topic Re: iOS app slow / search is stuck in iOS (iPhone, iPad)

iOS app slow / search is stuck

de255 — Mon, 02 Mar 2026 18:52:53 GMT

Plan

basic family

Country

germany

Device

iPhone 14

Operating System

iOS 26.3

My Question or Issue

the app is very slow

adding and removing stuff to the libary is very laggy/slow

search ends in a loop with three dots blinking endlessly

we already tried the following without effect:

1) updating iOS und spotify app

2) restart the iPhone

3) uninstall and reinstall spotify

4) delete the cache

5) delete downloads

when switching to offline-mode in spotify the app speeds up

after going back online it slows down

the iphone heats up using spotify

Re: iOS app slow / search is stuck

OscarDC — Mon, 02 Mar 2026 21:53:20 GMT

Hey @de255,

Thank you for reaching out to the Community and welcome.

We appreciate all the troubleshooting you’ve tried so far. To continue, since you mentioned that keeping the app offline speed-up the processes, would you mind checking online with a different network connection to see if it makes any difference? If you don’t have another one available, you can use mobile data or a hotspot.

Also, if you’re using any VPN, could you turn it off to see if it works better?

Lastly, would you mind checking on a different device (using your own account) to see if it makes any difference? If you don't have another one available, you can borrow one from a friend or family member to test it out.

We’ll be on the lookout for your response.

Re: iOS app slow / search is stuck

de255 — Tue, 03 Mar 2026 18:20:31 GMT

- we deactivated WLAN / using mobile data did not speed things up / still the same

- we don't use a VPN

- my wife tried her account on my device (iPhone 14 Pro) / no change / the account/app is very slow // my account on my device is ok!

my guess: it's an account problem - not a hardware or network problem.

Re: iOS app slow / search is stuck

OscarDC — Tue, 03 Mar 2026 21:58:44 GMT

Hey @de255,

Thank you for keeping in contact.

Since your wife's account on your own device was slow as well, it's probably not account-related. As it's not fully clear in your last response, would you mind confirming if your own account works properly on a different device?

If it works properly, include in your next response the Spotify version you're currently running on your iPhone to continue investigating the case.

We'll be waiting for your response.

Re: iOS app slow / search is stuck

de255 — Thu, 05 Mar 2026 05:30:21 GMT

good morning,

we yesterday tried my account on my wife's device: it was normal/ok.

My account is on every device normal/ok.
My wife's account is on every device slow with the mentioned issues.

We both use Spotify version 9.1.26.2291.

best wishes
Dominik

Re: iOS app slow / search is stuck

Ivelina — Thu, 05 Mar 2026 08:47:31 GMT

Thank you for your input and for clarifying @de255. We appreciate it.

Since your wife's account behaves the same across mobile devices, then it does sound like this might be an account-related issue after all.

Here are some additional steps worth checking to help us with the investigation:

Ask your wife to sign out everywhere via the Account Page > Security and privacy > Sign out everywhere.
Via the Account Page > Security and privacy > Manage apps, remove any third party apps that may be constantly 'pinging' the account for data.
If possible, test how the account behaves in the desktop app or Web Player.

In the meantime, we're here if there's anything else we can assist you with.

Re: iOS app slow / search is stuck

de255 — Thu, 05 Mar 2026 20:42:44 GMT

@joe806

"local files" was and is disabled.

@Ivelina

- we signed out everywhere
- we removed any third party app (it was one app)
- we testet the web-player: it was fast!
- we logged into the app and tested the search: it was slow and got stuck!

😕

Re: iOS app slow / search is stuck

Paula_Vi — Thu, 05 Mar 2026 22:05:45 GMT

Hi there, @de255

Thanks for keeping in contact!

To see if it makes any difference, once you're logged in on your wife's account from the mobile app, try going to Settings and Privacy, then disabling the Canvas feature and toggle on the Reduce Animations option. You'll find these two options under the Content and Display menu from Settings.

Hope this helps. Let us know how it goes!

Re: iOS app slow / search is stuck

de255 — Fri, 06 Mar 2026 14:02:08 GMT

we updated to v9.1.28.2258 and disabled canvas.

there is no "reduce animation / motion" setting.

it's a bit faster but still slow.

also the playing of music is interrupted 😞

Re: iOS app slow / search is stuck

Paula_Vi — Fri, 06 Mar 2026 20:32:25 GMT

Hi again, @de255

Thanks for the reply and for trying all the troubleshooting steps we've suggested!

Let's try something else to narrow down the root of the issue. If it's possible, try checking your wife's account on an Android device. You can borrow the device from a relative or a friend if you don't have an Android phone of your own.

Also, let's try using your wife's account on the Desktop app and not the Web Player (the Web Player is mostly supported on the browser and we need to confirm if the issue is within the app in general, the account or only iOS devices).

Keep us in the loop!

Re: iOS app slow / search is stuck

de255 — Sat, 07 Mar 2026 09:56:25 GMT

Hi there,

I tried my wife’s account in the desktop-app (Linux).
The search is fast and everything is responsive.

I don’t have any Android-devices in reach, sorry.

Re: iOS app slow / search is stuck

Eni — Mon, 09 Mar 2026 18:44:18 GMT

Hey there @de255,

Thanks for your reply.

