Am I missing something? Spotify could be so much better!

[BouncingCzech]

Hi folks,

New Spotify user here. Initially when my friend first took out his tablet with Spotify and we were all passing it around I was really impressed, however now I've got an account myself I've started to notice a lot of really surprising shortcomings and after perusing these forums it looks like that has been the case for years... in fact in a few cases it sounds like Spotify has actually taken away functionality from us!

Anyway, below are a list of my gripes with the software, if there are ways to get around them that I should don't know please let me know, as I said I'm still fairly new to this.

1. Dragging Albums & Artists in to Playlists - Click 'Albums' under 'Your Music' and drag one of them over a playlist, you'll notice initially the icon is a cross to suggest you can't do that... a few seconds later that will change to a + to say OK that's fine. Let go to drop the album in there are there and the whole application freezes while it adds a couple of songs to a playlist... Then you find that it hasn't added the songs from that album that you have added to your collection but the ENTIRE album... this is wrong in my opnion, only the ticked songs should be added. Worse still if you try and do the same with an 'Artist' in your library it will just freeze up and do nothing at all.
2. Filtering Playlists - I've seen elsewhere on the forums that used to be possible... and that Spotify removed it about 2 years ago and have just never put it back... how is that acceptable? You can do it on the Android app but not the Desktop one?!
3. Can't Hide 'Friends' Panel - Hurray for social crap As far as I can tell you can no longer close the 'Friends' panel on the right-hand side of the desktop application which is pretty annoying as it is completely broken (rarely, if ever tells me what my friends are actually listening to).
4. Adds Duplicates to Playlists - For a while I thought this user error but dragging songs (or even right-click and Add to Playlist) occasionally, for no reason at all, just adds the song to the playlist twice... annoying.
5. No Tags or User Genres - How, in one of the most popular music players in the world, is there not the functionality to add tags to your music or at least put them in to user-defined genres. Instead all I can do are playlists? Really? I've seen this mentioned on the forum previously, I don't know if it's something they are working on but it's long overdue.
6. Combining Local Music in Song List - So the only way to listen to all my music, as I understand it, is to drag all my spotify songs in to a Playlist and put all my Local songs in that playlist as well... OK... the problem with this is then I have to add every song I ever add to my collection to that playlist as well and as I've already said it decides to add duplicates when it feels like it so it will be a pain in the arse to manage effectively.
7. No Smart Playlists - If you've ever used iTunes you'll know one of the few good things it does is allow you to create smart playlists by just creating a few rules to determine what types of songs to add to the list... this is sorely lacking in Spotify.

There's so much I love about Spotify but why are they developing this video crap when they could be making their apps in to the best music player out there? Right now even iTunes has more music playing functionality and options for the user than Spotify does...

This time next week Apple's streaming service will be released and if it streams as well as Spotify (which it undoubtably will) and works through iTunes (a vastly superios music player than Spotify for the most part) I would seriously consider leaving Spotify for Apple.

[loquito57]

Most of that used to work just fine until they started "updating" and "improving".

[user-removed]

Hello:

I have went through all your points using the 1.0.8 app version and a Win 8.1 64 bit machine. All points other than 5 and 7 which are Idea requests, everything runs like it should. I can drag and drop content without any doubles being added. I have search filtering in playlists. I can play music from all sections of my account, even content not added into a playlist. I can hide friends feed just fine. I will contend there is a slight delay with dragging and dropping content into playlists and when a user system registers the movement within the Spotify app, but it is maybe a 1 or 2 seconds longer than before on the Spotify 0.9 desktop app.

I probable will avoid Apple music on personal reasons, I have already checked out the free limited skipping of the radio stations, not that much different from Pandora to be honest. I am not actually a fan of how they have behaved the last few years, and their recent dealings with the music labels to try and undermine free Ad trier music streaming access. In fact I have found Apple lately to having behaved arrogantly and with disdain for the free market system, because they where unable or unwilling to actually create a free ad trier streaming music access to compete. I am not all that big on Internet radio to be frank, I haven't touch my Pandora account in about 2 years now, so Apple is not offering me anything I do not already have access to between Spotify, Youtube, and the occasionally album I can only find at Rdio only. I am set and happy.

[BouncingCzech]

Hi Jay, thanks for the reply.

That is very odd, care to talk me through how you search filter in a playlist? I read in another post it was Ctrl-F but that does nothing for me?

I'll update to the latest version (I assumed it would do it for me) and see what else I can get working.

[user-removed]

Hello:

Sure, can you post what system you are using and spotify app version?

[BouncingCzech]

I'm in Windows 7 64-bit... I'd tell you the Spotify version number but I just hit Update and now it's stuck on "Installing Spotify...", might have to end the process and try again...

[BouncingCzech]

Right I just had to do a clean re-download and re-install and when I update it gives me Error Code 14, something else is using spotify... then hangs on "Installing Spotify..." so it sounds like somethings not right with it.

[Jordi]

Hi there,

I may be able to answer a few of your questions.

Filtering Playlists:

When in a playlist, press Ctrl-F (or Cmd-F when on a mac) to filter your playlist tracks.

Can't Hide 'Friends' Panel:

To hide the friend feed, simply go to the top menu then under "View" you have the option to disable the "Friend Feed". If you can't find the option there, then you can hide it by going to the Preferences -> Display Options.

Adds Duplicates to Playlists:

That feature hasn't been removed. Are you sure that those tracks are equal? Mixes, Radio versions/Original etc. aren't marked as duplicate when a similar track (radio vs original) is already in your playlist.

No Smart Playlists

This feature is indeed "Itunes only". However, Spotify has a feature called Radio. That may not be what you look for, but it may be worth checking it out. You can create a Radio station from a genre, song, artist and even a playlist.

[user-removed]

@BouncingCzech

Yep sounds like a hang up issue with the update path from whichever version of the app that is currently running.

If you could do a full uninstall of the app and remove all folders associated with spotify from also these locations C:\Users\UserName\AppData\Local\Spotify and C:\Users\UserName\AppData\Roaming\Spotify, the folders named spotify, those two folders hold data files if you remove them, a clean reinstall will be possible. Then do a system shut down, not just a reboot. Start the system back up and then install from this link provided which is the new version http://upgrade.spotify.com/upgrade/client/win32-x86/spotify_installer-1.0.8.44.g2d463d4e-99.exe

you should be good to go, and I cross my fingers your system does not have any other issues to deal with.

Just note you will have to adjust your settings again and also add sources for Local Files play back in Settings of the App again.

[BouncingCzech]

Thanks Jay! Sorted..... but how do I filter the playlist? 😉

[user-removed]

@BouncingCzech

When you are in a playlist just use the keyboard shortcut keys Ctrl+F.

Now there are two versions of this feature being tested and it is random which one you will get. There is a static search filter and then one that floats and moves with the user within the playlist.

[BouncingCzech]

No joy sadly! Static or floating!

Looks as thought it's been broken for a while and will (hopefully) make it back in in future updates?

[user-removed]

Well strange, the search function is working for me within playlists on that app version.