topic Re: Black Screen Problem NEW ISSUES in Desktop (Windows)

Black Screen Problem NEW ISSUES

sarahfelldown — Fri, 08 Sep 2017 14:33:02 GMT

Hi there, When I start Spotify I get a blank black screen and the Windows error sound plays repeatedly. I turned off Hardware Acceleration (per this solution) and it has at least stopped the annoying error sound, but I still get the black screen. Next I tried running in compatibility mode (per this solution) but when I open the Properties > Compatibility the Compatibility mode is grayed out and it says "Compatibility modes cannot be set permanently on this program because it is on a network drive."

I'm on a work computer (which I'm pretty sure is what's 'causing most, if not all, of this problem, ugh) and our "Desktops" are somehow on the network (so if I logged in on someone else's computer, I'd see my Desktop. So I'm assuming Spotify is installing to this networked location instead of my computer's C drive. However, there's no option on the Spotify installer for me to choose where I install it. Can someone help?

Thanks!

Re: Black Screen Problem NEW ISSUES

Sebasty — Fri, 08 Sep 2017 18:41:58 GMT

Hi @sarahfelldown

Spotify is installed on %appdata%. Should usually be on the C drive or whatever drive is set to be the main drive.
I suspect that, in order to install on the computer's hard drive, one would have to log in as an admin of the computer.
Technically it would be possible to make it work if one locates the Spotify folders and copies them over to the local drive. But I don't know what drives you have access to, so...

But technically you could find a nice flash drive or external hard drive (I hope your machine and the drives have USB3.0 support, would be faster), go to %appdata%, find the Spotify folder, copy it (or cut, if you wish), go to your flash drive / external hdd and paste it there.
Each time you want to use Spotify you'd have to plug in your external drive, navigate to the Spotify folder and open SpotifyLauncher.exe.

Another option is open.spotify.com, it's the web player with less functionality.

Let me know if anything works out for you! 🙂

Re: Black Screen Problem NEW ISSUES

sarahfelldown — Fri, 08 Sep 2017 23:05:23 GMT

Thanks for the tips. I uninstalled this morning so I just reinstalled. On a lark, I tried running the installer as an administrator but the installer wouldn't let me so I just installed it again as usual.

Now, if I go to the AppData folder on my C drive there's a Spotify folder, but no executables, just three folders inside: Browser, Storage, and User Data. So I'm not sure where it's installing to.

If I open the properties of the desktop shortcut it says the target is "\\OURNETWORK\RedirectedFolders\MYUSERNAME\Application Data\Spotify\Spotify.exe" but when I go to that location there is no Spotify folder. So weird.

Probably going to have to chalk it up to work/network shenanigans unfortunately and just use the icky web player. 🙂

I wish Spotify's installer would allow us to chose the destination. Oh well!

Re: Black Screen Problem NEW ISSUES

Sebasty — Sat, 09 Sep 2017 09:11:59 GMT

@sarahfelldown

Oh the joys of having such networks.

I suppose, if you want to, you'd have to try the Spotify on an USB drive method at home or somewhere where Spotify installs to %appdata% with all the executables, so you could copy the whole package on it.
I am not entirely sure if the new version would work, but the version I have does...
There are people who have done more work for portable Spotify apps. That also requires some flash drive.