topic Certain songs/albums won't play in Desktop (Windows)

Certain songs/albums won't play

Jagger425 — Wed, 06 Feb 2019 15:57:07 GMT

Plan

Free

Country

Portugal

Device

Operating System

Windows 10

This started happening about 1-2 weeks ago, where specific songs won't play, seemingly all from the same album. The albums I can and can't play seem to change from restart to restart too.

When it first happened, I restarted my PC, didn't solve anything. After that I reinstalled Spotify and the same thing happened.

For example, to make the problem a bit clearer, I've been listening to a lot of Aesop Rock, and I hadn't had a problem listening to any of his albums, everything plays. I noticed I couldn't play certain albums for other artists though. Today, as I booted my PC up and launched Spotify, I noticed I could only play songs from 4 out of 14 albums from Aesop Rock specifically (highlighting that the albums I can and can't play seem to change at random).

Although I doubt the problem happens for everyone (since it changes at random for me), I'll name a few. For example, I can currently play The Impossible Kid, but not Malibu Ken. You can try those.

I'll attach an image of what it looks like trying to play an album that doesn't work

Thanks in advance for any help

Re: Certain songs/albums won't play

Sebasty — Thu, 07 Feb 2019 13:05:42 GMT

Hey @Jagger425

That's pretty strange!

My first guess would be the hosts file. Maybe that contains some Spotify entries that shouldn't be there. 🙂

Try this:

1. open Notepad as an administrator (right-click - Open as Administrator)
2. go to File - Open and navigate to

C:\Windows\System32\drivers\etc

3. 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.
4. The file is opened. You will see a block of text with # in front of each line and might see entries like

0.0.0.0 website.com
127.0.0.1 website2.com

Check for any entries with spotify or fastly in the address. Examples may look like:

0.0.0.0 weblb-wg.gslb.spotify.com
0.0.0.0 prod.b.ssl.us-eu.fastlylb.net

(and any variations inbetween)
5. If you do find any, you can delete the line. You can also add a # in front of the line, that's 'commenting out'.
6. Save your changes. Restart Spotify.

If that didn't help, could you try playing music in the web player to see if the issue happens there too?

Let me know how it goes 🙂

Re: Certain songs/albums won't play

Jagger425 — Thu, 07 Feb 2019 17:46:43 GMT

Thank you, there was one entry with spotify for some reason. I removed it and it seems like I can play everything again.

Again, many thanks!

Re: Certain songs/albums won't play

solvethisplease — Mon, 11 Feb 2019 10:34:11 GMT

I cant find this "host" file in the drivers... Any clue about whats going on Sebasty?

Re: Certain songs/albums won't play

Jagger425 — Mon, 11 Feb 2019 13:45:39 GMT

Make sure you're in the right folder, it's not in the drivers folder!

The path is Windows/System32/drivers/etc/hosts

You have to go into the etc folder, if you already were, try revealing hidden files.