topic Re: Low quality of album/playlist art on Samsung phones in Android

Low Resolution Album Art

crowlem — Wed, 09 Mar 2022 20:36:33 GMT

Plan

Premium

Country

Device

Xperia 1 iii

Operating System

Android 12

My Question or Issue

On the album view the art is really low resolution. It looks awful on any album.

The now playing screen on the other hand looks fine, anyone know how to fix this?

Low quality of album/playlist art on Samsung phones

Wawrzyn — Tue, 01 Mar 2022 20:42:57 GMT

Plan

Premium

Country

Poland

Device

Samsung S10

Operating System

Android 12 / One UI 4.0

My Question or Issse

So me and my friends who use the newest version of Spotify and Android on our Samsung phones have the same issue. When we're online, the quality of album/playlist art is all blurry, but when we go offline the quality goes back to normal. I tried most of the suggested solutions, but none of them worked. So I was wondering, maybe it's got something to do with Samsung's One UI, but I really don't know. Does anyone have any suggestions or have the same problem?

Re: Low quality of album/playlist art on Samsung phones

Alex — Thu, 03 Mar 2022 14:02:06 GMT

Hey @Wawrzyn,

Thanks for reaching out about this in the Community!

This issue seems quite odd, not to worry we'll do our best to get to the bottom of it 🙂

Can you let us know exactly what troubleshooting you've done so far and what's the current version of your Spotify app.

Looking forward to your reply.

Re: Low quality of album/playlist art on Samsung phones

Wawrzyn — Thu, 03 Mar 2022 20:10:57 GMT

My spotify version is 8.7.8.1206

1. I tried logging out of Spotify, restaring my phone and then logging back in, but it didn't change anything.

2. I cleared all of my cache and then did a clean re-install of the app and all of the songs, but that also didn't work.

3. I also tried using another account, but that still didn't fix the issue.

However, when using the Spotify web player, everything was fine there.

Re: Low quality of album/playlist art on Samsung phones

OscarDC — Fri, 04 Mar 2022 21:05:09 GMT

Hey @Wawrzyn,

Thank you for keeping us updated.

To have a better look at the issue, could you try with a different WiFi network or mobile data to see if it makes any difference?

Also, let us know if this happens with a different album/artist or just this one.

We'll be on the lookout.

Re: Low quality of album/playlist art on Samsung phones

Wawrzyn — Sat, 05 Mar 2022 10:21:30 GMT

Trying out different WiFi's doesn't change anything, neither does going on mobile data.

This issue also happens to every single album, of every artist, without exception.

Re: Low quality of album/playlist art on Samsung phones

Kiril — Wed, 09 Mar 2022 11:06:04 GMT

Hey @Wawrzyn,

Thanks for keeping us in the loop.

We tried to replicate the situation on a Samsung device on our end, but to no avail. The album art quality looked the same on downloads and streaming. This leads us to believe this situation could be specific to your device's display performance capabilities. Could we ask you for a screen recordings of the situation occurring for you so we can take a closer look and try to reproduce it again? You can send a link to the recording or attach it using the Insert Video option in the post editor.

You've also mentioned that your friends with Samsung devices are experiencing similar issues - it would be nice if they could join the thread here and share with us their individual feedback and device's details, so we can add this to our investigation and then give you a better advice.

Keep us posted, we'll be on the lookout for your reply.

Re: Low quality of album/playlist art on Samsung phones

Wawrzyn — Wed, 09 Mar 2022 17:46:39 GMT

The screenshots are from my friends' phone. He did the same thing as I did in the first post of this thread. As you can see, he has the same problem. And here are the links to the videos in which I show the issue:

https://youtu.be/LTnG8EhS52I

https://youtu.be/M7Ln99Nr7zs

I'm sorry for only using these two albums, but they demonstrate it the best. And also, as you can see in the second video, the album art doesn't even show itself sometimes when going offline. I hope the video links will work.

Re: Low quality of album/playlist art on Samsung phones

iquix719 — Thu, 10 Mar 2022 11:44:32 GMT

Wassup, these Graduation screenshots belong to me, I have already tried all the things Wawrzyn mentioned, but they did not change anything for me as well. I hope you'll find the way to help us.

Re: Low Resolution Album Art

Jeremy — Fri, 11 Mar 2022 13:27:20 GMT

Hi there @crowlem,

Thank you for reaching out the Community.

Can you provide us the URI of the album so that we can have a closer look directly from our end?

It would also be great if you can let us know which version of the app you're having?

We'll keep an eye out for your reply.

Take care!

