Thanks for ruining my day Spotify.

[Joshjje]

The forced upgrade, whatever, I can deal with that.  The losing all my offline downloaded songs as well, and not being allowed to at the very least temporarily run the old version, WTF! 

I listen to Spotify offline all day at work since my data connection sucks.  Not only was I already having a bad day, then I am disallowed to listen to the service I paid for for the day.

Thanks.  Will you refund me my money?  I didnt think so.

[Merik]

Hey there @Joshjje!

I'm very sorry for the inconvenience the latest update has caused. Due to some unauthorized access to Spotify's systems and internal company data, they are taking steps in response. These steps included the latest forced update and having to resync offline tracks. This is a necessary precaution to safegaurd the quality of their service and protect their users. Read more about it here.

[jerrawa]

Me too - very unhappy 

Spotify is one of the only apps I let update itself and update as soon as there is a new version - becuase the updates are usually pretty awesome.

but deleting all my offline music with no warning!?!

A warning and the option to postpone (or go offline if youre worried about data security) for a few days would have been nice 😞

[arthursmith]

Same here but worse I'm overseas! No chance to sync my music until I get back home.

I fully understand the importance of the security issues but as usual the implementation by Spotify is far from ideal.

Third time I've lost my synced music in two weeks.

Premium subscription cancelled!

[WilliamOffline]

With other so called bugs and problems here it has nothing to do with technology.

In balancing user interests with company interests they take the shortcut.

1. Clearly no one even gave it a thought what happens to the travelling Premium users (their paying customer base).

2. The change was not tested. You could easily test this to assess the impact is on people with a low hotel style out of country bandwidth.

3. The change was not prepared at all: You could upgrade by importing the off line settings and then download again. But instead of spending the few hours on developing that, they decided all premium users can better solve it for them and let the programmers sleep in.

4. Information was poor. Spotifiy could have warned NOT to install the update untill you got back home, because it deletes everything. And that is the fishy part. It is all even worse than just a bug. It was done this way INTENTIONALLY.

Spotify aimed at people who broke security. Plan was to trick them into the upgrade so they would lose the music.

The premium users were collateral damage in the category acceptable losses.

As replied in another post: Fire whomever came up with that idea and prohibit jobs that relate to people in the future.

[Merik]

Hey everyone!

In my opinion, there should be no backlash from users. Spotify did inform their users about the update via their blog and many news outlets reported it. Spotify did what exactly they had to do. We are all very lucky that none of our personal information including our payment information was compromised. If anything, this is just a small hiccup for users. Recently there was a major security vulnerability known as Heartbleed that got reported and many companies are now urging their users to reset their passwords. Spotify is trying to protect you and your data. Would you guys rather have possibly your identity stolen or update an app? I'm sure everyone would pick to update an app. Spotify is very sorry for the inconvenince, but remember they are protecting you.

Note: Only one Spotify user’s data has been accessed and this did not include any password, financial or payment information.

[DorieFish · Accepted solution]

I was pretty annoyed when the update meant I had to download all my lists (seeing as I only just did this a few days ago!) but it is a valid reason.  

There doesn't seem to be a way to just multi select lists and albums and do it all in one go, you have to go into every single list....on all 3 of my devices, yawn.  Am I missing something?

[paulvoit]

---

@Merik wrote:

Spotify is very sorry for the inconvenince, but remember they are protecting you.

I don't want that protection from you. Now I lost all my offline music, which I synced from my old laptop. Where and when are you inform me?

- Did I received any e-mail? NO!

- Did I receive any push notification in spotify app, before updating it? NO!

There is no any information about "You lose all your music" I got, before updating spotify.

I paid for your service, but since today I don't wont to pay for that...

I'm very dissapointed.

[Matze]

---

Merik schrieb:

Hey everyone!

In my opinion, there should be no backlash from users. Spotify did inform their users about the update via their blog and many news outlets reported it. Spotify did what exactly they had to do. We are all very lucky that none of our personal information including our payment information was compromised. If anything, this is just a small hiccup for users. Recently there was a major security vulnerability known as Heartbleed that got reported and many companies are now urging their users to reset their passwords. Spotify is trying to protect you and your data. Would you guys rather have possibly your identity stolen or update an app? I'm sure everyone would pick to update an app. Spotify is very sorry for the inconvenince, but remember they are protecting you.

Note: Only one Spotify user’s data has been accessed and this did not include any password, financial or payment information.

---

We are lucky? If anything, Spotify is lucky that they didn't lose our data...

I have to resync all my music to several devices now, get them all into my home wifi to download my local files again. That takes a lot of time and effort. I can totally understand people who are on holiday or on the road and are frustrated because they lost all of their music just because Spotify auto-updated. Spotify could have easily done a better job informing their paying customers via email or push notification.

Additionally the news announcment they made is lacking a lot of information why this is necessary and my post about what the real reasons for this might be was deleted for weird reasons.

[WilliamOffline]

Exactly. Security is fiduciary. I think some guys above confuse spotify with Norton whom we pay for security.

Believe it or not. I just received an email from Spotify informing me on the update. A day after the update.

I can undestand technically that files had to be encrypted again because credentials are used for encryption. But that could have been a decryptioin / encryption action without deleting everything.

And....It really does not explain at all why they didn't even bother to at least copy the local settings containing which lists were marked for off line use.

