Android homescreen widget is semi-useless as it is now?

[Xbyte]

Currently on Galaxy S7 Edge but have encountered this issue in several android phones. The widget goes blank after a while if music is not playing. This may be related to android ram management but Spotify should make it persistent (only the homescreen one, the one on the notification bar should be optional if possible). What's the point of having the shortcut if I have to open the app and play music there first in order to make the widget useful? Killing the app shouldn't make it useless (Competition doesn't have this issue) Not to mention that even within the app, Spotify sometimes fails to keep track of previously played playlists and songs, I'd like to open the app, press play and continue from where I left before, instead I find myself having to select a song or playlist again and again several times a week. Needless to say, it's annoying.

[itu_]

Hello!

Must agree it's kinda bothering to have to open the app to make it useful. I love your proposal!

Why don't you stop by the Ideas Section and make a thread about it? I'd love to vote for it!

Have a nice day ;D

[Xbyte]

I should probably do so... But I kinda lost faith in Spotify for these kind of things, I've seen so many great and useful ideas that won't ever see daylight. And I perceive this as an issue, not an actual feature. Feel free to post it there if you want, I'd back it up despite being skeptical with it actually receiving attention.

[Joe]

I see this more as a bug, personally but, at best, poor design. Speaking of poor design, this must be one of the only widgets which can't be resized and it looks awful on a 5 x 5 grid.

[itu_]

Funny thing @Joe, I think back with either Action or Nova launcher... I was able to resize it but looked straight awful! It was a stretched pixelated bar haha!

[Xbyte]

@Joe @kyorugi You can make it take up the whole screen horizontally which makes it a bit bigger and weird or just go full ridiculous with the stretch... And that's the full glory Android and Nova Launcher can provide you. Beautiful things.

[xyzer0]

Same issue. It seems there are a lot of threads about this, dating back years. I'm not holding my breath for a fix. It appears it's the same on all Android phones. It's a shame to see this kind of thing with extremely popular apps, especially when the users are paid subscribers.

If anything, to automatically "sleep" the widget like this should be an option in the settings, not just the default way it works. I would love to just hit play on my homescreen and pick up where I left off, as with literally any other music widget I've tried.

Ideally, all the buttons would still function after having left my phone alone for few minutes - so the widget works, you know, like a widget. Instead it just opens the app, and the user has to start from scratch on their search to play music.

Also a blank widget on a homescreen is just ugly, and I find it blank far more often than I actually see it with anything on. It would be nice to have a permanent view of something - anything - the obvious choice would be the last track the user listened to.

[Nickl99]

Ive been chasing them to fix this since forever. Ive lost hope- i mean all the updates we keep receiving- what exactly do they offer us that we have noticed recently? Instead just reset any of your offline music (which you only realise once its too late and you are 15000ft in the air, no music).

I dont care how\why it doesnt work, or feel its up to me to experiment or seek an acceptable workaround: All i DO KNOW is Audible app widget manages to hold its last play state even after phone restart and NEVER has this problem (and i havent even needed to add it to the power exclusion list- which doesnt work anyway for spotify). Pic attached illustrates issue persists, and fails comparably with an equiv widget (audible maintains last use state even after reboot).

[naroslife]

+1 if I want to continue listening to music after 10 minutes of pause, I have to manually reopen the app. It is really annoying. It used to behave differently 1-2 years ago...