Spotify keeps pausing

[Jcarreno]

Plan

Premium family

Country

Australia

Device

Huawei P10 Plus / iPhone 8 / Dell

Operating System

Android 9 / iOS 12.1.4 / Windows 10 Pro - 64 bit

My Question or Issue

Spotify keeps pausing randomly in the middle of songs, sometimes multiple times during the same song. The issue happens across all my devices, and it always seems to happen when connected to bluetooth. I have already tried uninstalling, resetting, and also went to my account page and signed out from everywhere. Nothing has helped, and the problem just seems to be getting worse. This happens across all playlists, radio, podcast. The issue also happens when using chromecast at home. I have checked settings on my mobiles and the battery saving mode is not on, so this is not an issue. I also have an issue of the mobile apps saying there is no internet connection even though I am clearly connected, and have to close the app and restart. On the desktop client I get a blue message at the top saying "we can't play this song right now" and then continues playing (you can see the song timer continues to go down) but there is no sound, and if I skip to the next song it plays fine for a few minutes but then get the same message again. 

There's clearly a whole host of problems with the service right now, and I'd like to know if they will be resolved at some point or if I should look into paying for a different service that won't be as unreliable as this. 

[Julian]

Hey @Courteney_ds,

Thank you for reaching out to the Community.

We appreciate the time you took following the troubleshooting steps and for sharing the information with us. 

To have a better understanding of the issue, please include in your next response the Spotify version along with the make, model and OS version you're currently running on your device. If possible, try it on a different device and let us know if the same happens.

We'll be on the lookout for your next response.

[Olando]

Commented on this at 2021-04-24. As the issue is unresolved let me report how it works with software I have today:
Harman/Kardon Onxy 4 BT speaker (3.3.0 fw, which seems to be latest) 

Windows 10 laptop (up-to-date Windows), running Spotify for Windows (other laptop than for 2021-04-24 report)
1.1.78.765.g5ea20b00

One+ Nord (up-to-date Android) running Spotify 8.7.4.1056

When I connect both the phone and the PC to the Onyx and have the PC as Current Device I don't see any problems (granted, only tested a few songs, but at least less frequent than it was when I submitted my previous report of 2021). Controlig play/pause from both PC and Phone works fine.

But when I have both the phone and the PC connected to the Onyx and have the Phone as Current Device, when I press play it will only play 1-2s before pausing. This is valid for pressing Play in both Phone and PC. 

Obviously there is something connected to having two BT playback devices connected to a speaker, what the speaker broadcasts to these devices, and how Spotify syncs its status between PC-spotify and Phone-spotify. 

And I would not be surprised if this problem involves some not-so-common behaviour from the Onyx 4. But if Spotify is relying on bluetooth devices to behave well, it is going to leave a lot of users frustrated. 

Note: Would not be surprised if other users that are in this thread have some different problem than mine.  

Here is one potential way I see this error could happen (with the conditions for the error as stated above):

1. I do PLAY in Phone-spotify. 

2. Phone-spotify sends status (PLAY) to PC-spotify via wifi (and cloud?)

3. PC-spotify is now in PLAY (with Phone as Current Device)

4. Phone-spotify starts streaming, Android OS sends audio stream and BT play/pause event to Onyx

5. Onyx starts playing music, broadcasts BT play/pause event to second connected device, the PC

6. PC/PC-spotify gets play-pause event. Since PC-spotify is in mode PLAY (see 3.), PC-spotify changes to PAUSE

7. PC-spotify sends PAUSE status to Phone via wifi/cloud

8. Phone-spotify is now in PAUSE and stops playing the music. 

I don't know enough about BT or spotify to know that this is exactly what happens. But something like that is going on, and it should not be THAT difficult to make spotify more robust against this type of play/pause oscillations. 

[Iris1]

I have 2 different i phones , a 7 and a 10

on the 10 it keeps pausing during a song and then won’t play that song even if i try to replay it , it only works if i skip forward to another song , but after a while it does it again. It doesn’t happen on the iphone 7 

it happens only in bluetooth and it happens whether i use wifi or just normal phone connection 

[Eni]

Hey there @Iris1, 

Thanks for reaching out about this. 

Could you let us know which troubleshooting steps you've already tried? That way we can avoid any repeating steps. 

If you haven't tried performing a clean reinstall of the app on your phone, we suggest that you give that a try to see if it makes the difference. 

In case the issue persists after the clean reinstall, could you make sure that Spotify has all necessary permissions enabled?
 

1. Open your Settings menu.
2. Scroll to the bottom to find Spotify and open the app settings.
3. Enable everything you see.

It's also a good idea to exclude the app from any Battery optimization software that might be active on your smartphone. 

We'll be on the lookout for your reply.

[jgaspias]

Hi,

still in 2023 this issue happens top me every so often.

I have tried every solution you guys propose here and it still happens.

On my laptop and on my android, connected via bluetooth and with the wiim mini (so connected via WiFi), keeps pausing randomly, and it just makes the app useless.

My Internet connection is fast, so it isn't the problem. The problem is the same when I'm connected to my router via wifi or LAN.

Any other audio source connected via bluetooth works just fine...

[krisceldianego]

I was able to resolve this issue by changing my password. 

[jgaspias]

Did that also, nothing.

[AlejaR]

Hey @jgaspias,

Thanks for your replies and for the info shared. 

In this case, we'd like to gather some additional info. Would you mind sharing with us the make/model and OS of the affected devices along with the Spotify version you're running on them?

On another note, would you mind sending the exact troubleshooting steps you've tried so far? That way, we can avoid repeating any steps.

Lastly, did you notice if this started to happen after a specific event such as an OS update? If yes, please send us the details.
 

Keep us in the loop!