Spotify for Android causing massive battery drain and heating of phone

[stegnersaurus]

Hello. I recently became a Spotify Premium member after using Freefor about a year. I love the service; however, I feel that the Android app is a bit lacking. I use the downloading playlists feature to avoid having to be constantly connected to a network and therefore save battery, but have noticed that any usage of Spotify, even while listening to downloaded music in offline mode while my phone is in airplane mode causes the battery to die very quickly. 1% of drain per minute is the average, I would expect this behavior while streaming high definition video; not while listening to downloaded music. It is very frustrating to have to stop listening to my music to charge my phone after only an hour at work. Additionally, my device becomes very hot when listening to music with Spotfiy.
If this is a normal occurrence with the Android app, I would hope for a fix very soon. I am glad to be a Premium member, but am not too happy with the Android app.

My phone is the HTC EVO 3D on Sprint, if that helps with anything.

Thank you for your time.

- Ben

[kekxbox]

Device: Samsung Galaxy S2 - I9100

- Android Version 4.4.2

- Spotify Version : 1.1.1.162

Having the same problem for a while now , often also having playback problems (freezing/stuttering) at he same time. The last few days I tried several approaches from wiping/reinstalling the app to a complete system factory reset. Checked and re-formatted my SD-Card several times and it's fine. This also happenes when I try to sync playlists and the app freezes/crashes (see here).

I really like spotify but the reality is that this app is near to beeing unusable.

Edit: I should add that this also happens after using or when not using the app at all.

[user-removed]

OK, I am out of this topic now. I bought a new battery, that solved my problem, at least the problem with the smartphone-crashes while using spotify.

Spotify still needs large amounts of power, but I can listen to my music for hours (new battery, battery doctor app), so that the most urgent problem is solved.

Nevertheless, Spotify should fix the power-problem - not everyone here needs a new battery, I guess.

[verplant1988]

no this is definitely not my problem!

But Spotify doesn't react on this...shame on them!

[jonash79]

---

@Greg wrote:

Hi everyone,

We are currently looking into this.

There have been some recent reports that since updating to the new version, the battery drain no longer occurs.

With this in mind, please make sure you're running the latest Spotify app for Android. 

If you're still experiencing excessive battery drain, please let us know the following:

- Device Make/Model

- Android Version

- Spotify Version

- Estimated battery usage (Screenshots are a bonus!)

Thank you! 

---

Hi Greg,

this is definitely not fixed. In fact, I have been having this problem ever since I used spotify (January 2014). Only at the beginning, it was really seldom and therefore tolerable. Since my upgrade to android KitKat, it is occuring every time I use spotify, sometimes sooner, sometimes later. Unfortunately, my firmware upgrade to Android KitKat happened very closely to several updates of the spotify app. Therefore I am not sure which update made the problem worse.

In any case, it is so bad that I will cancel my Premium membership if it is not resolved within the next month. A quick google search reveals that this problem has been reported by users for years, but nobody seems to care.

Symptoms:

- I have the impression that it is connected with listening to offline stored playlists and does not happen when streaming, but since I almost never stream music, I am not 100% sure.

- It does not matter however, whether the app is switched to offline mode or not, what seems to be the trigger is that the current playlist is stored locally.

- At some time during the usage of spotify or also after stopping playback manually, the service

com.spotify.music.service

will cause ecessive CPU load. The device becomes hot and the battery is drained at an insane rate, even if playback is stopped and the app is closed. The service remains active and is hogging the CPU.

- Force-closing the service (through Cyanogen Mod's developer options) does NOT stop the process and not solve the CPU load problem. The only solution seems to be rebooting the device.

- Sometimes (but not always) the above problem coincides with the frontend app hanging while switching to the next title in the playlist. The cover of the new song ist not loaded and the app is completely unresponsive. From this point on, the excessive cpu load begins.

Device: Samsung Galay S2 GT-i9100

Android: 4.4.4 CyanogenMod11 M9

Spotify Version: all Versions of the past half year, up till today (1.3.0.423)

Estimated battery usage is beyond discussion, especially since it happens when spotify is not even running! The phone is becoming so hot that it is uncomfortable carrying it in the pocket of my pants...

This is really unacceptable. Please fix. Or, just become an apple-exclusive service --  that at least would be honest.

