Playing in the background doesn't work anymore

Maaike6 — Wed, 09 Sep 2026 10:28:37 GMT

Plan

Premium

Country

Netherlands

Device

Samsung Galaxy A14

Operating System

Android 15

My Question or Issue

Since probably about a year ago, spotify will just stop playing in the background randomly. In battery saving mode usually, but also tried without, doesn't help. Sometimes I can only listen to 1 song before it closes again, sometimes I can listen for hours. It often happens when changing tabs/apps, but I've tried every setting on my phone at this point, nothing helps. When it stops, any progress in the song/podcast I was listening to is gone. If I press play (headphones) or open the app to manually start it, it usually takes about 30 seconds for everything to load and play again (if anything happens at all). It was fine for years, until it wasn't and now it's getting worse.

And yes, I've locked the app to prevent it from closing accidentally

Reinstalling didn't help

Re: Playing in the background doesn't work anymore

Iva — Wed, 09 Sep 2026 11:14:53 GMT

Hey @Maaike6,

Thanks for reaching out to the Spotify Community and welcome!

You mentioned that you've checked your phone settings, but we'd like to make sure that we're on the same page - did you follow these exact steps:

Open your phone's Settings. Tap Apps, then select Spotify.
Tap Battery or App battery usage.
Choose Unrestricted or enable Allow background usage/Allow background activity.

We'd also recommend that you turn off any battery saving tools/modes on your phone.

In case this is what you've already tried, you can also clear your cache to check if it makes any difference.

Additionally, feel free to include your Spotify version in your next reply, so we can get a better overview of the situation.

Keep us posted on how it goes.

topic Re: Playing in the background doesn't work anymore in Android

Playing in the background doesn't work anymore

Re: Playing in the background doesn't work anymore