Feedback Request: Android Offline Issues

[Rorey]

Hello everyone! Spotify here.

We are looking into customer reports about issues with offlined playlists on Android (music which is downloaded to your phone so you can play without an internet connection). Our investigation shows that some folks might have experienced some issues with this so we were hoping you could answer some questions to help us diagnose the problem.

1. Have you made a playlist available offline which you could not play without any internet connection?

2. Have you made a playlist available offline which constantly downloads when you start Spotify?

Thanks,

Team Spotify

[welldonemiller]

Hi

I have a Samsung Galaxy s4. Since all Android users were required to download the new Spotify app, none of my playlists are available offline. I am a premium user.

So far, I've tried clearing the cache, power cycling the device, deleting the spotify folder on both the device and SD card and reinstalling the app. I've tried this a number of times and it hasn't solved the problem. I've also tried changing the quality of the music (both higher and lower) - still doesn't work.

The songs appear to download, however, when I go to play them, there's no sound. They show as playing, however no sound comes out of the device or my headphones, and when I move the bar to a different point in the song, the progress indicator resets to the beginning of the song.

The songs work fine when I stream them, however as soon as I make them 'available offline' they stop working. I have more than 3 gig of free space on my device, more than 3 gig of free space on my SD card, and I'm only trying to sync a playlist that has <200 songs.

Please help - I require offline songs as I travel regularly on planes. I'm at my wits end and will quit spotify if I can't find a solution.

[fresh-ear]

Still using significant amounts of data when using Spotify offline. This is totally unacceptable because it is costing me money, it's simply not worth it. So I can't use Spotify offline. Nexus 5, Android 4.4.3, Spotify 1.1.0.113

[eeandy]

I followed the support's suggestion:

1. stop and uninstall the app in application manager

2. cleanup the data folders

3. shutdown the phone with battery removed, and then restart

4. insatll spotify

It works for the first couple of minutes (ie. I mark a list to be avilable offline, then after downloaded, set airplane mode on, and then I can play the offline songs). After success I try to mark more playlist to be offline mode and just leave it (I have more than 1000 songs that wants to make them offline available). And then the other morning when I try again, it fails again.

I think this spotify music app is very buggy for some specific phone models.

1. Offline mode doesn't work (eg. songs already in SD storage but couldn't play in the app, song list marked as offline not shown as offline, etc)

2. Need to login when start the app without running in background before. That means, if you are on the plane and the app is not in memory, you won't be able to start as it requires you to login

[Joe]

@welldonemiller The upgrade stopped using the existing cache and should have created a new one necessitating redownloading offline tracks. I've seen reports that the old folders weren't removed so use a file explorer to find and delete the folder com.spotify.mobile.android.ui which you'll find under \android\data\ - check both your internal and external storage.

I'm guessing you're running android 4.4.2 (please check in android settings/general/about device). If so, spotify can't use the external SD card at present due to changes Google made to permissions so the cache needs to be created in internal storage as follows.

• Clear the cache in spotify settings
• Fully exit spotify
• Remove the external SD card
• Restart spotify and listen to or download some music
• Reinsert the SD card

Offline content should now stay in place. Spotify is aware of the external SD card issue under 4.4.2 and is looking into it.

[Joe]

@eeandy You mentioned you were going to try without the SD card - did that work for you?

[eeandy]

I tried, internal storage is totally fine. I can play offline music, and no need to login again in airplane mode=on.

So, it should be similae to 4.4.2 problem -- they mess up with external SD card storage. In the card storage, I found that they have both "om.spotify.mobile.andriod.ui" and "spotify.music" folders. Looks like it really mix up with the old data structure.

I will give myself 2 more days, and it still doesn't work, I will unsubscribe my premium account. I got another 50+ hours of flight time in the coming week. Can't survive without music there! 

In Asia, we can alternative like KKBox, which has no problem at all. Spotfiy is now in fact asking me to try other music service, and if they're good after I subscribed, I won't change back until they have big issues like now. Same as what most of using using Spotify here...although got other competitive services but since Spotfiy is good enough, I don't want to re-build my song list again. But now....looks like I have no choice!

