topic Re: Spotify Web Player works fine, desktop app does not. in Your Library

Spotify Web Player works fine, desktop app does not.

jackschoey — Tue, 27 May 2025 22:28:32 GMT

Plan

Premium

Country

United Kingdom

Device

Windows PC

Operating System

Windows 11

My Question or Issue

Attached is what happens when I load up Spotify for Desktop. It will stay like that for ~15 minutes before taking me to the 'homepage', but nothing loads such as the recommendations or recently listened to. I can see that I am logged in and I can see my saved playlists on the left hand side, but if I try and click a playlist to will 'load' for around a minute then say 'Couldn't find that playlist'.

I've tried:

Uninstalling and reinstalling multiple times, deleting %appdata% folder for the supposed 'clean install', disabling firewall, turning off hardware acceleration (which just crashes my Spotify), and turning on/off local files. I was even unfortunate enough to resorting to Clean installing Windows the other month (unrelated), and that did nothing to solve it.

This may seem like a small issue, as in, 'Well at least you can use the Web Player', but for me, not being able to search for songs/artists within a playlist is really annoying (Ctrl + F doesn't work on web player as when you scroll past a song it no longer exists on the page)

If anyone could share any tips, I'd greatly appreciate it.

Re: Spotify Web Player works fine, desktop app does not.

jackschoey — Tue, 27 May 2025 22:51:33 GMT

Update:

Upon inspecting how much internet Spotify is using, I'm noticing that it is extremely low, at ~0.08 MB/s.

This would explain why the app loads so slow.

Re: Spotify Web Player works fine, desktop app does not.

Joan — Wed, 28 May 2025 09:15:24 GMT

Hi there @jackschoey,

Thanks for reaching out. We'll be glad to help you get the app working once more.

We greatly appreciate all the troubleshooting you've already tried and the info you've provided us! Beyond that, where did you download the app from, the site or the Microsoft Store? Wherever you got it from, uninstall it and download it from the other source, then try launching the app as an administrator and see if that works.

If the behaviour persists, try starting the app in Safe mode and in Compatibility mode for Windows 10. See if the behaviour changes then.

Let us know how it goes.

Re: Spotify Web Player works fine, desktop app does not.

jackschoey — Wed, 28 May 2025 15:38:09 GMT

Hi Joan,

The solution was to use my phone hotspot instead of the wifi in my building, but I'm not sure why the wifi would restrict the app and not the website?

Re: Spotify Web Player works fine, desktop app does not.

jackschoey — Wed, 28 May 2025 15:43:01 GMT

Along with this, when the app fully loads from using my hotspot, all functions work perfectly, including listening to non-downloaded songs. Now I'm really confused.

Re: Spotify Web Player works fine, desktop app does not.

Eni — Wed, 28 May 2025 18:02:09 GMT

Hey there @jackschoey,

Thanks for getting back to us.

Kudos for trying with your phone's hotspot, that really helps narrow things down! Since everything works fine over your hotspot, but not your Wi-Fi, the issue might be related to a network restriction or a configuration issue within your Wi-Fi. In this case, we suggest that you try checking if your network uses a proxy by heading to Settings > Network & Internet > Proxy and disable any active proxy.

On another note, we recommend trying to switch the network frequency to 2.4 GHz / 5 GHz as well as changing the broadcast channel in your router's settings to see if that makes the difference.

Keep us posted on how it goes.

Re: Spotify Web Player works fine, desktop app does not.

jackschoey — Wed, 28 May 2025 22:08:22 GMT

Since my previous comment, I tried to see if Spotify would work as normal if I fully closed the application and relaunch, and for some reason it does work?

So I guess its fixed but there isn't a definitive answer as to why.

I appreciate you attempting to help me Joan and Eni

Re: Spotify Web Player works fine, desktop app does not.

sarimziaki — Tue, 06 Jan 2026 05:34:39 GMT

The hosts file contained no mention of Spotify, and turning off hardware acceleration doesn't resolve the problem.

Re: Spotify Web Player works fine, desktop app does not.

Joan — Tue, 06 Jan 2026 08:24:40 GMT

Hi there @sarimziaki,

Thanks for reaching out. We'll be glad to help you get this sorted as well.

Firstly, is the error you see the same as described in the original post? Is it also on the Windows app only and not on the web player or other devices? Consider trying all the network related steps previously suggested, namely the following:

Testing on different networks
Restarting your router and setting it to 2.4 GHz / 5 GHz
Disabling any VPN or proxy server you may be using,

Hope this helps.

Re: Spotify Web Player works fine, desktop app does not.

sarimziaki — Thu, 08 Jan 2026 11:49:09 GMT

All features, including the ability to listen to music that hasn't been downloaded, works well once the program loads completely from my hotspot. I'm completely perplexed now.

Re: Spotify Web Player works fine, desktop app does not.

Joan — Wed, 21 Jan 2026 11:14:12 GMT

Hi @sarimziaki,

Thanks for the reply.

In that case, this means that something in the network is causing the issue. Try the router and VPN steps from my previous reply if you haven't already and check the firewall settings as well, both on the router and PC itself.

Let us know how it goes.

Re: Spotify Web Player works fine, desktop app does not.

ethelreiz — Wed, 21 Jan 2026 11:01:14 GMT

After the program loads fully from my hotspot, all features—including the option to listen to music that hasn't been downloaded—function properly. Now I'm totally confused.