Storage switching to internal storage after ever restart.

[Clayharding]

Spotify downloaded songs redownload on to internal storage after ever restart. I believe this is due to a delay in mounting the sd card on the device. This issue has been going on for years judging by this forum with out ever having a satisfactory answer or solution by spotify. Seriously fix this issue it is service breaking. I really like spotify but I will have cancel my subscription and go somewhere else as this does not work for me.

Country

Canada

Device

Galaxy s10

[EvofusionTM]

Ok, it seems spotify is losing storage permissions and switching back to internal storage, however, on the app settings page where you can manually select permissions. Initially, it says "permissions - none" ,however, after I manually click on it to give storage permissions it AUTO switches to "permissions - storage"

What is going on here?!?

EDIT: Ok, so I did another restart and the downloads didn't disappear. It seems completely random at this point.

EDIT2: Nevermind, downloads disappeared again after another restart. Once again this seems completely random... I need to have offline access because I travel a lot come on spotify.......

[JG1030]

For all who are having this issue, I replaced my SD card with a new one a
few months back (they're not that expensive) and haven't had the issue
since.

[EvofusionTM]

Honestly this doesn't seem like a viable option. I have a pretty high end samsung 256gb SD card. Plus, this issue only started after the new UI update, AND the sd card is working fine for pictures / videos.

[Rubyv76]

I am also having this issue after the most recent update.  My phone is moving all my songs to internal storage, again, for the 3rd time in a week.  I've used this app since its inception, and frankly, it has been a mess the last year.  Do better. 

[Rubyv76]

And it happened again this morning!!!!!!! COME ON!!!!!!!

[MsterSandman]

Still having this issue as of 6/5/2021 

But today, I've been trying to transfer my music for 2 hours and it's stuck at "Spotify will automatically restart after this process is complete" 

I'm using the MOST expensive hardware available so this is ridiculous for such a mature app. 

-Galaxy s20 Ultra 5G

-SanDisk 512GB Extreme microSDXC UHS-I Memory Card

Been frozen for almost 2 hours now, afraid to do anything or it will cancel the transfer. 

C'mon Spotify. Don't make me switch to Youtube music, it's much worse. 

[MsterSandman]

Your link to keep up with ongoing updates does not work 

[Ver]

Hey @MsterSandman,

Thanks for the info 🙂

The most common cause of this is a corrupted cache and/or the app having difficulties gaining accurate permissions to read/write to external storage.

In this case we'd suggest you head here and contact our support team. The folks there can check your account and give you more information about it.

The Community is here for you if there's anything else!
 

[Ver]

Fixed!

[MsterSandman]

Nope.

The app has all permissions needed. The SD card is perfectly fine, it is formatted, and I've cleared the cache probably 100 times by now.

Your app is not properly checking for a mounted SD card before accessing the storage data. So it thinks there is no card and reverts to internal storage constantly.

Fix it please. 

[Julian]

Hi @MsterSandman,

Thank you for keeping us in the loop.

Just to make sure, have you tried testing the app with a different SD card? If not, please give it a go.

Also, it's always a good idea performing a clean reinstall of the app. This is often an overlooked step, but it’s more thorough than a regular one and can be helpful to get rid of any cache that might be causing trouble. 

If this still doesn't do the trick, please contact our folks from the support team. They will be able to take a better look at your account. 

Cheers!

[Rubyv76]

I've done all of the above and it still happens. Happened again yesterday, in fact. 

[Julian]

Hi @Rubyv76,

Thank you for adding your posts to this thread.

To begin, we want to make sure you already followed all the steps shared by @Ver and @Julian. 

If the SD is still not recognized by the app, we suggest you contact the support team. The folks over there will be able to look directly into your account. 

We'll be on the lookout. 

[1875pils]

I have the complete same issue and tried also to complete reinstall the app and all of its content. Also a device factory reset doesn't solve the issue. The issue occurs when the device is running out of battery when Spotify is opened. At the next start Spotify is still in RAM and will be started automatically because the device ran out of battery. At this moment the sd card isn't mounted and Spotify changes to internal storage.
It is no big deal to implement a routine which checks the availability of the sd card - if the sd card isn't available there should be a notice to the user, where the user can choose if Spotify should still try to access the sd card or should change to the internal storage.

[Alex]

Hey @1875pils,

Thanks for the post.

It's best to format the SD card as external storage, otherwise the Spotify app won't differentiate between the card and the phone's internal memory.

It's also a good idea to disable Battery optimization for Spotify, as this might cause the app to malfunction.

Hope this helps.

[Tink3rb3ll]

As spotify has still not seen fit to FIX THIS ISSUE which has been ongoing for 5+ years, here is a workaround I found on reddit. (I cannot post the link, but just Google search Problem with spotify downloads on sd card (android))

Spotify could easily fix this issue by adding a delay which will wait for the SD card to be mounted first before downloading ALL songs again (as suggested by MULTIPLE people and completely disregarded by the moderators continuously posting the same trouble shooting that doesn't work), the only viable option is to do something with the app that spotify themselves does not normally allow.

The solution is to install the app on your external storage.

This way the background process of the app is delayed to load.

• Enable the developer options on Anroid
• Enable Force allow apps on external
• Move spotify to external storage and then download all the songs/podcasts you want

Since doing this I've successfully restarted my phone without spotify moving the storage back to internal, which has been a big pain in the past as this happened once on a hiking trip when my phone ran out of battery and all downloads were gone afterwards with no phone reception...
One thing to note: You will have to repeat this process every time you update the app, as apps are generally moved back to internal storage after updating.

[Renler]

My god, thank you for the solution! I've restarted my phone now 5 times and still everything is on the as card. Regarding updates I'll have to see, if only Spotify will be moved back to the internal storage or the songs too

[braticus]

I have this issue as well. However, when I install it on my SD card....the widget is disabled...? I'm beginning to hate spotify. 

[Renler]

I never use the widget, as it's not very helpful to me. But I have to switch the storage to SD card after every update, as the main program is moved back to the internal storage. Luckily the songs stay on the SD card 

[declandevine]

This works:

https://forum.xda-developers.com/t/howto-fix-songs-on-external-sd-card-lost-after-reboot-on-samsung-...