No content under 'New Releases' across all apps on my account

[theShaiHulud]

Plan

Duo Premium

Country

N. Macedonia

Device

iPhone XR, MacBook Pro 2017

Operating System

iOS 13.6, macOS 10.15.5

My Question or Issue

I have no content under New Releases. There are two sections:

1. 'The best new releases', which has one playlist titled 'New Music Friday'
2. 'New albums & singles', which has NO content

I experience the same problem on the iOS app, the macOS app, and on the Spotify web player.

[Joel-M]

Hey @TimeAmpala, and @theShaiHulud,

Thank you for both of your replies.

So I contacted the other moderators in the Community, and they will help you with this issue. I have told them to read before helping you with this issue to not go into a loop of unworking solutions. They will reply within usually 12-24 hours, depending on what day it is.

I really hope they can get this fixed for you. Have a great day.

[Mario]

Hey there @TimeAmpala and @theShaiHulud ,

Thank you for reaching out about this here in the Community.

Not all features are completely rolled out in all regions and what sections you see can vary by region you're in. To stay on top of new releases of your favorite artists, you can check out their release radars.

Hope this was helpful.

Keep us posted. We're always one reply away.

Cheers!

[TimeAmpala]

Hi Mario. Clearly the feature is rolled out if it's appearing on my account on all of my devices and is displaying 2 albums. It's just that the code/algorithm is not working correctly so it isn't displaying more than those two albums. Would you please escalate the issue to your development team to check this in back-end instead of giving minimum effort replies in order to close an issue thread you don't care about resolving properly?

Thanks in advance, I appreciate it and look forward to an adequate resolution.

P.S. I just tried creating a new account and the new account has the same issue, displays the same 2 random k-pop albums.

[Alex]

Hi again folks,

We appreciate you taking the time and effort in order to provide all this info.

We've already pointed out some of the possible reasons why the New Releases section might not be working as expected currently in our last posts. For example, this could be due to you switching countries, thus your app's interface still has some leftover elements from the previous one. Different AB tests can also cause this.

So for now we'd advise you to use the recommendations from your Release Radar which is fully rolled out in your respective regions.

Thanks @LucianLekaj, for your assistance with the troubleshooting. We're always working on improving the app and some of the newly released features take time to become fully functional. That's why it's best to keep your app up to date as this might be resolved in one of the next updates.

[TimeAmpala]

Hi Alex

You did mention a few possible reasons as to why it's not working and I disproved each one of them. That's why I asked you guys to elevate issue to your development team instead of taking blind guesses as ro what the cause is.

It's not an app-related issue, as I mentioned dozens of times already in my previous replies which you haven't read, because this issue is persistent in the updated Android app, in the updated Windows Store app, in the updated desktop app downloaded from Spotify website and in the Spotify Web Player on Chrome.

It'salso not an account-related issue because I tried creating a different account and the same issue appeared on that account.

If it is an AB testing case, please remove me from the AB tests or put me in the part of the test group that has that function enabled.

It also can't be a country restrictions/regulations/licensing issue, as I mentioned before, because all of the music is available and I can listwn to it, it's just that that same music isn't appearing in that specific New albums & singles section, it's appearing everywhere else.

Even if it somehow, through some unknown way, turned out to be a country restriction issue (though I doubt it is cause of what I explained above), I want you to find out when that restriction will be lifted so I can decide whether I want to keep premium subscription and wait or cancel my subscription and account altogether.

Again, please, please elevate this issue to people from development/programming/etc instead of taking wild guesses as to ehat is causing this issue and running in circles repeating arguments which were already disproved and repeated by other support members.

[Alex]

Hi @TimeAmpala,

We do our best to read each and every post and report such issues to the respective teams. Unfortunately neither we nor our dev team were able to recreate this specific scenario, so the reasons provided are the best we can give you at this moment.

