Greyed out songs

[namnatulco]

I've noticed that songs coming up in the search results are occasionally greyed out, and I can't play them.This happens on mobile devices, the web player and the desktop player. I originally figured those were premium-only or something, but having started a trial I noticed they're still greyed out. I also noticed that the amount of greyed out songs seems to be increasing. At first I thought this was a regional block (I'm currently in Germany, and some of the greyed out music works in the Netherlands); in many cases, this applies to entire albums (such as this album). However, I'm increasingly seeing it on individual songs on an album (e.g., the first and eighth song on this album), and even on songs that I used to be able to play in the past.  Also of note- songs aren't greyed out consistently. For example, the album I linked above was added to a playlist by the band, and the songs look normal there.

related questions:

This question is similar, but the reason there was related to playing on a mobile device.

This question is basically the same as mine (I think...), but has gone unanswered for three years, so I figured I'd make a more detailed question about it.

This solved question supports the idea that a regional block is the cause, but I'm really confused as to how that relates to individual songs being blocked (as compared to full albums, which I understand). See also here and probably many similar questions.

Here it is stated that this also applies to unreleased material.

This suggests that album removals are also common.

Is there any way to see why I can't play these songs (unreleased/no artist permission/other reasons)?

Is there some kind of censorship setting in the client that I missed?

I did find a 'show unavailable tracks in playlists', which was turned off until I found it just now.

[basexperience]

That has to clinch it. Audiobooks losing f***ing chapters?!

I've been happily listening to the Inception soundtrack for years, and now several tracks are greyed out - it's infuriating and happening more and more often.

Is this some technique from licence holders to squeeze for more cash? Is there a daily stream of "this'll annoy their users enough to get them to quit their premium sub" tracks from licence holders to be greyed out?

I think we really should get a better **bleep** answer than the original one on here.

[basexperience]

I've got an issue at the moment on the iPad (iOS11.1, latest spotify app) where several tracks in the Inception sountrack are greyed out.

I just uninstalled Spotify from the iPhone (also iOS11.1) and reinstalled it (which is handy to clear out that darn cache - WHEN DO WE GET A CLEAR CACHE BUTTON DEVS?) and guess what...

The tracks aren't greyed out... they've just completely vanished. I'm guessing this is because the cached versions are still available on the iPad, I just can't play them.

[HopSpot44]

...there is a setting that controls whether unavailable tracks are shown greyed out or just get hidden. 

Probably the default got applied when you reinstalled the app on your iPad.

[SortingHat]

I don't understand why some tracks in an Album are greyed out.   For example in a Disney Children's Chorus album a few songs are randomly greyed out while others work just fine.  I mean it has nothing to do with *popular* hits so obviously something screwball is going on.

What's wrong with one song vs the other? Wouldn't be an entire album that goes out of comission?

[jbshultz]

Same here. Premium membership. 3 Ships album by Jon Anderson was available last year (last full three years to my memory) AND two days ago when I ADDED THE FULL ALBUM to my new Christmas playlist (and played it several times). Today, only one song seems available, all others are greyed out in the search and gone from my playlist. WTH? 

[edcruwys]

This can illustrate why:::::
Simple Minds - Themes Vol 4 was almost all available but one track 'Sign O The Times'. At this time Prince was not allowing any of his stuff to be streamed and was keeping a tight hold of all his publishing which he owned since his bust up with Warner Brothers/Sony. 18 months or so ago, Prince dies and his estate changes its stance on streaming.....Princes back catalogue and the missing Simple Minds cover of SOTT arrives on Spotify. This is all about publishing rights and sometimes one service will have exclusive rights or none. Taylor Swift is another example of an  artist who is anti streaming.
Hope this helps

[floydsurf]

Hey Spotify, please fix this issue. John Mellencamp dad 2 hits from his Uh-HUH! album being Crumblin' Down & Pink Houses. Guess what, neither of these songs are available and they are the only 2 in his entire library. This is surely some sort of Region Block coding error. Fix it, Fix it now. Subscribers need to start leaving you & head to Apple Music where there arent the same problems. 

[Hajzlbaba]

Bumping this thread... What the F is going here?! I've got almost COMPLETE playlists greyed out now, songs are not playable. Some of them I had to look up on YouTube and now I know why I didn't hear them when I shuffle a big list.

Some of the songs I can find on Spotify, seems that some albums which have these numbers dissapear and with them the songs. So I have to search for them again...

Really?!

[mickfinnery7]

That's stupid!

[edcruwys]

The definitive on this problem. It seems that some Spotify peeps have been reading here ::::::::::

15 Jan (9 days ago)

to me

Hi there,

Thanks for getting in touch. We're sorry to hear about the trouble playing some songs on the Squeeze - Cool For Cats album. We're here to explain what's going on.
 

