Spotify is unable to play video podcasts

[UncleBen42]

Plan

Free

Country

Croatia

Device

Samsung A20

Operating System

Androidm 13

My Question or Issue

Spotify is unable to play video podcasts. Every time i try playing a video podcast it starts loading and after half a second i get a system notification that Spotify app failed to start the video. Non video podcasts work fine for me though.

[Lyubka]

Hey @UncleBen42,

Thank you for reaching out here in the Community.

This indeed sounds odd and we'll do our best to help you out.

Could you please test this with a different account? If a family member has a Spotify account, it'd be great to ask them to log in on your device to see if they'll be able to watch video podcasts. This will help us understand if it's account related or not. 

We'd also recommend giving this a try on a different network, for example try to connect to another Wi-Fi or test with a hotspot network (if possible). 

In case the issue persists, we'd suggest that you go to your Spotify app settings and look for Steam Audio Only setting. It should be under Video Podcasts or Data Saver. Turn it on, then restart the app and turn this setting to Off again and check if the videos start playing.
 

Hope this helps. Let us know how it goes. 

[UncleBen42]

Sry for long response time.

I've tried all of the above. Ive made another account with my other email as none my close friends have an account and it didnt work.

Ive tried using other wifis and my mobile data without succes, while adjusting settings then restarrtng the app also didnt help.

Starting to belive its device related altough im unsure as every other app with video player I use works.

Thanks for the help so far, hope you can help me figure this out.

[Alex]

Hey there @UncleBen42,

Thanks for the reply and the info you've provided.

It's possible that some settings on the phone itself are stopping the Spotify app from playing video. You can check the following:

• Go to the Spotify app settings > Data Saver > Turn off Save Data. This option disables video by default. 
• Under Video Podcasts > set Stream Audio Only to On > Log out and close the app completely. Log in again and disable this setting. After that check if the podcasts are loading video.
• In your phone's app settings check that Battery Saver is disabled for the Spotify app. This can also disable video and high quality music streaming. 

Let us know if any of this helped.

[UncleBen42]

Hi, I've disabled the battery saver completely and adjusted the settings as instructed. Unfortunately with no success.

Also my device is actually samsung S20 not A20 as stated previously.

Is there any info I could provide that could help in resolving the issue?

Thank for the help.

[AlejaR]

Hey @UncleBen42,

Thanks for all the info shared and for the help.

In this case, would you mind sharing with us the Spotify version you're currently running on your device?

On another note, is this behavior present on another mobile device? It’d be awesome if you could check. You can ask for the mobile device of a relative or friend to open your account and check.

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

Lastly, is this happening when you try to play a specific podcast, or does it happen no matter what podcast you choose to play? If you notice this is happening with one specific podcast show, it'll be really helpful if you send us the link to it. You can do this by following the steps in this article.

Keep us in the loop!

[UncleBen42]

Hi,

Last update was 16.05.2023. and its currently the latest update on Google play, the current version is 8.8.36.522 .

Ive tried it on my relatives phone and it works, video podcasts start playing instantly without a problem.

First time problem started out of nowhere and after it appeared I updated the phone to its latest version in hope of that fixing the problem without success.

As I use Spotify to listen/watch podcasts my problem is related exclusively to video podcasts as podcasts without video play without a problem. I used to listen to multiple video podcasts but currently im able to listen to few of them that remained audio only.

Thanks

[OscarDC]

Hey @UncleBen42,

Thank you for keeping in contact and for the details you included.

Since the app seems to behave properly on a different device, this issue could be related to some damaged cache stored on your device from previous updates. In this case, we'd recommend performing a clean reinstall of the app by following the steps in this article.

If the issue persists, could you check if your device has an SD card inserted? If so, remove it, restart your phone, and try again.

Hope this helps. Let us know how it goes.

[UncleBen42]

Hi, 

I've preformed a clean reinstall, though i couldnt find any com.spotify files to delete in my SD card or internal storage.

I did the reinstall with my SD card inside and without it with no success.

Thanks for the help so far

[Noisebrain]

Same issue from an s23 ultra, everything updated. I have been having this issue for several months. When I watch a video podcast, then when I listen to music I get the push notification as if the video podcast is still playing, then if I want to watch another video podcast, it goes black and doesn't play. Every time this happens, I have to restart my cell phone and it is solved.