Serious security mistakes and sloppy panic actions without any thinking about premium users don't deserve any compliments or apprciation.

[jerrawa]

@arthursmith + @williamssiemons - travelling/offline frequent users- Im going to be overseas soon and if this happened to me I would also close my account.

@merik - Spotify notified users via their blog - I work in IT and if I read the blog everyday of the software I support, I would be at work everyday for about 45 hours and stil not get any real work done. they can send me a bunch of emails about new bands and someone added blah to a playlist (which is a feature I like) but cant take 2 seconds to send me an email saying that the next update will wipe my offline play lists!?! WTF!

@DorieFish, @WilliamSiemons - Great ideas - Spotify: how about saving the lists/albums etc I marked for offline and just downloading them again when Im online next?

I think everyone is not just annoyed because they lost all their offline stuff -  its a significant percent because we all have to go though our lists and select everything again on all our devices to be redownloaded. Manual - Time Consuming - Annoying work, this is what I do in my job BTW - make manual annoying tasks obsolete by automation. No one wants to re-do something because of someone elses lazy software development.

I pay for the Spotify software because it is (until today) awesome. Please think of the impact to your customers before deleting all their stuff - because I know what would happen to my job if I made a change that made a bunch of my customers have to spend hours redoing a bunch of manual labour. </rage> Learn from your mistake and dont annoy your customers like this again.

[Andrews32]

"In my opinion, there should be no backlash from users. Spotify did inform their users about the update viatheir blog and many news outlets reported it. Spotify did what exactly they had to do. We are all very lucky that none of our personal information including our payment information was compromised."

Man, we're so lucky their programming wasn't awful enough to allow hackers to steal all our information! Spotify DIDN'T inform users of many older phones that their app would stop working if they updated. For many that updated automatically, they also didn't know about having to redownload their playlists.

Quit the fanboy act and pay attention to the facts. 

[KoRnFrEaK]

What happened to the widget?

[notnow]

Had the same problem however it gets worse had almost 16g on my phone now it wont save to the external sd card and only have 8g on my phone memory. this needs to be put right now else its time to move to sonys music thing same price and  free trial for a month.

[randomgirl666]

I wouldn't mind so much if I just had to mess about with a new version and download my playlists again. Unfortunately, the new Android version is incompatible with my phone and since I'm not willing to buy a new one just for one app, that means my Spotify account is now totally useless. I've cancelled my premium subscription because it's not worth having anymore - I don't listen to music on my computer so the Android app was the main way I accessed Spotify.

I do feel fairly annoyed about it because Spotify had become the main way I listen to music and discover music and the thought of actually having to download iTunes and go through the process of installing it only for it to be crashing all the time and paying individually for every track I want to listen to is not something I really want to do. Also, my most recent subscription payment was a week ago so now I've paid for a whole month for a service I could only use for a week.

I understand the need for an updated version, but why does it have to be a version that isn't compatible with every device? My other apps constantly get updated and none of them have ever told me my phone is too old for them yet.

[Andrews32]

Unfortunately, you'll never get an answer from Spotify. They have notoriously awful customer service/developers. I'd recommend you check out other streaming options, like rdio, Beats, Google All Access (and many more if outside the U.S.). Spotify looks like it will fill the MySpace role in streaming music's history...quick to the lead, quick to the bottom. 

[RudSpring]

I am forced to update spotify because the current version does not work anymore. But when I hit the link that brings me to google play I was shocked! In google play I get the message that this new version of spotify that I have to install is NOT compatible with my device (which is a samsung ace running android 2.3.6)

That's what really ruined my day!

Please tell me how long it will take before I can listen to music again on my samsung ace? When will spotify be made available for android 2.3.6 devices again? And what about the money I pay every month, will there be a refund? I just payed a week ago?

I can NOT understand that spotify decides from one day to another that I am not able to use their service anymore. A service for which I pay every month!

[Peter__]

@RudSpring - Unfortunately the Samsung Galaxy Ace is an armv6 processor device which Spotify have confirmed are no longer being supported. Check this topic for details:

http://community.spotify.com/t5/Help-Android/Samsung-Galaxy-Ace-new-version-of-spotify-is-not-compat...

[RudSpring]

Thanks for answering Peter. This probably the WORST customer experience I'd ever had. Something that worked perfectly yesterday - a service for which I am willing to pay every month - suddenly does NOT work anymore since today.

As if the car company I bought my car from suddenly comes along to take away the steering wheel....

Such an attitude really pisses me off! Shame on you spotify!

Especially the attitude of replying with the tech talk about the processor being arm6. I DON'T CARE. I am just a customer. I feel like not being heared, ignored. My phone was fine yesterday, until YOU decided to stop supporting it. The samsung ace i've got, i bought it new, about two years ago. What a rude and arrogant attitude this is.

[Andrews32]

Yeah, it's embarrassing. Don't worry, their technical mishaps and poor customer service seem to be snowballing (along with user sentiment toward the product). I expect this won't be the last such incident, so the narrative of awfulness will only spread. Eventually, they'll manage to separately annoy the majority of their subscriber base and the exodus will intensify. 

SERIOUS QUESTION, PLEASE ANSWER MODERATORS: I have a phone with an arm7 processor, do you mind giving me a heads up when you're going to cut off support for it with a mandatory update? Or should we all live in fear it'll happen randomly?