Desktop local files added to playlist, only some sync to mobile

[YourUncleTony]

Plan - Premium

Country USA

Device - Pixel 5

Operating System - Android 12

My Question or Issue

In the Desktop app, I create a new playlist, and add 10 local files to it. All 10 play fine in the desktop app. I sync the playlist to my Android device. 9 of the 10 files play, but one is greyed out and presents a message "Spotify can't play this right now, this song isn't available on your device".

I go back to the desktop app, remove the one song that won't sync. I kill the mobile app and clear cache, and close the desktop app. I restart the desktop app, add the 1 local file to the play list again. I sync to mobile, and same result. ID3 tag info is complete and consistent across all 10 files. I cannot determine why the one file consistently will not sync.I've reviewed this, and ruled out all as causes. What would cause specific files within a local file playlist to not sync correctly?

[Alex]

Hey @YourUncleTony,

Thanks for the post.

Spotify will only work with legally obtained music files. So we can't guarantee that it will work with all tracks you try to upload, as some have certain copyright restrictions implemented in them.

What you can do in the case with this one song, is to try and change it's format or edit the metadata of the track. This often helps in such cases.

The file types that the feature is designed to work with are:

• .mp3
• .m4p (unless it contains video)
• .mp4 (if QuickTime is installed on your computer)
• .m4a (unless it’s an Apple lossless file; ALAC or ALE)

You can try some of the troubleshooting mentioned here as well 🙂

Hope you find this info helpful. Don't hesitate to reach out again if you have questions.

[YourUncleTony]

Thanks for the response. I have encoded all of these files myself, none of them are DRM protected. The situation has changed/progressed to the point that none of the files will sync (where some had previously synced OK), so I am now focusing on the sync process as the issue. I'll review the link for further troubleshooting steps.