[UncleBen42]

Thanks for anwering to this old thread, but unfortunatelly after almost a years worth of updates of spotify and android the problem still remains.

Still as always it seems for a half second its gonna start playing the video podcast but then it stops. Video remains still as in picture attached below.

I tried restarting my phone along with everything reccomended above, but to no avail.

Thanks, for the efforr

 

[Ivelina]

Hey again @UncleBen42,

And thanks for posting the info and screenshot in the thread. Apologies for the late response.

Upon taking a look at the details and as you're using an SD-card, we think the issue might very likely be related to this. Corrupted cache on the SD-card cad cause different issues with Spotify's performance, so in this case we recommend removing the SD-card once again and giving the app a clean reinstall with the steps here.

After that, try using Spotify without the SD-card for some time in order to test if that'll make any difference. 

Thanks and keep us posted 🙂

[VBPL1]

I have the same issue. Can't play video podcasts on the latest Android, Windows Store app and Spotify directly downloaded from the homepage. Video podcasts play via browser, but if I switch to full screen video disappears. 

[UncleBen42]

Hi,

Ive removed my SD card, and followed your instructions. With my card removed i did a clean reinstall but with no success.

Thanks

[Ivelina]

Thanks for getting back to us, @UncleBen42.

Could you send us links to some of the podcasts with which the video issue is happening so we can also try to reproduce this from our end? 

Welcome to the thread, @VBPL1. If you haven't already we recommend trying the troubleshooting steps already suggested by the mods in this thread to see if any of them would make any difference. Let us know if the issue still persists and what you've tried so far so we can see what we can suggest next and avoid repeating the same steps.

Thanks and we'll be on the lookout 🙂

[VBPL1]

Thank you fro your answer. I tried troubleshooting steps, nothing changed.

https://open.spotify.com/show/63AWQmsSnFNFHUqnRAOFtD?_authfailed=1

This is one of the podcasts that has issues playing on my phone.

[AlejaR]

Hey @VBPL1,

Thanks for your reply and for the info shared.

Would you mind sharing with us the troubleshooting steps you've followed so far? That way we can avoid repeating any steps.

On another note, would you mind sharing with us the make/model and OS of the affected devices along with the Spotify version you're running on those? 

Just to confirm, does this happen when playing a specific episode of the podcast you kindly share with us or does it happen no matter what episode you choose to play? It'd be awesome if you could share with us the episodes in which you noticed this behavior.

Lastly, On another note, we understand you've already tried reinstalling the app on your devices, but we'd like you to perform, if you haven't yet, a clean (more thorough) reinstall of the Spotify app. By doing that, the app can be up-to-date, and you can make sure the cache is not leading to this inconvenience. You can see the steps for a clean reinstall here.

Keep us in the loop!

[VBPL1]

This happen to all recent episodes of the podcast.

I tried Android (Samsung S20 Fe 5g, Android 13 with OneUI 5.1, with January security patches and Google Play System Updates), Spotify 8.9.12.599. Troubleshooting: rebooting phone, logging in and out, clearing cache and app data, reinstalling app, changing datasaver setting, trying play audio only setting, using WiFi instead of mobile transfer, using VPN.

Windows 11 (Version 10.0.26058 Build 26058) currently installed version downloaded from the website, reports as 1.2.30.1135. I tried using version from Windows store previously, haven't checked the version of this one. I re-installed the app and used different connections. Won't play the podcast.

[AlejaR]

Hey @VBPL1,

Thanks for your reply and for the info shared.

In this case, we'd like to share, does this happen when playing the podcast episodes on the web player? It'd be awesome if you could check.

On another note, keep in mind Spotify doesn't officially support VPN. This means that issues with the app while using VPN are expected behavior. We'd suggest switching it off to see if you notice any changes on this issue.

Would you mind checking if it happens the same if you open a different account on the affected device? You can ask a relative or a friend to open their account on your computer and check. This'll help us investigate further and check if this could be account-related.

Lastly, could you send us a video recording of this behavior, so we can take a closer look at it? You can attach the video in your next reply in mp4 format, or you can also upload it to YouTube or Google Drive and make it public, so we can visualize it.

Keep us in the loop!

[VBPL1]

Hello AlejaR.

As mentioned before, in web player the episode plays correctly until i switch to full screen. Then audio continues without video.

VPN was used for troubleshooting only.

Logged in with another account on Android and it won't play the podcast.

Recording from which device? Windows (app or browser?), Android?