Just to confirm, does your wife have a large library in the app (including Liked songs, very large playlists, etc.)? If so, could you ask her to create a small playlist with 5-10 songs to see if this behavior persists?

Additionally, could you let us know if the issue appears right after opening the app, before she even interacts with Search or the library or only after a couple of minutes?

Keep us posted.

Re: iOS app slow / search is stuck

de255 — Sun, 15 Mar 2026 17:02:44 GMT

Yes, she does have a very large library.
Adding a small playlist didn't change anything.

The speed of the app got a bit better after the steps in this thread/above.
The app is slower in the search and one artist is especially slow (very strange). My account on any iPhone finds the artist as fast as every other.

Re: iOS app slow / search is stuck

Paula_Vi — Sun, 15 Mar 2026 19:11:35 GMT

Hi there, @de255

Thanks for coming back to us!

In this case, we think it's better if your wife can contact us to customer support directly with the details collected to check her account thoroughly (it has to be her, for privacy and security purposes).

If there's an issue with her account, they might suggest creating a new account, but no worries they can help her transfer all her music library from the current account to the new one if necessary.

If anything else comes up, the Community will be here for you!

Re: iOS app slow / search is stuck

olafmol — Wed, 01 Apr 2026 22:08:26 GMT

I have the same issue with the latest iOS spotify app: very sluggish, even non-responsive behaviour, 3 dots blinking and not loading a playlist for over a minute, pressing play on a song and nothing happening for more than half a minute, and often much longer. I have a lot of playlists and also lots of songs in certain playlists, but this was never a problem in the past. Something became very inefficient lately, i have a feeling it has to do with the app trying to do more caching than is necessary, or not being optimised for large numbers of playlists and/or songs. I think there is some regression going on here.

Re: iOS app slow / search is stuck

jpfalk — Mon, 15 Jun 2026 20:43:22 GMT

Subject: Widespread iOS Performance Issues — App Requires Ground-Up Rebuild

To Spotify's Product & Engineering Leadership,

I'm writing on behalf of myself and multiple people in my life — my father, my sisters, my girlfriend, and others — all iPhone users across models 11 through 14, all experiencing the same debilitating performance issues with your app. Load times exceeding a minute, constant crashes, and an app that feels like it's running on hardware from 2010. This isn't a one-off complaint. This is a pattern across multiple devices, multiple accounts, and multiple iOS versions.

I'd like to address something specific: it's widely understood among developers and power users that Spotify's iOS app relies on a sideloaded browser-based framework rather than being built natively for the platform. That architectural decision is the root cause of what we're experiencing. A web wrapper dressed up as an app will never perform like a true native application, and iPhone users — who represent a massive portion of your user base — deserve better than a glorified browser tab.

I also want to preemptively push back on any suggestion that the issue is on our end. Do not blame library size. Do not tell us we have too many songs saved or too many albums in our collections. That is not a user problem — that is a product problem. If your app can't handle a large music library without grinding to a halt, the app is broken. Full stop.

Spotify has the resources, the engineering talent, and frankly the obligation to its users to rebuild the iOS app from the ground up — natively, properly, and with performance as a first-class priority. We are paying subscribers who have stuck around through years of incremental patches on a fundamentally flawed foundation.

We'd like to see a real commitment to fixing this, not a boilerplate response and a link to your help center.

Re: iOS app slow / search is stuck

jpfalk — Mon, 15 Jun 2026 20:45:59 GMT

This is a UI/UX problem not a connectivity issue. This is on your end and your app, not on an single user’s end. Build a better app please. The desktop app works beautifully. Stop side loading from that on iphone and shell out the money for a proper app.

Re: iOS app slow / search is stuck

olafmol — Tue, 16 Jun 2026 07:48:49 GMT

1000% agreed! People are looking at me when I'm outside trying to load a playlist on my Spotify app and cursing the spotify performance. The sad thing: this didn't happen in the past, it's a relatively new thing. Performance is not bad, it's simply broken. Playlists are "not found" because of time-outs, search takes minutes, simply starting up the app, finding a track and start playing music is impossible these days. It's SAD!

Re: iOS app slow / search is stuck

olafmol — Tue, 16 Jun 2026 19:39:20 GMT

So I think it's safe to say Spotify is aware about the fact that their apps (both iOS and Windows apps, at the least) are not able to work normally with large libraries. It takes minutes to do something, and things time out all of the time. The app is not "fit for purpose" and we're paying for a service that does not deliver anymore. What is your response to this Spotify?

iPad iOS version 9.1.58 screen completely freezes when leaving and returning to app

elevatorboy — Fri, 26 Jun 2026 12:06:38 GMT

Plan

Premium

Country

Canada

Device

IPad Gen 8

Operating System

(iOS 18.7.8)

My Question or Issue

I really want to know if users are experiencing screen freezes on iOS IPad app even now in late June 2026.

i will be playing music and when I move away from the app and return to it, the whole screen is unresponsive where I have to force quite for it to be functional again yet the music continues to play.

The best work around for now that I read is to use the app in split screen mode or slide over mode until there is a permanent fix.

i just need peace of mind that Spotify is aware this is still happening and if other users are still experiencing what I just said. I have really bad ocd and need peace of mind in this.
Thank you

Mattie