[BUG][Mac OS X] Reason for intermittent crashes + workaround

[drootang]

For the past month or so, the mac os x desktop client has been crashing intermittently. 

Symptoms:

Some days Spotify works fine. Some days, Spotify will crash anywhere from 10-40 seconds after launching the application.

Cause:

In the "discover" tab, the advertisements are not always the same. Crashes only occur when there is a video advertisement. Video ad play by default, but are muted and appear behind a semi-transparent white overlay, with a white sound icon in a white circle. If the video in the background plays to the end without the user interacting with it, Spotify will crash.

Workaround:

After launching Spotify, select the discover tab, find the video advertisement, and click the sound icon to bring the ad to the foreground and play with sound. Pause the advertisement. Spotify will now run indefinitely without crashing.

Ad dependency:

I have observed this behavior with two different advertisements so far. An ad from Gap, and an ad from the CW for "the tomorrow people."

[Peter__]

Does launching the client without loading discover work for you too? 

For example, launching using a track link like:

The Mayan Factor – Nothing Really

Should do it. 

Peter

[drootang]

That link you provided doesn't actually take me to the song unless Spotify was already open. Using the link to launch Spotify just opened the app and left me off where I was last time.