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Premium account, but local music from PC doesn't play on Android phone.

Premium account, but local music from PC doesn't play on Android phone.

Although this page: (https://support.spotify.com/nl/using_spotify/playlists/listen-to-local-files/) suggests that I can play/sync my local files from my PC to my phone, it doesn't work. I have a Premium account, I've downloaded the songs both on my PC and my phone, but when I try to play them on my phone, it says: "Dit nummer is niet beschikbaar" (this song is unavailable). The songs show up, but are greyed out, and apparrently unuseable. Triggering the song on my phone to play on my PC does work, so it knows the song exists, but it can't be played on my phone itself.

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7 Replies

If they are greyed-out on your android then they haven't downloaded. Wen you try to download, you shoud see a status message at the top of the playlist "Downloading x of y" but if it is stuck on "Downloading 0 of.." or "Waiting to download", take a look at this list of possible causes.

  • Your PC and mobile must be connected to the same Network/SSID and spotify should be running on your PC.
  • In your router settings, check that UPnP (Universal Plug and Play) is enabled.
  • Make sure that Windows shows your network as private and not public.
  • Set exceptions for spotify in any firewall or internet security programme. If you are unsure how to do this, temporarily disable them.
  • Check that you haven't already hit the limit of 3,333 downloads per device or 9,999 downloads across all devices.
  • If you are using a wifi network outside of your home, there is every chance that the protocols used by spotify for downloading are blocked.

If you still can't make it work, you can create a mobile hotspot on your mobile and connect your PC to this hotspot via wifi. Syncing the local files should then work.

Thanks for you fast reply! Unfortunately it still doesn't work.

When I disable and re-enable "download", it only takes a fraction of a
second to show the green "download" arrows, except for the mentioned local
files; they remain greyed-out. Repeating this on both the PC and the phone
doesn't help. I can't see any of the messages "Downloading x of y" /
"Waiting to download"
As you see in the screenshots below, my phone (S7 Edge) is recognised, en
can be used to play songs from my PC on my phone.
This proves that both are on the same network.
Left: screenshot from PC, right: screenshot from phone.
When I select "Also sprach..." on my PC, I can play it anywhere, even
(through Spotify Connect) on my phone.
When I select one of the 3 local files "Qwint intro...", I get the error
message shown in the right screenshot trying to play it on my phone.
[image: Inline afbeelding 1] [image: Inline afbeelding 2]

UPnP is also enabled on my router, see screenshot.
[image: Inline afbeelding 3]

What else can be wrong?

Cheers, Lambert Rombouts

"my phone (S7 Edge) is recognised, en can be used to play songs from my PC on my phone" bearing in mind that you can use connect even over cellular, this proves nothing.

 

A typical example of the devices being on different networks/SSIDs is a PC connected by network cable to the modem and the mobile connected to a seperate wifi router.

 

Did you check the other points in my list including using the phone as a mobile hotspot?

It may help identify the problem if you put two or three of the local files into a new playlist and try to sync that.

Hi Joe,

Thanks again for your fast response.

To show you that the 2 devices REALLY are on the same network, I have added
a partial screenshot from Fing, showing that both devices are on the same
network and the same subnet (IP addresses 192.168.1.35 and 192.168.1.37).
As already stated, my router has UPnP enabled. I will try your other
suggestions, as well as reboot/clear cache/etc. and keep you informed as
soon as I have more information.

Cheers, Lambert Rombouts

This still isn't working with me either. It used to work for me on previous spotify versions but I guess with the latest one Spotify has removed this feature, which is really frustrating for its users. I feel like a lot of us have files downloaded to our computers from before the days of Spotify and we don't want to have to use separate apps for all of our music. I have a MacBook pro from 2014 and an LG G4. I keep my app versions current. I have tried everything on your list and I'm still having the same problems the other user on this thread mentioned. I couldn't get the mobile hotspot thing to work because a phone can't be a mobile hotspot and on wifi at the same time. I tried to enable "download using cellular," but the music still wouldn't download. I am at my wit's end and I really hope Spotify corrects this issue to maintain its user base. I have worked very hard building the Spotify playlists that I do have, and I do not want to lose all that effort by having to switch to another application.

Once you have set your mobile up as a hotspot, disconnect your mac from your home neywork and connect it to the mobile hotspot. Both devices are now onthe same wifi network and spotify should sync.

Lol it's randomly working for me again. I decided to try again a few days later and it's working - and downloading to my SD. The only thing was I cleared up about 0.4 GB of space on my internal storage (yet the app is still downloading to my SD card, but when i go to my apps list on my phone and go to spotify, it says that it's occupying increasing space on my internal storage..not sure what's going on), so maybe spotify just needed to know there was some space on the internal storage in order to start downloading to external storage. Not sure what's going on

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