topic Re: Sound is distorted since latest update in Desktop (Windows)

Sound is distorted since latest update

LXX25 — Mon, 05 Apr 2021 22:02:17 GMT

Plan

Premium

Country

Device

HP laptop

Operating System

Windows 10

My Question or Issue

Ever since the latest update I have been unable to listen to any music as the sound is now horribly distorted after about 1 minute of playing time. It sounds like the music is being played underwater.

I have not changed any devices, the only difference is the new update.

I have tried reinstalling Spotify multiple times - it fixed it the first time, but now makes no difference.

I'm paying for Spotify Premium and am currently unable to listen to any music due to the poor sound quality.

Re: Sound is distorted since latest update

Jeremy — Wed, 07 Apr 2021 06:28:57 GMT

Hi there @LXX25,

Thank you for your post here in the Community. We're happy to help.

Can you perform a clean reinstall of the app? This will make sure there's no old cache files causing this.

If that doesn't do the trick, can you remove your hosts files by following these steps:

Open Notepad as an administrator (right-click - Open as Administrator)
go to File - Open and navigate to C:\Windows\System32\drivers\etc
Choose "All Files" instead of "Text Documents" next to the File Name box. You'll see a handful of files. Pick hosts and click on Open
When the file is open, you will see a block of text with # in front of each line and might see entries like 0.0.0.0 website.com127.0.0.1 website2.com
Check for any entries with Spotify in the address. Examples may look like: 0.0.0.0 weblb-wg.gslb.spotify.com0.0.0.0
If you do find any lines with Spotify, please remove them
Save your changes and restart Spotify

Keep us posted 🙂

Take care!

Re: Sound is distorted since latest update

ner0hhh — Wed, 26 May 2021 14:40:29 GMT

I am having this exact same issue, once I launch Spotify it will play it full quality for about a minute, and then it sounds awful.

I have tried clean reinstalling, and also checked the host files.

After running Spotify through cmd I can see that it will play at 320kbps bitrate at first, then it lowers itself to 24kbps, despite my quality setting being on very high.

Please help with this, I am at my wits end, and having to use the web player for the time being.

EDIT: To add to this, I have just made a new Spotify account to test if it's my account, and it appears to be so. This new account is not having this issue.

Re: Sound is distorted since latest update

Ver — Wed, 26 May 2021 14:52:59 GMT

Hey @ner0hhh,

Thanks for getting back to us 🙂

Just to double-check- does the issue occur on another device?

It's also a good idea to make sure that the sound drivers are up-to-date and that the streaming quality is set to very high and not to auto.

Keep us in the loop! We'll be right here if you have any questions.

Re: Sound is distorted since latest update

ner0hhh — Thu, 27 May 2021 11:54:33 GMT

I don't have another device to test with, it works fine on my android phone.

I think I may have fixed it, it appears to be ok for now.

I copied the files generated for my second account from the folder in (AppData\Roaming\Spotify\Users) into my primary user folder and overwrote them, it appears to be working as should now.

I did previously delete all of them from my user folder to allow Spotify to generate new ones, but that didn't solve it.

I will report back here in a few days if the problem comes back.

Re: Sound is distorted since latest update

Eni — Thu, 27 May 2021 13:34:13 GMT

Hi @ner0hhh,

Thanks for getting back in touch and letting us know that.

We're glad to hear that now it's working fine.

If anything else comes up, just let us know 🙂

Have a great day!

Re: Sound is distorted since latest update

aleeebaby — Thu, 10 Jun 2021 01:39:35 GMT

there's a new setting i noticed on one of the new updates when my songs started sounding distorted after listening for a little bit. this "canvas" setting is miserable, i don't understand why anyone would want their music to sound like this but after turning it off it still happens while i'm trying to enjoy my music and it's honestly really aggravating. i've loved spotify for years and i'd hate to have to leave because my music refuses to stop sounding haunted