topic Re: Search Function No Longer Working as Effectively in Your Library

Search Function No Longer Working as Effectively

are7 — Sat, 16 Nov 2024 20:40:33 GMT

Plan

Premium

Country

USA

Device

Tested on Windows Desktop version and Android app

My Question or Issue

I have noticed that some change to the search function has caused it to stop finding results as effectively as it did. I think the change would have been implemented in the last day or two, as prior to this I was not having issues. To give an example:

I wanted to add "The Way You Look Tonight" by Eddie Fisher to my play queue. Previously, typing "eddie fisher way you look" as a search term would bring that up, but it did not. I tried typing out both "the way you look tonight eddie fisher" and "eddie fisher the way you look tonight", but neither brought up the track in question. However, if I search "eddie fisher academy", the search successfully finds the album Academy Award Winning Songs by Eddie Fisher, and, if I open that, I can then queue the song in question from the track list, as it's the third track on the album.

(I've attached screen shots to demonstrate what I saw for these particular search strings.)

Can you please examine why the search function is no longer returning the most relevant results? Or is there something that has changed about how I should be entering my search terms in order to find the tracks I'm seeking?

Thanks in advance for any assistance!

Re: Search Function No Longer Working as Effectively

Novy — Sun, 17 Nov 2024 23:15:04 GMT

Hey @are7,

Thanks for reaching out.

This is odd. Would you mind confirming if this is the only song you're having trouble finding or if there are any other ones that also don't come up correctly when searching for them?

Also, does the same thing happen if you search for it using the web player?

Keep us posted.

Re: Search Function No Longer Working as Effectively

Loredb3 — Mon, 18 Nov 2024 09:24:01 GMT

Same for me, and i've seen other threads on reddit with people with this issue. If for example i search "CFCF Punksong" it doesn't show at all the song i'm looking for (Punksong by CFCF). This started in the last 1-2 days, something is definitely broken and search function doesn't at all show the results it used to show until a few days ago

Re: Search Function No Longer Working as Effectively

hansthedog — Mon, 18 Nov 2024 12:37:51 GMT

Same for me - the search function is now returning very weird results, mostly unrelated to the keywords typed

Re: Search Function No Longer Working as Effectively

etcn — Mon, 18 Nov 2024 23:02:22 GMT

I can confirm the exact same issue.

For instance, I've been entering "mass gothic want to bad" in order to find the Mass Gothic song "Want to, Bad." That song does exist on Spotify (see attachment). What I got instead is a bunch of random goth-related suggestions.

This has been going on for the last couple of days and is truly frustrating. It affects any of my attempts with the search function.

Re: Search Function No Longer Working as Effectively

are7 — Mon, 18 Nov 2024 23:40:50 GMT

Hello! Thank you for your reply. I just tested the web player version with the same Eddie Fisher search and the results looked the same as the desktop and phone apps (not bringing up the specific track).

This isn't the only song where I've had trouble, although it was the only example I could remember where I couldn't find any combination of words that got the track to display. I've had others where I had to change the order of search words in order to get the expected result, but I can't remember any examples of that right now. It looks like others in this thread have shared some other examples of a track not appearing at all in the results, though.

Re: Search Function No Longer Working as Effectively

Novy — Tue, 19 Nov 2024 23:52:34 GMT

Hey all,

Thanks for the reports!

Would you mind sending over the make, model, OS version and the exact Spotify version running on the affected device(s)?

Also, for those who haven't already and to cover the basics, make sure to perform a clean reinstall of the app to see if anything changes.

Keep us posted on how it goes.

Doesn't find existing and available songs I search

icelbi — Tue, 26 Nov 2024 19:15:32 GMT

Doesn't find existing and available songs I search

When I search a song I want to listen and it finds me Azerbaijani songs as I live in Azerbaijan. And I have to google the songs I want to listent to and go to spotify page of that song through google link. I have the same problem in web version and mobile (android)

Re: Doesn't find existing and available songs I search

icelbi — Thu, 28 Nov 2024 06:04:41 GMT

Re: Doesn't find existing and available songs I search

Eni — Fri, 29 Nov 2024 16:12:24 GMT

Hey there @icelbi,

Thanks for getting back to us and for the screenshots you sent.

Could you recall when this started happening? Was it after a specific event such as an update?

On another note, could you let us know which troubleshooting steps you've tried so far? That way we can avoid repeating any steps. Also, make sure to run a clean reinstall on your devices by following the steps @Novy sent above, if you haven't already.

If this doesn't do the trick, would you mind asking a friend or a relative to log in to their account on your devices to see if they can replicate this with their account? This will help us determine if the issue is account-related.

We'll be on the lookout for your reply.

Re: Doesn't find existing and available songs I search

icelbi — Mon, 02 Dec 2024 09:42:44 GMT

I try it on web version from different browsers. The issue has started more than 3 months

Re: Search Function No Longer Working as Effectively

sptifyuser2023xx — Mon, 24 Feb 2025 02:25:12 GMT

Just started having the same issue. Unrelated and nonsense results coming up.

Even searching for spotify playlists doesnt return accurate results.

"Search" doesn't show Liked songs if they're not famous

elessarr — Sat, 08 Mar 2025 12:16:57 GMT

Plan

Premium

Country

Device

Huawei P30

Operating System

Android (don't know version)

My Question or Issue

As in screenshot, searching for a song, even if it's in my Liked list, and the song doesn't show up ("Don't Worry" by Sunny Malton), but shows up other songs with the same name. If I've liked a song with that name, shouldn't that show up top of the list?

Re: Search Function No Longer Working as Effectively

creepytennis — Fri, 02 May 2025 16:43:42 GMT

I have the same problem. Something I have noticed specifically is that quote marks no longer work in a search to find exact spellings and phrases. For example, Australian band "The Preatures" are no longer findable at all through search. Even putting the name in quotes results in the search engine returning nothing but results for entirely different band "The Preachers".

I expect you think this overly aggressive query expansion is awfully clever. But actually it's seriously dumb.

Re: Search Function No Longer Working as Effectively

creepytennis — Fri, 02 May 2025 16:49:44 GMT

Another thing I've noticed is that now, any search will only return a maximum of about thirty results. As you scroll down to try to reveal more results, they are simply the same results repeated.

If you want me to fix your search feature let me know. I am hireable. Although I suspect what's actually going on here is some kind of dark patterning / monetisation.

Re: Search Function No Longer Working as Effectively

deloquencia — Wed, 03 Sep 2025 07:42:47 GMT

I've ran into similar issues with search in the past couple of months.

I think this is not a client-side bug but just like creepytennis said already it is unfortunately a dark pattern 😞

Re: Search Function No Longer Working as Effectively

Thel_II — Tue, 16 Sep 2025 18:15:33 GMT

Try searching for classical music. When I type "Johann CHRISTIAN Bach" and " W A14 \ Keyboard Sonata in A-flat major" or just "W.A13", I get compositions of "Johann SEBASTIAN Bach". Spotify is so **bleep**ed.