Unless we receive additional reports from which we can gather more data and recreate the issue, we're afraid we will not be able to provide a solution. If not being able to see the complete list of new releases, without it being catered specifically to your music tastes, as per our Release Radar, we can understand the desire to look for different opportunities to stream music, but would of course be happy if you decide to stay with us.

So if there's anything else we could do to improve your listening experience, rest assured that we're listening to all of your feedback.

[TimeAmpala]

I believe I just identified the issue since you weren't able to: seems to me as if the New albums & singles section is region blocked because I just tried turning on VPN and switching country to USA in account settings and when I went to New albums & singles section it seemed to be working correctly. However when I turned off VPN and reverted country setting back to Croatia the New albums & singles section immediately switched back to displaying only 2 kpop albums.

My question is, why is that feature region-blocked if it's only supposed to display music that is available to me in Spotify through playlists, search etc. If regulations/licensing allows me to listen to music by finding it in playlists and searching for it, why doesn't the app allow that section to display new content in my country specifically?

Sounds to me like you guys blocked that section for no reason whatsoever, it surely works in other EU countries. Isn't this discriminatory in a way and against EU legislation?

[Joel-M]

Hey @TimeAmpala, and @theShaiHulud,

Can you please let us know if you are still having this issue? Thank you.

[theShaiHulud]

I think it started working for me. There's one album in the section at the moment, and I think I saw two or three different albums there last week.

I'll keep checking in the weeks ahead, and report back.

[TimeAmpala]

Some french album appeared few days ago so there are now only 3 albums instead of 2, but still not working as supposed to. No new albums appeared this friday 😞

[TimeAmpala]

Attaching screenshot of how the "New releases > New albums & singles" section looks right now.

Only those 3 albums are visible in the section, can't scroll any further cause theres nothing below.

[Elena]

Hey there @TimeAmpala,

Thank you for your answer.

Would you mind letting us know which Spotify version you have?

We'll have an eye out for your reply 🙂 

Cheers!

[TimeAmpala]

Hi Elena. Latest version. Please read entire thread beforehand, it's not a device-related issue, it's an unnecessary region restriction most likely and I'm trying to convince you guys to elevate the issue to someone who can remove that restriction.

[Elena]

Hey again @TimeAmpala,

Thank you for your reply. We're sorry to hear that you feel this way and we can confirm that your issue has been reported to the right team and they are looking into this.

We launched a new version of the app the 24th of September and that's why we're double checking if you have the latest Spotify version and if your issue still persists.

We'll pass on this info and hopefully we'll have a solution for this soon.

Cheers!

[TimeAmpala]

No solution rolled out yet. Another Friday goes by without a basic Spotify function in an entire European region where Spotify is already available. A disaster.

[TimeAmpala]

STILL NO FIX

[Alizadyx]

Hi,

Having same problem and received same answer.

Did it work for you?

[Jeremy]

Hi there @Alizadyx,

Thank you for your reply in this thread.

Can you try restarting your router to see if the issue persist?

On another note, can you have someone log in with their account on one of the devices - such as a friend or a family member to see if the issue persist? This will help us understand if it's account related or not.

We'll be on the lookout for your reply.

Take care!

[Alizadyx]

Hi Jeremy,

It didnt help.

My account is registered in Azerbaijan, i tired with a free US account and it works as intended.

Is it possible that “New Releases” is country restricted feature? This might be most absurd decision by Spotify.

[CarlosE]

Hey @Alizadyx,

Thanks for your reply and sorry for any confusion.

That's right. As previously mentioned on this thread, that section can vary across countries, so it's expected that it either doesn't update regularly, or doesn't show at all, specially in countries where the app was recently launched.

At Spotify, we're always looking for ways to improve the app and the overall experience and appreciate you taking the time to share your feedback, as it helps us do so. We can't commit to a timeframe for when or if this will change in the near future, but make sure to keep the app always updated.

Hope this clears things up. If you need a hand with anything else, the Community is here for you.

Cheers!