Spotify long loading times, especially audiobooks

[bastidmn]

Plan

Premium Family

Country

Germany

Device

Samsung Galaxy 8

Operating System

Android 9.0 Pie

Hello guys,

for about the last 2-3 weeks a strange bug occurs regularly on my daily spotify use.

When I start the app from cold it is fast and responsible, loads music and does all the things I want it to do.

But god forbid if I try to play an audiobook or even look at such a playlist. As soon as I click on an audiobook playlist or album, Im stuck in the loading animation were the cover and tracks are grey plain fields.

The informations just wont load at all at any given time and as soon as this occurs, all other albums and UI like in-app settings are slow or just not working at all. 

This happens both in airplane mode and on wifi/4g

After hard closing the app, most of the times everythings right until it happens again.

It is very frustrating and I dont know any further what to do.

The app is working fine on all other devices in my plan (Win10) and in the family plan, like on a P20, A70, S10e and several Windows machines without these issues.

This Ive done/solved:

-networking is fine (100k stable, full wifi)

-enough free storage on both sd and onboard (30gb/40gb)

-app and os up to date

-deleted the cache about 100x times already

-50x reboot and system cleaning

-about 10x full clean reinstall, issues everytime

Please help me fix this!

[TheDude1711]

Spotify's final solution:

Since we've exhausted all the technical troubleshooting options, we're left with no other choice than to transfer all of your contents to a new account, since the issues is only presented while you're using your current one.

[TheDude1711]

My disappointed answer:

No, I don't want to do that, because I do not believe that it helps.

My regular account is broken. (Android 8.1 and 9)

I created another account as a workaround (I explained that in my initial contact request) added it to my family group, but it was getting unusable a few days later too.

My son's account is unusable (Android 10)

I found the exact same bug report in the community forum (Android 9) (I pointed that out in my initial contact request): https://community.spotify.com/t5/Android/Spotify-long-loading-times-especially-audiobooks/td-p/49674...

I created a new account today and after 12 minutes it was unusable too: xxx

The german app store is full of bad ratings and comments from the last weeks describing the same issue in the latest versions. (https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.spotify.music)

I can use my regular account with the old version 8.5.51.941 from (https://spotify.en.uptodown.com/android/versions) (I mentioned that in my first contact request).

So give me some good reasons why a new account should solve the problem.

[bastidmn]

i get that solution to a certain degree but only if this would be only one case.

but i seems there are a lot of (undiscovered) issues like this throughout the community.

and now that ive setted up my account like 10 times i should just dump it? 

thanks spotify!

[TheDude1711]

There is still hope. Spotify answered today:

We've had a closer look at your account with email address xxx and noticed an issue with your device's cache. Not to worry, we can make some changes from our side to fix it. Heads up: You'll need to re-download your offline music and podcasts afterwards.

[TheDude1711]

My answer to Spotify:

I am very happy to read this!

It is no problem at all that my downloads are not there after that. I have installed and set up the app 60 to 80 times with different accesses in the last few days, so I currently have hardly any downloads on my device.

Is it the same thing I can do with the "Sign Out Everywhere" feature in my profile? I had tried that before without success.

Please let me know when the change is made so I can test.

What can I do to ensure that this problem does not occur again in the future?

[TheDude1711]

Spotify:

We just deleted the corrupted caché from your device. Please log back in and test the account, let us know how it goes down.

[TheDude1711]

Me:

Unfortunately deleting the cache did not help. But my downloads were actually gone.

As a test I created two audio books (one short and one long) additionally as a playlist. Both playlists load faster than one second. When I load the albums instead, it takes 5 seconds for the short one and 60 seconds for the long one. During this time the app is not usable. I can change the screen but no data is loading.

A summary of the most interesting points from my point of view:
- the problem occurs with multiple accounts (I have reproduced it on three accounts, my son has the problem, the problem is described in the community forum (from another german user) and in the German app reviews in the Play Store
- in the test account I got from support, the problem does not occur
- Is it possibly a regional (german) problem???
- the problem occurs with Android 8.1, 9 and 10
- the problem only occurs after App version 5.51.941 (I am currently using this old version on my music phone without problems with the same accounts as crosscheck)
- What has changed in newer versions???
- noticeable is the problem with albums with many tracks (audio books). The more tracks, the slower the album loads.
- if you add the album to a playlist, the playlist loads very quickly
- the real album loads slowly (several minutes) if it is stored in the library
- the real album loads quickly when I remove it from the library

What has no effect:
- SD / internal memory
- Cache
- fresh / old installation

I have created a test account in my family group, which has the same problem.
Would it help you if I provide the access data so that someone at spotify can reproduce the problem?

[TheDude1711]

I think this is the really last answer from Spotify:

We're currently having this issue being reported. No worries, our best tech folks are still looking into this, sorry to keep you waiting.

[Elena]

Hey there @TheDude1711!

Thanks for reporting this on our Community!

We can confirm that this issue is reported and the right team is working on solving it.

You can take a look here for more info and leave your +Vote in the thread as well.

It'll be useful to subscribe via the three-dots menu in the top right corner next to the title. That'll make sure you stay up to date with any relevant updates about this.

Hopefully we'll have this sorted out soon, keep an eye on the page for any updates.

Let us know if there's anything else we can help out with 🙂

[TheDude1711]

Thank you very much @Elena for linking the issue!

[holgi32]

I have the same issue. 

Also on two different Android devices. 

Clearing cache, restart etc. did not help at all... 

Thanks for creating the bug report

[kerberos667]

The long loading time for downloaded files is still true for me as well!

Additional: In Android Auto mode the spotify app does not play downloaded albums or artists playlists. Only working is favorite songs. 😞

The current app is unusable. I am back to older app versions now.

[kerberos667]

I tested various older version of the spotify app now.

Spotify v8.5.5.853 seems to work best in my car with latest android auto v5.5.6002944. Maybe it is helpful for other people facing this glitches...