Edit:

Addtional info:

- FWIW, I am not using facebook login, but created a Spotify account with user/pw.

- I already tried removing Spotify (including all related folders on inernal/external SD) and reinstalling.

- Things became worse yesterday. After the last crash, I restarted the device and re-opened Spotify Music, only to find that it was as if the app had been freshly installed: had to re-enter my user/pw and re-download all my offline music. I'm close to returning to Google Music. It's ugly, but at least it works.

[inzaghi89]

That's really not funny. I've the same symptoms as below. Also Spotify likes to crash while listening music. There is no rule - when. Sometimes after 3 songs, somethimes after few hours... Battery drain is really huge, so listening music outside is not recommended. Also phone heats up really fast.

I'm not sure that this issue might regard to file location (SD card), or other, but with this spotify is unusable for me on phone.

- Samsung Galaxy S2 - GT-I9100

- CyanogenMod 11 (nightlies)

- latest spotify version and android stores

[Idolon]

The problems I'm having with the Spotify app are very similar to those inzaghi89 describes. Spotify stops playing music in the middle of the track after everything between a couple of tracks to an hour. After that, when I try to go back to the settings or my music collection, I only get the loading circle and the phone starts heating up.

Just like inzaghi89, I'm running CyanogenMod 11 on my Galaxy S2. I only installed CyanogenMod a week ago, and before that, with the stock ROM, Spotify worked just fine. So maybe the combination of CyanogenMod and the Spotify app can give a hint on a solution to this problem.

- Samsung Galaxy S2 - GT-I9100
- CyanogenMod 11
- latest Spotify version

[Fred]

I have a setup and problems identical to @Idolon . Galaxy s2, cyanogenmod 11. Same things happening as he describes.

[Fred]

After some searching and going through different processes in my SGS2 I've found some things that were misfunctioning:

- after uninstall and removal of folders, the spotify folders didn't actually get completely deleted, required a reboot after first removal to be able to completely remove all folders. 

- I had to remove my external sd card. Whenever Spotify gets installed to the physical external sd-card, the same thing happens again. 

- Installation has to be to the internal sd-card (sdcard0) with the physical sd-card removed. You then have to reboot the phone with the physical sd-card still removed. Start up spotify, play something, shut down your phone, put your physical sd-card back and reboot. 

Things should work. 

For some reason, when installing to the physical sd-card (sdcard1), on shutdown OR when playing in offline mode, spotify search through the sdcard0, but I've been unable to see exactly what is being searched (tries to access something that is unavailable). 

With the physical sd-card in the phone, no matter how much space I have on my internal sd, it will still install to the external. Tried this with 8gb free on internal and a small 2gb sdcard, still got installed to the external card. 

Anyway, now it works as it should for me. 

[kekxbox]

Hey FredJ,

thanks for your detailed findings! The removal of the physical SD card is mentioned quite often around here so there really must be  something to it. However since my last post I switched phones to the OnePlus One (model# A0001, Android OS 4.4.4, Spotify 1.3.0.423). The OPO has no external SD card but I am still experiencing the same symptoms I did with my SGS2. Some process (often just called "e") started by Spotify keeps the phone awake and drains the battery. App also often freezes until reboot.

So I really ask myself if the mentioned sdcard1 behaviour is just another sign for a problem that runs much deeper. The only thing I can say for now is that both phones are rooted and run CM as OS. As I recall there is a warning by Spotify about that. However taking most other apps into account that don't have any problems with that, I think a rooted phone with a custom OS (which is pretty mainstream by now, see the OPO) should not be such a developing issue for such a big player as Spotify. I really do expect more for my monthly premium fee!

[Idolon]

Today I had the exact same problem I'm having with Spotify when listening to MP3 files with the Poweramp app. After some some research on the problem I'm pretty sure now that the error doesn't occur because of the Spotify app after all, but is caused by issues with playing music CM and many other Custom ROMs are having. This topic from the CM forum is only one example for many other forum posts all over the internet in which people report this bug: http://forum.cyanogenmod.org/topic/88478-cm11-i9100-music-tts-freezing-bug-all-nightlies/ . It also doesn't even seem to make a difference whether you play the files from an external SD card or from the internal storage.

All in all, it looks like there is no solution to this bug yet, and not even a proper workaround. Apart from not listening to music with your phone of course ;). So I guess for now it's either that, or going back to the stock ROM.