[Joe]

You shouldn't be having a problem with 4.3 so I'm a bit baffled but at least we know it's down to the external SD card.

Forgive me if you already said this earlier but, now that it is behaving with the cache on internal storage, have you tried reinserting your external SD card, making sure there are no spotify folders left on it, and clearing the cache from spotify settings then redownloading some music?

That should recreate the cache on your external SD.

[eeandy]

no worry we all want to fix issues that's why we're here 🙂

yes I format the sd card, and manually delete the folders if it's there still. Okay, the only step that to make it works (for a while) is to follow the support's advice: to go to app manager and force the spotify to stop, and shutdown phone and remove battery, to ensure nothing is left on memory. Then I can play offline songs for a while....after that I try to restart the spotify app again, and the offline playlist become not available offline again.

Will try to do some more tests. finger cross.

[eeandy]

The last thing I will try, is to get a new SD card, if I assume that my SD card is damaged somehow.

[spotnik]

thank you jwlot. I followed your instructions, deleted the cache in Spotify Settings, and deleted the spotify folder on the external SD card, then downloaded a song, and we are back to saving on the external SD card. Great help. Thank you.

[welldonemiller]

Yes, I'm running 4.2.2. I just tried the SD card solution, however it hasn't fixed the problem. I  did the following:

• Cleared the cache in spotify settings
• Fully exited spotify
• Removed the external SD card
• Restarted spotify download a playlist
• Tried to play some music... nothing

😞

[spotnik]

Hi welldonemiller,

you describe exactly the same scenario I had on Samsung Note8.

There seems to be a problem with Spotify believing you have more than 3 devices registered even if you don't, so they block your offline mode. It seems to come from Spotify reading something from your external SD card, which you can reset if you re-install Spotify without the SD card in place.

Instructions from jwylot worked for me....did you uninstall spotify, then reinstall it while the SD card is out, and download a song before you put the SD card back in?

[welldonemiller]

Yes, I tried reinstalling and then downloading tracks while the SD card wasn't in the device. Unfortunately still not working!

[spotnik]

Hmm, curious, welldonemiller.

The only other thing I did during the fix process was to log on to Spotify.com on my laptop, go to settings and Remove All Devices (from your Spotify landing page, select " account " then "offline-devices")  before I reinstalled it on my Samsung Note8.  Perhaps that was an important step. I did that before deleting the SD cache reinstalling Spotify on my Note8. 

[Joe]

@welldonemiller Are you still having problems?

[pborgenstam]

HI.

Since I had to upgrade to the newest release for my phone (android) I have had the issues mentioned before about offline playlists. I'm a premium member since long and this newest release is running really slow. Downloads seems to take longer and when playing spotify via bluetooth in my car, it simply stoppes playing and a message comes up Stop / Report.

I would like if you made the previous version of spotify available in the meantime because I live by the music and it's not fun to get interupted by commersials on the radio all the time.

Kind regards,

Peter.

[Joe]

If you're getting ads with a premium subscription, it sounds like you have created a duplicate free account. Get in touch here and the support guys can help. If you get an automated response directing you back to the community or to the help pages, please reply to it to speed things along.

---

@pborgenstam wrote:

HI.

Since I had to upgrade to the newest release for my phone (android) I have had the issues mentioned before about offline playlists. I'm a premium member since long and this newest release is running really slow. Downloads seems to take longer and when playing spotify via bluetooth in my car, it simply stoppes playing and a message comes up Stop / Report.

I would like if you made the previous version of spotify available in the meantime because I live by the music and it's not fun to get interupted by commersials on the radio all the time.

Kind regards,

Peter.

---

[srfrnk]

Hi,

I've got issues with offline playlists.

Until recently it used to work perfectly.

A while ago (sorry - not sure when exactly...) it started showing "Waiting to download." all the time.

It still synchs new songs I add. Then goes back to that same message.

I don't redally mind the message as it still works as expected however it may suggest another larger issue is going on under the surface.

Added a screen capture of my device.

10x,

Shahar.

[Joe]

What device and android version is that on?

[srfrnk]

It's an LG G2.

Android ROM C.M. version 10.2

Got about 3GB free space.

Hope that helps.