Local songs being skipped

[Stanvandewall]

Plan

Premium

Country

 Netherlands

Device

Samsung Galaxy S5 Neo

Operating System

Android 6.0.1, the latest available update for my (somewhat outdated) device.

My Question or Issue

Hi there,

For a few weeks now ive noticed that local songs ive downloaded to my android device randomly become greyed out. The green "downloaded" symbol will remain however. 

When my playlist encounters such a song it, together with the next 2 to 6 songs, are ignored and playback resumes further down the list. The 2 to 6 ignored songs are not greyed out, and it does not matter whether they are local files or from the spotify database itself.

The weird part is that selecting the greyed out song for playback specifically can still play the song. The data is there and can ge used.

So far ive discovered that re-downloading the playlist resolves the issue for the songs that are greyed out at that time, but within a day or two the same or different songs will suffer the same strange effect. 

Any ideas on how to fix this? My desktop isn always available to resupply the local files, and ive checked but none of them appear in the spotify database.

[Guido]

Hey @Stanvandewall,

Thanks for getting in touch!

Have you already tried to reinstall the app to see if that resolves the issue? You can read here how you can do this.

If it didn't help, could you try if a different mobile device behaves the same? What you could also try is to create a new playlist with nothing but local files to see if that makes any change.

Let us know what the result is. Looking forward to your reply!

[Stanvandewall]

Hi Guido, 

Thank you for your reply.

I have tried reinstalling the app, but that has not helped.

Ive checked my ancient samsung S2 phone, and it doesnt seem to have this issue. Yet. I’ll give it a day or two and see what happens. 

It would seem that some song are more prone to be affected than others, but i wouldnt know why.

Having a playlist with nothing but local files is the next thing on my list to try, but it kind of defeats the purpose, because i can just use the built in samsung music player for that.

[Katerina]

Hey there @Stanvandewall,

Thanks for clarifying.

In this case, let's wait to see if that same issue happens in your other device.

If it doesn't, make sure that your S5 device is on any latest OS update possible. Also check the following:

• Make sure Spotify is whitelisted or made as an exception for any battery and memory optimization/saving settings and apps. 
• Make sure Spotify is also set as an exception to any cache-clearing apps you might have installed. 

We'll be keeping an eye on your reply!

/K

[Stanvandewall]

Alright, so its been a day, and ive done everything with my S2 that i usually use my S5 for. The songs arent being weird, and on the S5 they are, so it seems to be somehow device specific.

Could it have anything to do with the fact i made Spotify save its 4Gb of downloaded music to my SD card to save space on my device? Seems like that shouldnt matter, especially considering that the files still work when i select them manually.

Ive also noticed that a different set of downloaded local files appears unaffected. Maybe because i dont play them as much?

Ive checked everything @Katerina mentioned, spotify has now been excluded from the built-in power saving settings and I've scanned for OS updates 4 times, it came up blank.

This whole thing is more of an annoyance than a real problem, but it would be nice to see it solved.

I will continue to monitor the S2 device over the next days, just in case.

[Katerina]

Hey again @Stanvandewall,

Thanks for getting back in touch with this. 

This sounds like there could be an issue with the cached memory. In this case, could you try heading here and removing all your offline devices listed?

Once you've done this, make sure to follow the steps to reinstall the app on your devices.

Please note that you'll need to make available your offline content once more.

Let us know how that goes!

[Stanvandewall]

Hm. I did what you said: cleared the offline devices list, removed all data of spotify from my S5 before uninstalling the app, then reinstalled the app and redownloaded the playlist. It took half an hour for the same thing to happen again.  

I dont know whats causing this, but i certainly appreciate all of the input im getting here!  

If you are out of ideas, thats fine too. Ill just have to find a workaround that works for me. Is there a limit to the size of a playlist? Or to the number of files transferred from my computer that can be in it?  

Is it possible to read local files on my actual phone? So i can just manually copy the files, place them on my phone, and let spotify play them. That should be a fix for sure.  

Again, my gratitude for your aid!

[Katerina]

Hey there @Stanvandewall,

Sorry to hear that didn't help. No worries though, let's keep troubleshooting.

Since you mention that your offline content is saved on your SD, could you try checking your SD card for errors? 

If possible, it's also worth a try checking if this occurs if your offline content is saved on your device's internal storage. Keep in mind that you may need to follow the same steps to remove your offline devices once more if you see your mobile device appearing more than once here.

Let us know how that goes 🙂

[Stanvandewall]

Alright. I checked the SD for problems with my laptop, but it didnt find any. My desktop didnt see it at all but that might be an adapter issue. That thing has been in close proximity to a potent magnet for 3 years...

I moved spotify's download cache to the internal storage, but the problem persists. Interestingly it has moved to different files. Could it be a playlist size issue? Its quite a long one, and its already a subselection of a subselection of my favorite music... 

Is there anything else you need to knoe about the device or whatever? If some additional information could point you in the right direction if be more than happy to share, i just wouldnt know what it is.

Ill put the data back on the SD card now since that doesnt seem to change anything.

[Katerina]

Hey there @Stanvandewall,

Thanks for keeping us in the loop.

---

 Ill put the data back on the SD card now since that doesnt seem to change anything.Interestingly it has moved to different files. Could it be a playlist size issue? Its quite a long one, and its already a subselection of a subselection of my favorite music... 

If possible, could you clarify this? 

Also, it'd be helpful if you could let us know the version of Spotify you're currently rocking on your S5. 

On another note, if you have a different SD card, you could also give it a try to see if the issue persists. If it doesn't it's possible that there's an issue with the original SD card.

Let us know how you get on!

[Stanvandewall]

Currently installed app version is 8.4.72.845

What i meant with subselection part is that every time my playlist of music i like gets over 200-ish songs in length, i take the 50-60 songs i like best and port them to a new playlist. To that new playlist i then start to add other songs i come across that i enjoy, causing it to slowly grow to 200-ish, repeating the process. My current playlist, the one that has these issues, is 166 songs in length according to desktop spotify. The older playlists are no longer synced to my mobile device.

I dont have a different SD card that i could use in my phone. I bought this one a few months ago specifically to place in my phone.

[Stanvandewall · Accepted solution]

Alright. I got a new phone recently (an S9+), and so far it doesn't seem like the problem has spread tp this one. I dont know why the S5 Neo specifically had this while the S2 and the S9 dont.

Anyway, i want to thank you again for your attempts at weeding out this problem, even though we werent succesful.

I guess that marks the end of this topic.