@FredJ: Is everything still working with your workaround?

[JasonFH]

I am running the stock rom on a galaxy S3. The massive battery drain and phone heating still occurs with Spotify. This doesn't occur with other music players or streaming services.i have the latest updates for the gs3 and latest version of Spotify as of today.

[Idolon]

I've just found a topic on the Spotify forum which describes the problem we are having, too: http://community.spotify.com/t5/Help-Android/Problems-with-android-4-4-on-samsung-galaxy-s2/td-p/860...

@JasonFH: From what I read some people think Android 4.4 has a general problem with the connection to the storage and that the phone often acts as if the SD card had been removed or unmounted. Of course, this doesn't explain why you don't have this problem with other players apart from Spotify.

[PhilippR]

I am now using Google music and don't experience this massive drain anymore. Of course I miss the cool playlists from Spotify but at least I can now listen to music offline.

[Fred]

@Idolon yes, it works, but it is a major drag, since I'm now stuck with only 8gig storage. Used my external card for music and had 32 gig... I get the feeling that something is wrong with the internal indexing for 4.4.4. But wether it's a cm or spotify problem, I really don't have a clue. Anyway, been running spotify in offline for most of the afternoon and it's only used nine percent. And that's with everything else I've been doing as well. It'll have to do for now.

[Serandel]

Nvidia Shield 32GB LTE. Android 4.4.2.

I took it from home this morning with 100% battery. All day asleep (or that I thought) in my backpack and when I'm going to use it after lunch, it's at 15%! 90% of this drain comes from frigging Spotify, that I haven't used in days. ARGH!

[Daniel]

---

@Serandel wrote:

Nvidia Shield 32GB LTE. Android 4.4.2.

I took it from home this morning with 100% battery. All day asleep (or that I thought) in my backpack and when I'm going to use it after lunch, it's at 15%! 90% of this drain comes from frigging Spotify, that I haven't used in days. ARGH!

---

Please read the guide linked below for details on getting a completely clean install of the Spotify app. This should be the first step and can help resolve issues such as:

- Black screen on startup
- Offline data not storing on SD card
- Random crashes or FC's
- Track degradation or skipping
- Playlists and tracks no longer available

[GUIDE] First step of troubleshooting - Clean Install

[Serandel]

Well, I got my tablet a week ago, so I was assuming it already was a clean install. 🙂

I'm going to wait a few days more to see if it happens again and will do the cleaning up then, but it clearly was a software bug because Spotify had since this morning a whooping total of 6:44 CPU hours, so I assume it singlehandedly forced the tablet to be awaken all morning... 😞

[Daniel]

---

@Serandel wrote:

Well, I got my tablet a week ago, so I was assuming it already was a clean install. 🙂

I'm going to wait a few days more to see if it happens again and will do the cleaning up then, but it clearly was a software bug because Spotify had since this morning a whooping total of 6:44 CPU hours, so I assume it singlehandedly forced the tablet to be awaken all morning... 😞

---

If i could hazard a guess i would suggest is an sd card issue. Possibly cache being carried over from an old device. 

[ryanjay602]

OK. The issue is with Spotify. From all accounts the phone is in 'stay awake' while the app is running. This is not necessary. Pandora and slacker do not use or access the wake lock on the device and music still streams. As long as the Spotify app continues to do this the only alternative is to underclock your device, turn WiFi off and turn off location. It becomes hot because Google now tries to find your location with WiFi and location. Both of which are not needed if you are using mobile network. If your using WiFi turn off location in settings. This will save battery and keep the phone cooler. As for the massive drain...  It's on Spotify's end. It's persistent and asked device when it wants. I'm running it on a galaxy s4 running rooted lollipop. 

[sjev]

Came to this forum after searching for 'spotify battery drain'

Can confirm the same issue, this time with I9100 on NeatROM 4.4.4 . Upgraded from 4.2 NeatROM a couple of days ago and then the problems started.

In the past days I've experienced random app stops, blank screens and enormous battery drain, even when the app is not running. 

After reinstalling with sd card out of the phone, it seems to work OK.... Update : today the app froze again, and the battery drain started in the background. Stopping the app does not help, only a full reboot works. 😞

Still, the issue is not limited to CM, but seems to be more of a 4.4.x problem. ... and sill present.