Re: Low Resolution Album Art

crowlem — Fri, 11 Mar 2022 14:29:33 GMT

Hi Jeremy,

Thanks for your reply.

Here is the link to the album:

https://open.spotify.com/album/1rw1hpm0jSriJVVCyf6Da6?si=v0gLvT_ySJaghXyrcai-9A&utm_source=copy-link

I should mention this happens on every album. The album page is always low resolution with now playing being higher quality.

Version of the app is:

8.7.10.1262

Re: Low Resolution Album Art

Kiril — Sun, 13 Mar 2022 15:55:09 GMT

Hey @crowlem,

Thanks for the provided link.

Unfortunately, we weren't able to reproduce this experience on our end. Make sure your having a stable internet connection, and that this is not related to your current bandwidth availability. We can suggest to reset your network router (or switch to a different network), and also to log out and then to log back in, in the Spotify app twice in a row (we know it sounds strange), as this triggers a refresh between the app and your account and may help to resolve any possible cache-related issues. See if this will shake things up for you.

On another note, could you also try logging in your account using another device (maybe of a friend or a relative) to see if images are displayed as expected on that device ? This can help to see if the situation is more or less expected or it could be device related for instance.

Hope this helps. Let us know how you get on.

Re: Low Resolution Album Art

crowlem — Mon, 14 Mar 2022 03:22:53 GMT

I have tried the suggested log in and out trick, sadly didn't help. Oddly enough I have the old now playing bar after trying this.

Tried signing into another device (Z Fold 3), still an issue. Album art on the album page looks terrible.

Doesn't seem to be device related.

Re: Low Resolution Album Art

Yordan — Tue, 15 Mar 2022 07:10:24 GMT

Hi @crowlem,

Thanks for the reply.

Could you try clearing the app's cache and data and then reinstalling it? Once you're done with the reinstall, try changing to a different network (if you normally use WiFi, try switching to mobile data instead; or change to another WiFi network) to see if the album cover still looks a bit off.

Keep us posted.

Re: Low quality of album/playlist art on Samsung phones

Kiril — Wed, 16 Mar 2022 09:13:20 GMT

Hey there @iquix719,

Thanks for joining this thread here and welcome to the Community!

We understand that you're experiencing the same situation as @Wawrzyn on your Samsung device. Could we ask you also to share with us the make, models and OS version of your device, where this discrepancy in image quality occurs. Also, please do describe what troubleshooting you've done so far and what's the current version of your Spotify app. This info will be helpful for the reporting and investigation of this situation.

Keep us posted, we'll be on the lookout for your reply.

Re: Low Resolution Album Art

crowlem — Wed, 16 Mar 2022 11:30:23 GMT

Gave that a shot, sadly it did not work.

Here is what the art looked like after trying those steps:

That is the album page.

This is the now playing art:

It really is awful.

Re: Low Resolution Album Art

crowlem — Wed, 16 Mar 2022 11:31:29 GMT

Album:

https://open.spotify.com/album/3lfeXFAMZphRXoBop4gOGQ?si=8AYa7maLSuyWawifP_nSHg&utm_source=copy-link

Re: Low Resolution Album Art

crowlem — Wed, 16 Mar 2022 13:49:41 GMT

Asking around on Reddit sadly this is a well known issue that Spotify refuses to fix.

On iOS the album page art is fine, on any android device its a mess. Similar to the colour banding issue (also once again, Android only), Spotify is just a mess on android.

For anyone curious, here is a list of streaming Services that do not have this issue on Android and iOS:

Apple Music
Qobuz
Tidal
Deezer
Amazon Music
YouTube Music

Here is a list of streaming services that have this issue on Android:

Spotify

Re: Low Resolution Album Art

Vasil — Fri, 18 Mar 2022 15:40:17 GMT

Hey folks,

Thank you all for contributing to this thread!

We're noticing a pattern that all users reporting this issue are having devices running on Android 12.
If you happen to have a friend/family member with an Android 11, we'd appreciate if you took a look if the issue persists on those devices as well, as we couldn't reproduce it with an Android 11 device on our end.

For consistency purposes, use the same album when testing - for example the one from above https://open.spotify.com/album/3lfeXFAMZphRXoBop4gOGQ

Many thanks!

Re: Low Resolution Album Art

crowlem — Fri, 18 Mar 2022 19:04:54 GMT

Can confirm my friend does not have this issue on android 11. Oddly enough he also doesn't see the horrific colour banding either.

Setting the app to offline does improve the album art. Not a solution but odd that it helps. What is going on here?