Spotify completely freezes my computer

[Korydon]

The spotify program completely freezes, slows, and crashes all other programs when i start it. I have updated my motherboard drivers, my audio drivers, have removed and installed spotify over and over again, and stil it crashes my computer. I have tried even without firewall (and btw spotify is allowed anyway) and it doesnt help.

I have Vista 64bit on my computer.

Any help please? I will not pay for this **bleep** im currently having.

[Thedev]

Hello, @Korydon! I'd suggest disabling hardware acceleration if you have it enabled and set the Spotify cache size to 0GB. That should do it. Also, don't forget to restart the application for changes to take effect.

[Zornorn]

I am also having the same problem. I disabled hardware acceleration and put the cache on my anti-virus exceptions list. The issue still persists. I will try setting the cache to 0 GB. However, I am considering getting Spotify Premium and using its offline listening feature. If this works, does that mean that I can't use that feature? Or is this cache different somehow?

EDIT: I tried setting it to 0 GB and it won't let me go any lower than 1 GB. I did see that CrashPlan is backing up my cache, so I excluded it from my backups and I will report if that changes anything.

[Korydon]

I did reinstall once again, and it took off most of slowness and jamming, then i took up your advice for cache and HW accerlation, and it at least started very very fast. Hope it stays that way! Now i will pay for this nice program 🙂

[Zornorn]

I also tried reinstalling again, keeping cache low, and disabling hardware acceleration in addition to keeping it on my backup and anti-virus exceptions list. Although it was faster for me, it did freeze my whole computer when I exited. I used a USB headset at one point and I'm not anymore, so I tried to uninstall those drivers which did not help. I made sure that I was running the latest version of Spotify (at least, Spotify was not offering me an update).

What else could I try?

[Rollo_]

What else could I try?

 http://community.spotify.com/t5/Help-Desktop-Linux-Mac-and/Spotifyhelper-exe-slowing-down-my-compute...

[Zornorn]

Thanks for your reply. I tried doing that and I found that it still causes complete computer freezes. However, your link was helpful in showing something. You mentioned the upgrade to CEF3. That is related to Chrome, which is another program that used to freeze my computer in the exact same way. Like Chrome, Spotify will freeze my computer after I close it after it has been open for a few hours. Do you, or someone else, know if these freezes could be related to certain older AMD/ATI video cards and CEF3? If so, is there a way to disable graphics hardware acceleration (since it looks like it is still doing hardware graphics acceleration despite "hardware acceleration" being disabled in settings)?

My reasoning for thinking it could be video card related is this: When I upgraded my computer (replaced my CPU, motherboard, and RAM), Chrome stopped freezing. I assumed that the problem might be with my old hardware, since there were other issues related to freezing. It could be that Chrome updated to fix the issue, but a similar fix has not been done with CEF3. As a result, whatever was causing my computer to freeze with Chrome is part of CEF3.

Note that when I upgraded my PC, I did not upgrade my video card (XFX 4850 512 MB). CEF3 apparently enables hardware acceleration on graphics cards. Fraps proves this to be the case: it shows a framerate with both Spotify and Chrome, but not other programs like Firefox, Word, or other programs that don't use hardware acceleration. Now, here is the thing about my video card. Before my upgrade, I was working with some drivers from maybe early 2012, when AMD dropped support for my line of video cards. Chrome would freeze with them. Those drivers didn't work on my upgraded computer and the only drivers I could get working were the ones that Windows itself installed: apparently from 2009 (amazingly, my AMD video card has more problems with an AMD CPU/chipset than Intel!). In both situations, my drivers are out of date and there's nothing I can do except to replace the video card. I'm still fine with the video card and I hope that it's not causing the problem, mainly because it would be awkward to replace it because of a music application.

Any ideas?

[Peter__]

@Zornorn - You could try disabling the hardware acceleration using startup flags like outlined in this post:

http://community.spotify.com/t5/Help-Desktop-Linux-Mac-and/Spotify-Windows-player-Discovery-screen-f...

Peter

[Rollo_]

@Zornorn 

Since you said you were having driver issues, try running SlimDrivers [freeware] to find an update.  Its the only program I've run across that actually does the job its advertised to do.

As you likely well know, video card drivers are a real pain to install and configure.  You're probably better off installing any driver found manually, rather than having SlimDrivers installing it for you, at least I found this to be the case.

[Zornorn]

Thank you for that link. However, I created the shortcut and everything (with all switches), but I still ran into a whole computer freeze when exiting. Prior to freezing, my cursor was jumpy and my computer was slowing down. I haven't had this happen with any other program.

The drivers that were giving me problems were actually manually installed and downloaded from AMD's website. I'll try using SlimDrivers to see if it can find something better. Thanks!

[Xcone]

Hi, I suffer from freezes too. Computer was perfectly fine until I installed spotify. No other issues with drivers whatsoever.

It's not consistent though, sometimes it happens a few times a day, and sometimes it doesn't happen a few days at all.

I wasn't paying a whole lot of attention, so not sure about this. But it only seems to happen to me when Spotify is started, but another application is playing audio. For instance, playing music from Youtube, SoundCloud or some other site. 

I often close Spotify when I'm not using it (note: really closing it, not just minimizing), so that could explain why it sometimes doesn't happen for days.

Perhaps this is the same for you?

[forcryngoutloud]

Spotify workds great on my Ipad and Android phone so why does it totally freeze my PC getting annoyed now My premium acount is going to get cancelled methinks

[MrMarbles]

I have the same problem with the pc at work. It only freezes when spotify is running, so it is pretty clear that spotify is causing it. All the freezing led IT to replace the whole pc, now the same problem has started showing up on the new pc. I have to say it is pretty annoying.

[beachdude42]

These crashes have been happening on my computer for a few days now... only when Spotify is open. I'm about to do a full reinstall and will report back the results. If this isn't fixed I'll probably cancel my premium.

[Echoplexic]

Hi,

Just updated my windows 10 and now my pc completely freezes whenever I open Spotify. Spotify will stay loading for a long long time and then at some point just freeze my entire PC, forcing me to reboot. Any ideas?