Spotify friends activity empty/not updating

[Tonasj]

Plan

Premium

Country

Finland

Device

Pc

Operating System

Windows 10

My Question or Issue

For several months (pretty much years at this point), my Spotify friends feed has not been updating, it only shows 1 friend I have, while it should have a dozen others. This has been going on for far too long for it to be a problem on my end as I have changed my devices, settings, and other things to try and fix it. I have reinstalled Spotify and my OS but nothing helps. I also see no friends through my Facebook integration even after disconnecting and reconnecting my Facebook profile multiple times. All my settings are the same as my friends and he can see his friend activity but I can't. I already posted about this problem once, and was told it would fix itself but that was months ago. This is very infuriating as it has been going for so long.

[Tonasj]

We have seen the reports of people saying Friend Feed is not working for them, and we are happy to investigate specific cases, because as far as we are aware, there are no issues with Friend Feed working.

Firstly, it’s important to restate that ALL users had “Share my listening activity on Spotify” turned off as default - so users you followed and saw in your Friend Feed in the past, will no longer show in your Friend Feed, UNLESS they turned “Share my listening activity on Spotify” back on. 

Also worth noting that you don’t need Facebook set up for Friend Feed to work.

Having said that, all of the below must be true for users to show in your Friend Feed:

• You must be following the friend whose activity you want to see.
• The friend must have enabled the setting to publish their activity:
• Share my listening activity on Spotify - toggled on.
• The friend must have played more than 30 seconds of a track on iOS, Android or Desktop in the last 7 days.
• This can’t be in a Private Session.
• Also you should both have restarted the App at some point recently.

If all of this is true for you and your friend and they don’t show up in your Friend Feed, then:

• We need you, and the friend you are following, to post here saying you give us permission to check your accounts.
• We need explicit written permission from both of you.
• We can't test this with one person's username and permission.  
• It’s enough to post here, we can find your username based on your Community profile. 

Once we have this we can do some checking. Thanks all.

[weebles123]

I’ve already done that. It fixed the issue for one friend and one friend
only and the friend feed is still not working. There is obviously a bug.
I’ve done everything suggested, I had you guys look at my one friend-it’s
still not working.

[11146330189]

This is not a solution!! This is a bug in the system and you simply dont care!!

[justindt]

Agreed. This is not customer service or support of any kind. This is just endlessly re-posting something that didn't help in the first place.

Like "As far as we are aware there is no bug or issue.". Oh? Then what have the last 43 pages for 2 years been about exactly?

They have our money and they have the market cornered so they could not possibly care less. 

[#6]

I have tried EVERYTHING! even computers at work where my friend logs in can see hers, then i log in same app and cant see myn has been years and literally tried everything!

[Vasil]

Hey folks!

We do care 🙂 
But from all the examples we've been provided with, not a single one has been due to an error on our part.

As we're still not ruling this out as a possibility and something might indeed be out of order on our end, we'd encourage you to give us permission to take a look at your accounts (we've requested this a few times already, unfortunately in most cases - to no avail).
In order for us to investigate further, we need 1 permission from you, stating who your friend is, and one from your friend. Just type them in as replies here and we'll take care of the rest!

Example:
User X - permission granted. My friend is Y (with X & Y being your Community usernames).
Followed by a post by Y, stating "permission granted".

We understand your frustration and have been trying to figure out if there's an issue on our part for at least a year now. But we do require your assistance. We'll be on the lookout for your responses 🙌🏼

[alliev1]

I’ve done this and it’s still not working.

[blysta]

I lost visibility of my friends list years ago, yet they can see me.  They also changed settings but I was never able to see them.  Here is an example with screenshots of it not working. 
Maybe outlining what I have done wrong would help everyone else resolve this issue.

Community User - blysta - permission granted.  My friends community name is rextinct.

Attached screenshots showing I have everything enabled under social (except connect with facebook and private session), along with empty friends list, and also screenshot showing I am following rextinct user.  Noting they can see my details.

[rextinct]

User rextinct - permission granted.  My friend is blysta, I can see their friends feed but they can't see mine. 
Attached are screenshots of my settings and showing how I can see them.

