Spotify On Android has issues with Lossless.

[kunaldas]

Plan

Platinum

Country

India

Device

S24 Ultra

Operating System

Android 16

My Question or Issue

We recently got Platinum plan for listenning to Lossless content. Problem arises in downloading. All the time there is this message saying Redownload to stream in Lossless. Tried many times - inface the songs do show 24bit FLAC yet the app shows that this is not downloaded in Lossless. Redownload to Listen in Lossless. 

Redownload my entire playlist multiple times - same problem. Settings are set to Lossless - from streaming to downloading on both WiFi and Mobile Data.

[Dessi]

Hey @kunaldas,

Thanks for reaching out!

We'd recommend starting off with a clean reinstall of the app to remove any corrupted downloads or cache that might be causing this. Have you also tested the suggestions from the screenshot you've provided? It might be a good idea to check your internet connection by doing a speed test to ensure it's stable. In case you have an option to test with a different one and compare if you get the same behavior, that'd be great as well. 

Let us know how it goes.

[kunaldas]

Clean installed 3 times. 
Redownloaded everytime on Lossless. 
Testing on different location for mobile data and 3 different wifi connections. 

[Dessi]

Hey @kunaldas,

Thanks for the quick reply and for testing!

Since you've already done some troubleshooting and the issue persists, we'd like to check if we're able to reproduce it on our end and investigate further. If it's okay with you and it's not a private playlist you're experiencing this with, it'd be really helpful if you can share it with us so we can test this out. We also wanted to confirm if this happens with other playlists as well or just a specific one?

We'll be on the lookout for your reply.

[kunaldas]

very recent example is NF's Fear EP 

[Joan]

Hi @kunaldas,

Thanks for the reply.

We tested this on our end, but no such message appeared. To try and force a resync, could you check if the same happens in offline mode? And if you toggle offline mode on and then off, does the issue persist?

Let us know how it goes.

[kunaldas]

Hey,

Yes it does exist. Also factory reset my device and downloaded again. Its still the case.

Also, is it possible that that the song isnt available for lossless streaming/downloading is exactly when it shows the problem? As a few songs do show this behaviour else others show the bluetooth info that bluetooth connection might affect quality of lossless or something like that.

[Joan]

Hi @kunaldas,

Thanks for the reply.

We tested with the same album you sent us and it worked in lossless so that's definitely not the issue. In most cases, Bluetooth devices don't fully support lossless audio because of the built in compression of a Bluetooth connection. Can you confirm if the same issue persists on both Bluetooth and wired connections and if it happens with any output device you use?

Keep us posted.

[kunaldas]

Hey.

Thanks for responding back. Here is a collection of screenshot.
Here you can see one song has same problem over wired too. 
Whereas the other one has no such issue.Over Bluetooth it do warn which I expect it will no matter how good the hardware is. 

[Maria]

Thanks for following up with more details @kunaldas - we appreciate it!

Just to make sure we cover all bases, are you able to download these tracks in Lossless on any other devices you're using? For example, on a desktop device or on another mobile phone. If possible, you can sign in to your own Spotify account on a friend or family member's device to see if it behaves the same way. Heads-up, you'll need to switch Lossless downloads on for the other device as well.

Another thing which comes to mind is checking if there's an update available for your device's OS. Feel free to give it a try, if any is available, and see if you notice any difference.

Keep us in the loop!

[kunaldas]

This is for the desktop. Same Album. No such issue.
And about family members, they dont have powerful devices enough to stream lossless content. So we cannot approach that direction. 

[Vasil]

Hey @kunaldas,

Just to make sure that we've covered all possible ways to go about this:

Go over these steps to remove your downloads first:

1. Tap your profile picture at the top.
2. Tap Settings and privacy.
3. Tap Data-saving and offline.
4. Under Storage, select Remove all downloads.

When this is done - on your mobile app, go to Settings -> Media quality -> Download quality.
Make sure Lossless is selected from the provided options and see if downloading the song again would yield a different result.

Much appreciated. We'll be on the lookout for your reply.

[kunaldas]

I have already performed all these steps. Still same results.

[Vasil]

Hey again @kunaldas,

Thanks for the info. 
What I'm wondering is if the message is indicating an error with the quality or if the message itself might be false.
We can try to see if this is the case by changing the streaming quality to something lower than lossless - we'd like to ask you to do this and to see and let us know how the info underneath the quality changes. 

Note that the quality displayed should be the quality the tracks play in, while the messages below it are informational.

Much appreciated. We'll be on the lookout for your reply.

[kunaldas]

Hey. 

This is what I tested and found out. 
Remove the Album from download. Switched to Very High in Streaming on WiFi/Mobile Data and Downloads. Restarted the app. Downloaded. It shows Lossless with no error. 

Followed the above and did for Lossless, The message occured. 

[Vasil]

Hey @kunaldas,

It's odd that the song would play in 'Lossless' when both the streaming- and download quality settings are set to 'Very high'. This shouldn't be possible unless your songs are still downloaded in lossless. 

If your album is downloaded in lossless, you lower the streaming & download quality without re-downloading the album and lossless does play without the error message, this would mean that the error you're getting when your settings are set to lossless is visual-only and doesn't affect the actual quality of what you're hearing.

We're here for you in case any further questions arise and we thank you for the feedback in regard to this feature 🙂

[kunaldas]

So the error is just a visual bug which might get fixed in next few app updates?

[MihailY]

Hey @kunaldas,

Yes, this is indeed a visual issue, however, we can't give an ETA on when it will be fixed, so in the meantime, just make sure to keep your app up to date.

Cheers,