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Random songs showing up in my Recently Played list

Random songs showing up in my Recently Played list

Plan

Premium

Country

US

Device

iPhone

 

My Question or Issue

Whenever I check my recently played list, there are usually new additions to the list while I have my Spotify closed.  Usually they're from artists I've never heard of or they have super cheap album art.  I end up deleting them from the list but I should have started a list.  Here are some of the artists:

 

Israel Cipre - Sagaus

Dimension IV - Another Dimension IV

Picar de Rio - Beach Machine

Jolinder - Brain Scanner 

Esteban Tetismo - Bida

 

When you search for any of these rando artists and albums in google, they don't exist at all.  When you play any of the songs, it's all just unidentifiable music score.

 

I've gone to the "Someone has taken over my account" support page and done all the steps twice and still these mysterious artists keep showing up in my list.

 

I'm wondering if it's related to this article about hackers and access tokens.

 

Any tips or help would be much appreciated, it's a lil creepy they keep showing up in my recently played list.

 

Thank you

 

 

 

 

Reply
Top Answer
Novy
Moderator

Hey folks, 

 

Thanks for reaching out about this. 

 

We understand your concerns regarding your account's security and you can rest assured that Spotify has not been hacked. 

 

If you see any strange activity on your account, we'd recommend taking a look at these tips in order to secure it.

 

In case the activity continues after securing the account or if you think someone else has gained unauthorized access to your account, we'd recommend following the rest of the suggestions that you'll find in this article.

 

If this doesn't do the trick, you can always reach out to our Support team here. They'll be happy to assist you further by checking your account and making any necessary changes in it.

 

Hope this helps. If anything else comes up, we're always a message away.

 

Cheers!

45 Replies

Hey all,

 

Thanks a lot for adding screenshots and describing the issue in such a detailed way! We appreciate your effort.

 

Here are some measures you can take to secure your Spotify account.

 

If you have tried the steps to reset your Spotify account's, Facebook's and email (associated with Spotify)'s password but none of these helped, feel free to reach out to support.

 

As for the songs that you keep getting in your Recently Played, you can report any fraudulent songs that cannot be found on Google here. Meanwhile, you can rest assured that we take these reports very seriously and all fraudulent content will be taken down eventually.

 

Keep us posted!

PetyaModerator
 
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What are we supposed to report the songs/artists as?  The reason choices are:

Offensive, Violent or Inappropriate Content
Copyright
Trademark
Personal Image or Identity

 

none of those really meet the reason we are reporting these songs.

I have the same issue.

Like some folks said before, this is not our end problem. We fixed our possibly breached data like email, passwords, usernames... and things still happening.

 

Here's my proof also.

gf.jpeg

From "Billy Eilish" to "TAKOncierto". I won't pay a Premium subscription with this issue around. I'm not risking my money with this.

I've been having this exact same problem for a few days now. Originally the songs that were showing up appeared to be fake, but today amongst the fake albums in my recently played was "Beastie Boys - License to III"...so I'm also getting real music as well. It doesn't seem to happen while I'm in the app, but I open the app and there's random music there. I have changed my password, logged out of all devices. If this persists I think I will cancel my premium subscription because I don't want my information to be compromised and reading through this thread, it doesn't sound like spotify has a solution to this issue that dates back at least 8 months...

 

Asking me to open a new account is quite excessive. If there is any solution to this problem, please let me know as it's a huge annoyance to have random things showing up in my music! 

 

I've never had my music change while I was listening to it, I've had times where my spotify will just randomly turn off and I don't know why.

I have the same problem for several months now trying to clean it up.  Including "**bleep** music" playlist showing up next to my "Classical Essentials" - funny until my 5 year old clicks on it.  The security in Spotify is very poor - I am going to cancel as I have brought this up several times and they have NOT been helpful at all.  I also am in IT and use 2 factor and complex passwords everywhere.  Shows there is a serious security issue in the software.  Very unimpressed.

Hey all,

 

Thanks for following up in the thread.

@dlarks thanks for addressing this. Apologies for the confusion we've made about the report form. 
 

To report the songs and artists you'r reviewing in Recently Played, it's best to reach out to support. They will file a report for you.

 

Keep us in the loop!

 

PetyaModerator
 
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We recently dealt with this type of situation on my wife's phone... Random Russian songs would appear in her "Recently Played".  Additionally, when she would be playing a song, it would just change back to another Russian track.  After hours of searching for answers we just started toggling the settings... the one that did the trick for her was disabling the Facebook Ads.  After disabling Facebook Ads, the problem has not occurred since...  Almost looks like the Ads were exploited/hacked.

Hi @DrkIris,

 

Thanks for sharing your experience!

 

We're glad to hear that after the changes you've made, the issue hasn't occurred again.

 

This could happen because of a breach on another service. If you use the same password for multiple services, they all have the potential to be compromised if one has a security breach. With that in mind, it's always advisable to use a strong and different password for each service you use.

 

Let us know if you have more questions or need help with anything else Spotify - related 🙂

 

 

PetyaModerator
 
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Hi, i recently also facing this issue too, its kinda shocking even when you are using spotify premium, i just curious that does spotify really got bug or got hacked? even i just want to listen to one song it turns out so hard, i have to unliked 100+ songs each time i listen. 

another issue is when i was playing the song in my playlist, it will randomly skip to any random song that i never ever listened or liked before. 

Seriously hope spotify would fixed this issue as soon as possible.