[blysta]

Hmm OK - it's all good now!  They are feeding through.  Closed and reopened apps, plus after a track had played it has relinked a couple friends.  Maybe it was the settings of the friends accounts because the checked ones didn't have it set.  I'll try again for some other remote users who have said the settings were modified (but maybe they modified incorrect one or something).  But for now it looks like stuff on my/friends side not following 100% of the guidance..  🙂

[blysta]

Yeh got another friend back connected - they had changed some setting but not the correct one. 

When I sent this showing them they also appeared back in feed.  Hope that helps others.  Good luck  🙂

[Loneliest_Cabin]

So this is really what seems to be happening to most folks @blysta - folks you were following had their setting changed to off by default, and most have not turned it back on again. 

[blysta]

Yes for me anyway - this appears to be the case, I changed the setting ages ago and friends didn't - or changed a different one

[bob313131]

I seem to be facing the same problem. However, I'm stuck the connect to facebook screen. I can confirm my facebook is connected from Facebook's side. I've disconnected and reconnected, and also reinstalled with no luck.

[benquan]

It's 2023 and the issue still remains. I used to see my friends activity but now it's gone. Did a clean reinstall and all suggestions here.

[JJLI27]

Chiming in AGAIN, on behalf of those of us who are unable to follow the proposed solution. There was a time when Instagram posts containing music directly linked to Spotify when you clicked on the song that was shared in a specific post. During this period, I discovered all sorts of music by following the Spotify accounts of those IG users, since we were redirected right into the Spotify app from the IG post. I could see what they were playing in my Friend/Following feed, I saved so much new music as a result, life was great. This functionality changed some time ago, both for IG and Spotify, where now when you click on a song in an IG post, it takes you to the 'Audio' section of their app. The direct link to Spotify no longer exists. It could very well be that many of those accounts that I still follow in Spotify haven't caught on to the change in Sharing Settings, and since I DON'T KNOW THEM PERSONALLY, I wouldn't dream of contacting them with any type of request. Whether this was a planned project between IG and Spotify or not, the result is a massive change in the User Experience. There appear to be many of us who are left disappointed at this loss, compounded by no real communication from Spotify's leaders. This isn't the first time Spotify pulled functionality and shrugged their shoulders at their subscribers (I'm looking at you, former Spotify Inbox!). I'm convinced the revenue stream here is not enough for the powers-at-be to do care about it now, but it really sucks. No other way to say it. 

[jacobburgo]

I simply do not understand how something that was not an app breaking issue was applied to millions of users at the request of a couple hundred users. What a shame they basically removed this feature entirely due to the way they handled applying the change that a fraction of a percent of users wanted because they couldn't just go in and turn it off themselves. What an insane move.

[Isabella98]

Plan

Duo

Country

United States

Device

PC

Operating System

Windows 10

My Question or Issue

I've added multiple friends on Spotify and the only person who shows up is the other person on my Duo account. If I click add friends, it just asks me to sign into Facebook.

[djbluntmagic]

Plan

Premium

Country

United States

Device

Lenovo Legion 5 Laptop

Operating System

Windows 11

My Question or Issue

About a year ago I stopped seeing activity from all but one friend. I used to enjoy seeing what my other friends were listening to, especially my girlfriend, but they all disappeared except one. They all have the appropriate settings and so do I. My OS is up to date and I uninstalled and reinstalled the app.

[Wordbird69]

My friends list is also blank for the past couple years and I have tried all the recommended solutions and it hasnt worked.

Now what?

[corumeach]

I have Ghost Friends in my feed for years now. Can't see who is who, can't edit them, can't remove them, totally useless.
I would be OK with them disappearing entirely by now as the Friends functionality seems to be totally broken anyway for so many users. But these useless empty profile entries are annoying and remind me every day of the lacking service Sportify has. The Solution explained here does NOT work for me. All settings are as required and have been for years. Also switching them off and on again, does not make any difference. I already wiped Spotify and reinstalled fresh. Same result.