Preview Release - Recommended procedure to change offline tracks from High to Extreme quality?

[SteveBrammer]

What is the recommended procedure if you want to change all your offline tracks from High quality to Extreme quality?

Also, linked to the above, how long do you have to wait after undownloading a playlist before it gets removed?

I've tried undownloading a playist, closing Spotify and putting the phone in standby and then waiting 10 minutes, then opening Spotify and asking for the same playlist to be downloaded again. But the tracks come back immediately meaning it's using the ones already in the cache and not downloading again.

[user-removed]

Full re-install of app. Then re-download tracks to Offline mode.

Or just clear cache. Can not say if this is available in this new version, but you can check. I have Windows Phone. 🙂

[SteveBrammer]

No disrespect, but I think you're just guessing. I'd like to here something from Spotify, preferably from the developers who sadly have been abscent so far here in the Community.

[David]

Deleting the application, then setting the sync quality to extreme before resyncing playlists should get them correctly syncing at 320kbps.

EDIT - changed the above slightly 

[SteveBrammer]

So you mean this cannot be taken care of by the app itself?

Do I need to resort to using a third party file manager and navigate down into Android's filesystem and find the Spotify cache and delete the Spotify cache?

Or do you mean go into the Android apps manager in the settings, open the Spotify app and choose "Clear cache"?

Or do you mean something else?

I can do any of these things, but I would consider myself a power-user. You're in big trouble if you expect ordinary users to go to all this trouble outside of the Spotify app itself in order to change the quality of their offline tracks.

p.s. It's nice to see that it's actually quite hard to lose the offline cache instead of the opposite situation which has happened with previous upgrades.

[user-removed]

This is why I suggest re-installing of the app. 😉

[licenced · Accepted solution]

Yeah, whereas the old app had an option to clear the cache in the settings menu the new one does not.

You'd need to clear the cache through System Settings (or delete the Spotify directory from the SD card using a file manager)

[emawia]

I would also really like to know the answer to this question.

I have tried uninstalling the app, then reinstalling it and downloading all my playlists again with extreme quality enabled. But when I look at how much space the playlists take up now I see no change from before when i used the high quality setting.

[licenced · Accepted solution]

System Settings -> Apps -> Downloaded -> Spotify -> Clear Data

or 

Delete the /Android/data/com.spotify.mobile.android.ui directory from the SD card

[emawia]

Do you know that this will work, because I don't wanna have to redownload all my playlist over and over again since this takes a lot of time and battery power.

[licenced]

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@emawia wrote:

Do you know that this will work, because I don't wanna have to redownload all my playlist over and over again since this takes a lot of time and battery power.

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But ... that's exactly what you want if you want to swap your existing low bitrate files for the Extreme versions isn't it?

Doing either of the above will remove all sync'd files so the app will download them afresh at your selected quality setting.

Do it last thing at night and leave your phone on wifi and charge overnight - might be done in the morning

[emawia]

Yes I know that's the intent. What I mean is I don't wanna redonwload them again only to discover they still aren't in extreme quality and then have to do it a third time to test some other theory about why it didn't work and so on.

Has this worked for you?

[Afront]

Don't forget, this is just a preview release so you may need to re-download everything again once you move to the new version proper.

[David]

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@emawia wrote:

Yes I know that's the intent. What I mean is I don't wanna redonwload them again only to discover they still aren't in extreme quality and then have to do it a third time to test some other theory about why it didn't work and so on.

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If you set the sync settings to "Extreme" before actually syncing anything, then they should sync in that quality. Only by some weird technical freakout would it do something else. 

[Afront]

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@David wrote:

some weird technical freakout

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I have one of those most nights 

[emawia]

I deleted the /Android/data/com.spotify.mobile.android.ui directory from the SD card, but this reset the storage location from my external SD to the phone memory and I don't have enough space there to download all my playlists.

Is there another way to change the storage location than by redownloading the old app version, changing it there and then update again. This is what I did last time but, as I said before, then the playlists didn't sync in extreme quality.

[SteveBrammer]

You see, this is why I asked for a recommended procedure for changing the quality of offline tracks. As emawia has now found to their cost, manually deleting caches can have unforseen consequences, especially if you are running beta software that's not quite finished.

So, I ask once again... Can we have some advice from the developers on the best procedure to follow in order to change the quality of off-line tracks?

[David]

It's generally not a developers job to provide customer support, but to create these apps - However, allow me to try and assist.

I think that the processes that you're trying to go through here is over-complicating things somewhat. 

Let us assume that you have installed this version of Spotify with no prior Spotify on your device before.

In you enter, wide-eyed and eager to sync tracks, when you swipe right (scroll left?) and enter settings. Set your sync quality to "Extreme", then enter the playlist of your choosing and select "Download Playlist".

As there is no "Clear Cache" setting anymore, manually deleting it is probably ill-advised, as indicated in this thread. In your case, I would suggest reinstalling and starting again.

[SteveBrammer]

I only asked for advice from the developers as it would appear (and your latest answer doesn't change my opinion on this) that support staff don't know the answer and are just guessing.

So your advice is not to upgrade, but to uninstall (and hope that this also removes the cache) and then install the new version from scratch? If this really is the recommended the way to upgrade and not have problems with changing the quality of offline tracks, then I hope you will include these instructions on the Google Play site when the final release is made.

Finally, will the ability to change the storage location for offline tracks be put back into the new version before it's finally released?

[Afront]

What worked for me was this:

1. Set Extreme Quality in Settings.
2. For each playlist already downloaded (offline synced), click Undownload.
3. Play some other music and wait a couple of days.
4. Go through each playlist again, clicking Download to re-sync. Data transfer confirms they're being re-downloaded.
5. Listen to sweet sweet q9 quality!