topic Re: Playback is pausing - often due to ads in Desktop (Windows)

Playback is pausing - often due to ads

aarynyraa — Tue, 24 Feb 2026 17:18:02 GMT

Plan

Free/Premium

Country

United States

Device

Chrome Browser/ Firefox Browswer

Operating System

Windows 11

My Question or Issue

Starting about a week ago, playback will stop during ad breaks. It looks like the ads fail to load, and then everything stops. If I refresh the browser, I can play music again, but it loses my place (on albums or playlists).

I tried restarting the computer, clearing the cache, I use Chrome primarily, but tried it on Firefox and had the same thing happen, I also made a new account and the same thing happened with it.

Any help would be appreciated!

Re: Playback is pausing - often due to ads

aarynyraa — Tue, 24 Feb 2026 17:56:10 GMT

Having just found a similar issue reported, let me add:
I have tried this in a private window as well, and it is not working. Also, I have no ad blocking software.
I have had no issues for like four years until last week. Nothing has changed on my end.

Re: Playback is pausing - often due to ads

OscarDC — Tue, 24 Feb 2026 19:13:30 GMT

Hey @aarynyraa,

Thank you for reaching out to the Community and welcome.

We appreciate all the troubleshooting you've made so far. We tried to replicate this behavior with ad breaks on our end, but the playback keeps working properly. So first, since this could be related to network permissions, would you mind trying with a different Wi-Fi network to see if the issue persists? If you don't have another one available, you can use a mobile data hotspot to test it.

Also, if you're using any VPN connection, we'd recommend turning it off as it may affect the proper behavior of the player.

Lastly and if possible, could you check if the Desktop app has the same behavior?

Let us know how it goes.

Re: Playback is pausing - often due to ads

aarynyraa — Tue, 24 Feb 2026 19:27:20 GMT

I forgot to say that there is no VPN active, and that I also tried the app. I will look into the wifi.

Re: Playback is pausing - often due to ads

blinddrew — Tue, 24 Feb 2026 21:42:11 GMT

This is happening to me too. MS Edge on Windows 11.

Re: Playback is pausing - often due to ads

blinddrew — Tue, 24 Feb 2026 21:47:06 GMT

Oh yes, should have said: wired connection not wifi, no VPN. Always happening at ad breaks. Thanks

Re: Playback is pausing - often due to ads

blinddrew — Tue, 24 Feb 2026 23:19:04 GMT

It seems to always be the same Amazon Prime video ad that it's failing on at the moment. But that could be because that one's being played every dang break.

Re: Playback is pausing - often due to ads

cerealdev — Tue, 24 Feb 2026 23:54:58 GMT

happening here too, firefox, no adblock stuff, no vpn, happens at about the interval that ads play at usually, just gets stuck out of nowhere and when i refresh it works fine until it happens again, when i do refresh it puts the song to 0:30 every time and disables my loop

Re: Playback is pausing - often due to ads

aarynyraa — Tue, 24 Feb 2026 23:56:31 GMT

Update:
Switching wifi did not help.
I don't get Amazon Prime ads, so that isn't the cause for me. I mostly see Fanduel, but there are definitely other ads that are causing it. And as I said initially, sometimes it isn't an ad; sometimes it freezes between songs.

Re: Playback is pausing - often due to ads

OscarDC — Wed, 25 Feb 2026 00:02:34 GMT

Hey folks,

Thank you for joining the conversation and for the additional info.

To continue investigating this behavior, would you mind confirming if the affected device is a school/work PC? We ask this as the administrator can block processes on their end for security.

Also and if possible, could any of you record a short video where we can take a better look? You can attach it to your next response by using the Insert Video option in the post editor. You can also upload it to YouTube or Google Drive and share the link with us (make sure the video has the permissions for anyone to watch it).

We'll be on the lookout.

Re: Playback is pausing - often due to ads

cerealdev — Wed, 25 Feb 2026 00:02:23 GMT

@OscarDC home pc user here, also have this issue, no adblocks no vpns nothing

Re: Playback is pausing - often due to ads

Vasil — Thu, 26 Feb 2026 12:51:18 GMT

Hey folks! @cerealdev @cerealdev @aarynyraa

Have you checked if your third party apps may be causing this behaviour?
E.g. Discord has been known to pause playback if it's active and your account is connected to it.