If the songs are greyed out, this means the contents are no longer available. This can happen if licensing agreements with the artist/labels, or ownership of rights, has changed. But hopefully they will re-appear soon.

Please also note that you can make Spotify your all-in-one music player. In addition to over 30 million tracks that we offer, you can also use your Spotify app to play music files stored on your computer (which we call "local files"). You can learn more about it on this page. 

Note: Files or downloads from illegal sources are not permitted.
 

We appreciate your patience and kind understanding here. If you have other questions and concerns, please don't hesitate to let us know. We're always here if you need us. 

All the best,
 

Jemilee

______

so it seems purely to be a licencing thing as I suspected.

[DutchBro]

@brendanjordan Lemme ask you real quick, just to make sure we avoid simple mistakes...

Were you in an area underground or without service/wifi?

If so, you didn't have the song's downloaded and were streaming them, which is obviously unavailable if you do not have service/wifi.

Either that or you cross the German/Dutch border by foot daily 😛

[mad_prof]

just to help you out, I'm logged into the internet and the songs had been downloaded - that is I could listen to them offline.

Then, next day, some of them are greyed out BUT I can download them into another playlist. Like Magic!

And FYI, the world extends beyond the German / Dutch border. You should try this mind broadening experience called 'travel', you might even make it to the Great Southern Land, Gondwana, aka Australia.

Cheers!

[mad_prof]

THIS IS NOT A SOLUTION!!!

THE SONGS THAT ARE GREYED OUT ARE AVAILABLE TO PLAY

DON'T CLAIM IT AS A SOLUTION WHEN IT ISN'T A SOLUTION, OK?

[mickfinnery7]

No

[theteac]

What about the "Song Not Downloaded" window that pops up? It gives me a troubleshooting option and when I do what it says to do in the troubleshoot, it doesnt work.... It comes up with:

Sync song to this iPhone

1.Connect this iPhone to the same WiFi as the computer. (I did that)

2.Launch Spotify on the computer where this song is stored. (I did that)

3.Mark the playlist containing this song for Offline Sync on your computer or on this iPhone. (I did that)

4.Watcha as your song magically appears on your iPhone. (didn't work)......

[juppschupp]

Same problem here. Greyed out songs (lots of them, whole playlists) on my Android tablet, unable to play there. On the iPhone app and PC, however, they're perfectly playble, all normal.

I have a Premium account, 3 months trial, but will quit Spotify if this isn't solved.

[edcruwys]

Hi, so on the devices where tracks remain, the songs will be 'downloaded'
but as soon as you reconnect these devices to Spotify and synch they will
be deleted. This is an issue all over streaming services it seems and is
only related to expired licences. They often come back if you leave them
alone but it is deffo an issue

[defaultanswer]

FIGURED OUT A WORKAROUND

Go to your desktop while you have your phone in your hand.  On your desktop, drag the song that is greyed out on your phone from the actual playlist back INTO the same playlist (on the left).  If your phone is set to download, it will automatically download the song again at the bottom of the playlist (now with green arrow, yay).  Then once you've done that to all your songs, sort your desktop playlist by song.  You can then delete the old duplicate and it will get rid of the grey one on your phone.  

I'm guessing what is happening here is that yes at one point there was a license thing, and it went dark, but they got it right back.  They haven't designed a fix for it to redownload when you're on wifi.  Anyway.  I'm having a bit of a shock finding myself as that guy typing a solution online for others to find.  Hopefully my purpose in life is not complete.

[42x]

Hopefully. Haha great. Perhaps this is just the beginning of your life’s work.

[jasonzhao79]

it's not a license issue!!!!! it's a technology issue.

i have been a subscriber for years and years... probably +5 years... i have noticed that the playlists are greyed out but if you search for the song you can add it again to the playlist and it works!... this has happened over many years... sometimes, the song gets substituted for a different version... this has been happening for as long as i remember

this is a deal breaker... feed up with this BS... i have tons of playlists that i have curated over the years and I have to go back to relink everything? wth? are you **bleep**ing kidding me?

Going to be short the **bleep**ing stock when it goes public... this is insane... how hard is it to get this **bleep** right? 

how do you have the **bleep** to go public when you can't even get the basic **bleep** right? Where the **bleep** is management team? does any body at the **bleep**ing company actually give a **bleep**?

NOTE TO DANIEL EK!!!... do you even use your own **bleep**ing product? how do you put up with this **bleep**?

where the **bleep** are you? wake the **bleep** up!!!!