Hey @lalateh17,

 

Thanks for posting about your experience. 

 

We can confirm that our database is secure.

 

The best way to ensure that what you're describing doesn't happen again is to follow each step from this support article. We hope this helps and are ready to help further if needed!

 

Have a nice day!

PetyaModerator
 
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interesting.

 

I had random RUssian (?) songs turn up in my 'recently played' earlier this year. I logged off all devices and changed to a super secure password. Now 6ish months later I got another one.

 

I'm not on Facebook at all, so that can't be it in my case.

 

Given the prevalence, and the reputation hit Spotify will take once this becomes even more widespread, I urge Spotify to make it simple to report this abuse without having to go through 'support' which involves a bot that is useless and there are no agents available. On top of that you're only allowed about 100 characters to report a problem. Clearly Spotify don't want to hear bad news, because they've no interest in fixing things

Hello @Effgee1,

 

We appreciate your concern and can assure you that at Spotify we take privacy very seriously and our security teams are doing their best to keep our user accounts safe for you.

 

This is why we are now sending notifications about new logins, so you can check any irregularities on your account and follow the steps here in case you notice anything unusual. Hopefully, it will not come to this! But should you loose access to your account, our support teams will be able to help you to secure it and hand it back to you good as new.

 

There are also several things you can do yourself to ensure your account is well protected. We recommend you visit this support page to learn how.

 

If you have any further questions, don't hesitate to reach out to us. We'll be happy to help.

 

Take care!

XeniaModerator
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Hi there,

 

Recently I am having the exact same issues as mentioned above. I had reset my password and also signed out everywhere. But it is still happening. Hope you can help me regarding this matter ASAP. Thanks!

 

Hi @petya 

 

I'm experiencing the exact same things that you've listed out above. Please respond and help solve this issue ASAP. Thank you very much!

Hey @blackiesuiii98,

 

Thanks for reaching out.

 

We take the security of your account very seriously and and appreciate the measure you took so far to protect it. Keep in mind that it takes a while for the recently played section to get updated, so it's possible that no further precautions are necessary .  If you're however experiencing interruptions and changes to your music library, there're a couple of more things you can do.

 

It's a good idea to have a look at all third party apps that have access to your account and remove any that you don't recognize. You can find detailed instructions on how to do this here. You should also change the passwords of any associated services that remain. 

 

We also recommend that you run a scan on all your devices for malicious software. If that doesn't fix thing, you can follow the steps at the bottom of this page and we'll straighten everything out.

 

Hope you find this useful. Keep us posted if you have any questions.

Mihail Moderator
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Hi,
I just want to add here that I've been seeing this problem for months too and based on what other people are reporting here, this really sounds like it could be a bug in attributing listens to the wrong user rather than (or in addition to) a security issue where our credentials get compromised.
It's very visible now that the year in review special has been issued and my 'Your Top Songs 2020' playlist has a lot of songs I've never listened too.
Please take this beyond an individual support ticket so it gets deeply looked into by the engineering team.

also, I'm trying now to remove access for Apps, but no matter which one I try I get a 500 response error ("We all mixed up" page)

What I find worrying about this thread is that apparently the issue is known to Spotify for at least 1.5 years. It seems they did not come up with a proper solution (I'm happy to have me proven wrong). 

A few days ago I found myself in a similar situation as many people in this thread: the items shown in my account as "recently played" were completely unknown to me. Suddenly I followed two dozen artists that I have never even heard of. Plus, my playback stoped regularly like if someone pressed the pause button on a device that hijacked my account.

Of course I followed all the recommended steps: logout from all devices, change of password, decoupling of Spotify and Facebook (did that some time ago already), restart. The random content was still there even though the random stopping of playback ceased. Of course I did not create a new account as I agree with other users here that this is NOT a solution to the actual issue. 

So what I would like to know - without the bs bingo you usually get to read here ("we appreaciate that you stick with us on this one..." etc. pp.) : How do I get rid of these falsified statistics? I would appreciate a straight to the point answer here, thanks. Secondly, what is being done so legitimate users can denounce fake (musician) accounts? I found no way to report my issue with these accounts, namely that they are fake! 

I shall give this one more try, taking a close and regular look at my credit card statement in the coming weeks. Another situation like that and I am gone. 

Note: I use secure passwords. I am a paying Premium user. 

 

I had absolutely the same issue today, but this happened to me for the first time. Also today I have received email about suspicious activity and Spotify forced me to reset my password. All these artists can not be found in Google, it looks like some noname music. When I checked out these artists, all of them are popular mostly in Frankfurt and Buffalo (US), but I do not live in Germany and USA. What was that?

imgonline-com-ua-dexifyz7xEtHCcN11.jpg

it is clear to me now that:

  1. This is a symptom of people hacking Spotify to generate cash (i.e. not to get free song plays)
  2. This is likely much more widespread that suggested here, since most people are simply too busy and don't bother reporting
  3. Spotify is being grossly negligent since
    1. Spotify refuses to acknowledge this publicly
    2. Spotify's PR-driven denial policy prevents them from providing simple tools for reporting breaches and phantom tracks
    3. Morally responsible companies are committed to being open with their customers when it comes to security breaches. Spotify continues to blame the victims, asking us to reset passwords
    4. Spotify appears to be doing zero investigation and providing next to zero resources to resolve this. They don't even respond on this forum
    5. This reduces the income of legitimate musicians, since the fake track listings take a slice of the fixed 'pie' that Spotify pays to artists.

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