You can see the list of apps you have by following this link. I'd advise removing the apps one by one to see which one may have hopefully been causing this issue. Any other apps can later be re-added.

Many thanks! Keep us posted on how things go 🙂

Re: Playback is pausing - often due to ads

greenepark — Wed, 25 Feb 2026 10:10:03 GMT

I am experiencing the same issue. I've been using spotify web every day and it's only today that I got this issue. I also tried different browsers but it's still the same.

Re: Playback is pausing - often due to ads

blinddrew — Wed, 25 Feb 2026 18:03:30 GMT

Just to confirm, not on a work or school PC. Not sure what a video would show other than a static screen?

But this afternoon it seems to be running ok. I was having the same problems earlier today but none since about 2pm GMT.

Re: Playback is pausing - often due to ads

blinddrew — Wed, 25 Feb 2026 18:05:21 GMT

This isn't really relevant. The issue is on the web player not an app and is a problem even with no other programmes running.

Re: Playback is pausing - often due to ads

aarynyraa — Thu, 26 Feb 2026 13:08:37 GMT

Same as with blinddrew here. Although none of the suggests here have helped, the issue seems to be resolved. I think patience might have been the key factor. Maybe there was an update of some kind?
I will report back if the issue returns.

Re: Playback is pausing - often due to ads

blinddrew — Thu, 26 Feb 2026 20:59:11 GMT

Yep, issue appears to be resolved here as well.

Audio Stops During Ads and Playback Freezes on Chromebook

0d2b2mi6haauk633f5hv — Tue, 17 Mar 2026 21:14:59 GMT

Plan

Free

Country

Spain

Device

Chromebook

Operating System

ChromeOS

My Question or Issue

Hi, community. I normally play my music and everything works alright. But when an ad appears the audio stops and I can't hear neither the ad or my music. Then I try to click on other music or albums and it doesn't play. Therefore, my solution for this issue last week was to turn off or reset my Chromebook and open again the app. However, now I can close the app and run music again, but the issue with the advertisements happens again and again.

Re: Playback stops after a track ends

Minek321 — Thu, 02 Apr 2026 08:42:34 GMT

I apologize for writing here, my problem is similar with so many differences, and with this I will also address perhaps the oldest problem that has existed for a long time, which is that further playback after the commercials appear is prevented. In short, the essence of the whole thing is that periodically - not tied to a specific commercial - there is simply no further playback after the commercial ends. About 1 year ago this was everyday, it almost always occurred at the same time within a 15-minute time interval, now I experience it less often, once or twice a month, but it is more unpredictable, the last time was yesterday around 4 pm, and before that about 3 weeks ago, then in the afternoon. I have not experienced this error more than once in a day, but it is annoying nonetheless. What is even more annoying is that after pressing ctrl+f5, the player forgets which song was the last before the commercial and does not continue from there, but from the beginning of the list. To give an example, clarity is good, for example, if an ad comes after the 5th track and the playback stops right after that, after refreshing the page it does not continue with the 6th track but starts again from the first track! Since I think that I am not the only one with this problem, I would like the technicians to eliminate the cause of this in the background! It would be a big deal if it did happen occasionally, then after ctrl+f5 Spotify would note after which track the playback should continue! Sorry for writing so much, and here but I don't know where else to indicate this! Finally, my request in this regard would be for someone to let me know if others have experienced this and where the investigation is going? Thank you!

Re: Audio Stops During Ads and Playback Freezes on Chromebook

Minek321 — Thu, 02 Apr 2026 11:19:18 GMT

Hi!
Did you experience a pause in playback between commercials today? For me, it froze after commercials around 11 am today, and only continued playing after I manually clicked on a song! I ask the developers to do something so that playback doesn't freeze after commercials! I don't know how many times a day this happens to the commenters before me because they didn't write about it, on my page more than once, not in one day, if I refresh the page, playback continues, but only from the beginning of the album list, and here comes my other problem that others have also experienced, that it loses its place, I ask all technical developers on behalf of many to permanently eliminate this error so that music playback doesn't get stuck after commercials! For me, it only happens after commercials, if there were no commercials, there would be no problem!