 2026 21:16:39 GMT

Same here. It's very annoying. I still have not found any fix.

Re: Mac App Video Issue

Eni — Mon, 19 Jan 2026 22:05:01 GMT

Hey folks,

Thanks for your replies.

@snipecookie, could you let us know which troubleshooting steps you've already tried? That way we can avoid repeating any steps. If you haven't tried the steps mentioned in this thread yet, we suggest that you do so to see if they help. Also, sending us the exact make/model, operating system and Spotify version of your affected device would come in handy.

@Pedro89, could you let us know if this started happening after a specific event such as an update either of Spotify or the OS of your PC? Also, would you mind checking if the OS of your PC has any pending updates? On another note, could you ask a friend or a relative to log in to their account on your PC to see if they can replicate this behavior with their account? We'd also like to know if the issue occurs only on the desktop app or on the web player as well.

We'll be waiting for your reply.

Re: Mac App Video Issue

Pedro89 — Tue, 20 Jan 2026 12:05:13 GMT

Hi Eni,

surprisingly, playing the videos now works without me having changed anything.

I’ve just tested several video podcasts and music videos. Everything runs smoothly now.

Thank you all for your help.

@snipecookie Maybe you could test it again as well?