Some ads freezing the app

[dblackbear10]

It's been happening to me for months. I have uninstalled every trace of it from my Mac and reinstalled and the issue is still there. It always seems to be people from Canada complaining about this. Perhaps there's not enough ads available to run in Canada? I dunno, just a guess since we always have the same 2 ads playing. Sometimes it thinks it's playing an ad but it's not. It will stay silent for hours, until I close the program and re-open it.

[Xenia]

Hey folks,

We're seeing reports that certain ads are causing the app to freeze.

If you're experiencing this, we'd first recommend deleting and reinstalling the app and rebooting your device. Also make sure that you're running the latest firmware on your device.

In case the issue persists, let us know by adding your +VOTE and the following details in a comment below:

• your device and its OS version
• the exact Spotify version
• the name of the ad that's causing this
• is it an audio or visual ad?
• the rough date you were hearing the ad

Once we have that, we will pass it on to the relevant team, who will look further into it.

We'll be keeping an eye out for your replies, thanks!

[nrrdzilla]

I'm definitely seeing this with the web player, on latest Firefox and fully up-to-date Win10. I've managed to get it to start playing again, but only after reloading the page. Not hugely confidence-inspiring. This was the issue that made me stop using Spotify years ago, due to sheer annoyance.

Does not happen on my Roku, for what it's worth, when playing the same artist albums/playlists. As some examples:
AES DANA: Far&Off w/ MikTek

AES DANA: Leylines

[megamorf]

Device/OS version:

MacBook Pro (13-inch, 2017, Four Thunderbolt 3 Ports)

macOS High Sierra 10.13.6 (17G10021)

Spotify version: 

1.1.26.501.gbe11e53b

Rough date you were hearing the ad:

2020-02-19 between 14:15 and 14:30 GMT

Screenshot:

[Mario]

Hey @megamorf,

Thanks for reaching out.

Would you also mind sharing the name of the advertisement you're reporting and letting us know whether it's a audio or visual one?

Asking since we need this info to look into the case in greater detail. 

We appreciate your cooperation!

[Mario]

Hey @nrrdzilla,

Thanks for reaching out about this.

Would you mind sharing the following additional info with us?

• your device
• Version of the Spotify App
• Rough time/date you heard the advert(s)
• Are they audio or visual adverts?

We appreciate your cooperation!

[megamorf]

@Mario 

Unfortunately, that is not possible. Typically when this happens I do not recognize it right away because I'm busy with something else. When I finally wonder why music is not playing anymore the actual ad is not being shown anymore (see screenshot above). In that case all attempts to play music are unsuccessful and a blue bar at the top of the Spotify client tells me that songs will be played after the ad.

Is there a way to enable debug logging to log advertising IDs or something similar?

[megamorf]

@Mario 

This happened again on a new MacBook with the same Spotify account:

Device/OS version:

MacBook Pro (MacBookPro15,2, Quad-Core Intel Core i5, 2019, Four Thunderbolt 3 Ports)

macOS High Sierra 10.15.3 (19D76)

Spotify version: 

1.1.27.472.gf6574b97

Rough date you were hearing the ad:

2020-03-06 between 13:00 and 13:15 GMT

Problematic ad:

[_rkan]

This did happen last 2 version of windows app (including store and plain)

When i tried web spotify on an adblocked browser it worked flawless. It must be ad problem i think but i can't guarantee yet. Investigations are ongoing. 

OS: Windows 10 Pro 1909

Ryzen 5 1600 32GB RAM

[Peter · Accepted solution]

Hey folks,

Thanks for all your reports regarding ads which are causing the app to crash.

Since this seems to be an issue which is not specific to a subset of users or to one specific ad, we'd like to ask users who are experiencing this issue to check out this Spotify Answer and follow the relevant instructions under point 1-c in order to report these ads going forward so that the right team can take a closer look into each ad on an individual basis.

Cheers!