Sorting Bug

[Ian39]

Plan

Premium

Country

CA

Device

Samsung Galaxy A50

Operating System

Android 11

Spotify Version

8.9.26.592

My Question or Issue

- Sort by Option is not working on any category, playlist, album, artist

- It's stuck on "Recents"

- Possible to change temporary but once the category is left it return back to "Recents"

- The issue happened without any apparent reason, app working "normally" (still riddled with tons of other bugs: automatic change of storage from external to internal on every restart of device and update of app, crashes, slow performance)

I've tried to clear cache, with no result, as you can imagine rebooting or reinstalling the app it's not an option with 100GB of music downloaded that will be lost (again)

Spotify should focus on the app performance rather than marketing an app riddled of bugs, I'm considering seriously what's the use of the Premium plan.

[Vasil]

Hey @Ian39,

Thanks for reaching out!

We tried reproducing this issue but all the Sorting options work as intended for us on all categories.
Could you let us know what it is you're trying to sort when this happens? Is it a specific playlist or does this happen to all playlists?

Unless this behaviour is caused by an overly large specific playlist, such an issue should be fixable by either clearing the cached data of the app (by following these exact steps) or, as you've outlined - via a complete clean reinstall of the app. The temporary loss of downloaded data would unfortunately be unavoidable in this situation.

In regards to the app being slow and crashing - this could be caused by a multitude of factors but I'd also check if any battery optimization settings aren't enabled, and as for the storage change on restart - it seems the SD card is booting slower than the app after the device restart, which is forcing Spotify to default to your internal storage and possibly re-download everything again, which could also explain a slower client performance at such times.

Hope this helps! Keep us posted 🙂

[Ian39]

Hi Vasil,

• As mentioned above it happens for anything under Your Library:
• Playlists, Artists, Album (don't know for Podcasts I don't use them)
• The Playlists library maybe not small, over 2000 songs maybe 4000?
• The app worked before with the same load in the Library
• Cache already cleaned, Spotify and phone
• Rebooting the phone or reinstalling the app is out of discussion, it takes me more than 4 full days to download my library (chance are I will not update the app for a few months or at least I will see that the Storage path issue is not solved)

Found what seems to rise the issue

• on Your Library for any category if Sort by it's not followed by Your Library Or Search (lower icons next to Home) the change it's not saved
• IF Sort by it's followed by Home, Swipe (phone command), or any other command sorting preference it's not saved
• never had this kind of issue, what ever command I used it ALWAYS saved the preference

Other issues that may be related

• crashing issue when downloading songs (usually big playlists)
• crashing issue while listening songs
• change of storage path when rebooting phone or updating app
• under Settings and privacy the layout changed without notice
• anything under Playback and before Data saver have been put inside Playback (and this without updating the app or making any change to the phone) 2 days ago
• one day later https://community.spotify.com/t5/Live-Ideas/Smart-and-user-friendly-UI-settings/idi-p/5991989 https://community.spotify.com/t5/Android/Settings-UI-changing-without-notice/m-p/5994427/highlight/t... it's back to normal...?!?! again without any change to the app or to the phone

Thanks Vasil, wish that Spotify cared more for their development staff rather than the marketing blue collars.

Have a good day

[Ian39]

Forgot to say, the app have full access on the phone, battery, wifi, etc.

for these exact steps,  same, after all the bugs and issue (the only app that forced me to do a factory reset of the phone multiple times, with all the pain in the **bleep** to reinstall all the other apps and fix all the settings for phone and apps)

Regarding the issue with the storage path, why not just give sometime to Spotify to change path or even better a popup to ask permission to change the storage path

[seaheachxv]

Hello Vasil,

This issue not fixed even with recent updates. You can't sort your playlist in any other order other than 'Recents'. Even if you change it, it reverts back 'Recents' after you leave the playlist.

I'm currently on Android 14 on a Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra, Spotify version: 8.9.46.426

Please can you take another look at let us know when you can fix this issue.

[Yordan]

Thanks for the info @seaheachxv!

I can't seem to reproduce this on my end. Could you try logging out and signing back in to your account twice in a row? This will force an internal refresh of the app that may help here. It's also checking if the issue occurs with another Wi-Fi network or with mobile data. If you've set up automatic cache clearing, make sure the Spotify app is excluded.

In case the issue persists, please share a short screen recording which captures this behavior in action so we can take a closer look.

Cheers 🤘

[seaheachxv]

Dear Yordan,

I have tried what you've said and it's still the same. Here is a screen recording of the issue:

[Ivelina]

Thanks for sending the video, @seaheachxv.

Would you mind giving Spotify a detailed clean reinstall as mentioned by @Vasil with the steps in his post here? We know it's not ideal as you'd have to re-download your content for offline listening afterwards, but it helps resolve different performance issues and it's worth testing. 

On another note, let us know if the same thing happens on another device with your account and if you've tried any other troubleshooting steps so we can avoid repeating them. 

It'd be very helpful if you could also let us know if you've noticed when this behavior started. 

We'll be on the lookout 🙂

[seaheachxv]

Dear Ivelina,

The issue is still present even after deleting the app and re-installing it again 😞 reverting back to 'Recents' sorting. It works fine on my laptop and iPad (which are currently both updated to their most recent versions) 🙂 It's just on my phone where the issue seems to persist

I only noticed it last week so it must be from an update within that time frame. I usually manually update all my apps, and I think I've only updated the app twice in the past 3 weeks

[seaheachxv]

The problem seems to only be with playlists. When I use sorting in the main library page, songs, albums, etc. it remains on the option that's selected

[seaheachxv]

I've just checked again and it seems to be a problem with folders. I think the playlist folders take the sorting of the overall 'Playlists' sorting. When I set the Playlist sorting to 'custom order', it does the same for the individual folders but you can't sort the playlists in folders as you want. But I think that should sort the issue for now

 

 

[Ian39 · Accepted solution]

Hi Ivelina, Yordan, Vasil and Seaheachxv

An update that may help you, check my first post as reference please.

Currently same phone, same Android version and same Spotify version

Before I used a "trick" to overcome this issue (check my second post) and I totally forgot about this problem

FUN fact, I rechecked if the bug was still here today and guess what, IT'S WORKING, without any trick

Sorting works regardless of what option or page (home, search, etc) it's chosen

SO to remind, no change to the phone, android, spotify, or settings in the phone, NOTHING CHANGED from the day of the first post. Crazy...