Friend Activity not working

[fuzzypuff]

Plan

Premium

Country

United States

Device

MacBook Pro 2024

Operating System

MacOS

My Question or Issue

My friend activity has been working fine, with no issues for years. A few days ago, my friend activity tab displayed a message telling me to go to settings to 'share my listening activity on Spotify'. I had never turned this setting off. I went to settings and saw the toggle for this setting was already switched to On. I uninstalled the app, cleared my cache, checked my internet connection, and spoke with a customer support representative at Spotify. No solution was found. Not sure what to do. Has anyone else been experiencing this issue?

[Dessi]

Hi there @fuzzypuff,

Thanks for reaching out!

Just to double-check if we understood the issue properly - when you open your Friend Activity tab, you don't see anything apart from the message saying you need to enable it in your settings? Since you mentioned it already is toggled on, can you ask some of your friends, who are following you to check if you appear in their list and if yes, what it says (which song, what time ago)?

We'd also recommend logging out and back in your account a couple of times in a row to force a re-sync, as well as signing in on a friend or relative's PC to see if you get the same error there. This will help us determine if it's account- or device-related.

Keep us posted.

[jsheayeqawretj]

My account’s friend activity hasn't worked in months either. It appears to be stuck on Spotify's backend.
In the desktop app, the toggle “Share my listening activity on Spotify” turns green but doesn’t activate — it gets a red outline and the sidebar still says “Go to Settings > Social…”.

I’ve tried:
– reinstalling Spotify
– clearing cache + prefs
– full Mac reset of permissions
– Local Network access
– firewall allowlist
– no VPN/filter extensions
– signing out everywhere
– privacy setting resets

Nothing changes the behaviour, so this looks like the backend field presence_publishing_enabled is stuck in the off state.

Can someone at Spotify please refresh/reset my account’s presence/social flags on your end?
Other users with the same issue said Support fixed it instantly once the backend was reset.

Thank you.

[Jmz11]

Yes, I have this same default programming issue whereby I can slide, but am unable to deactivate others being privvy to my 'live' listening activity.

[Vasil]

Hey @jsheayeqawretj, apologies for the delayed response here.

Kudos for the troubleshooting steps so far! You've covered a lot of ground.
As we couldn't replicate the issue on our end, could you let us know what your device is, alongside its OS version? We'd also like to ask for a screenshot of how things look like on your end when you enable the Friend Activity.
 

And @Jmz11, could you let us know if your "Share my listening activity with followers on desktop" setting is disabled? If it is, I'd recommend going through the troubleshooting steps mentioned in the thread. Once this is done, let us know which steps you've gone over in case the issues persist after disabling the abovementioned setting and send us your device and OS details as well.

Much appreciated! We'll be on the lookout for your replies 🙂

[one1step1]

Hi. I've encountered the same issue on multiple Macs, and different accounts. 
Using macOS tahoe 26. Spotify for macOS (Apple Silicon)1.2.81.264.gb4ad4efa  

Would love to have this working.  I've followed all of the troubleshooting steps to no end. 

[Dessi]

Hey @one1step1,

Thanks for joining the thread!

I was actually able to reproduce this behavior with an account, where I only followed 1 person and as soon as I unfollowed them, I got the same indication to turn this setting on as in your screenshot, despite it being on already. What I suspect might be happening here is that the people you follow don't have “Share my listening activity with followers on desktop” turned on.

Keep in mind that all of the below must be true for users to show in your Friend Activity:

• You must be following the friend whose activity you want to see.
• The friend must have enabled the setting to publish their activity as mentioned above.
• The friend must have played more than 30 seconds of a track on iOS, Android or Desktop in the last 7 days.
• This can’t be in a Private Session.
• You and the people you follow should have restarted the app at some point recently.

To try and test this out as a possibility, you can ask a friend you follow on Spotify to check their settings as well and make sure they've followed all of the above to test if the Friend Activity populates on your end.

Let us know how it goes.

[one1step1]

Hey There.

So, on my mobile device, I follow one friend who exclusively uses the
Android mobile app. I, on the other hand, use a combination of iOS,
Android, and macOS desktop apps. Since she has all her social listening
preferences enabled, I should be able to see what she’s listening to, just
like before. It has worked for years. I can still see her listening to
songs on the mobile app when she’s playing them, but desktop always shows
me that friend activity message I showed you in the screenshot. We’ve
tried restarting the app, signing out and in, and other troubleshooting
steps.

[Eni]

Hey @one1step1, 

Thanks for your reply. 

Since you were able to see your friend's listening activity before, we suggest that you unfollow her, then perform a clean reinstall of the app on your PC by following these specific steps. Afterwards, follow her again and see if you can now see her listening activity. If not, ask her to log in to their account on a PC and make sure she has the right settings on. You can send her this article to ensure she's following the right steps. 

Let us know how it goes. 

[Lalalomo]

Hello there,
My Friend Activity panel is persistently stuck on the default setup message despite toggling my social activity features. My backend privacy flag (presence_publishing_enabled) appears stuck in the off state. Please manually refresh or reset my profile's social data presence toggles on your end.

[letgohimtoday]

Hi, I recently experienced the same issue. Friend Activity is not working on macOS (Apple Silicon), version 1.2.90.451.gb094aab0. When I log in with the same account on an older version running on a different device, Friend Activity works correctly. I've already tried several of the troubleshooting steps that have been suggested, but the issue still persists. Has anyone been able to resolve this or can offer any additional guidance?

Thank you.

[Maria]

Hey folks,

Thanks for reaching out in this thread!

@letgohimtoday - would you mind sharing the exact troubleshooting steps you've tried so far? For example clearing cache, a clean reinstall, different internet connection, switch off any VPN, double-checking the settings, etc. This will help us avoid repeating any steps 🙂

Also, did you notice if this happened at any specific points? This could be after an update to the Spotify app or to the device's OS. Feel free to also have a look at this reply from @Dessi, for more specifics on why it might not appear.

Keep us posted!

[letgohimtoday]

Hi @maria, thank you for your reply.

I have already tried several troubleshooting steps, including:

• Following/unfollowing users (I made sure that the users have enabled the "Share my listening activity on Spotify" setting)
• Switching to different internet connections
• Clearing the app cache
• Uninstalling and reinstalling the app
• Installing an older desktop version (yet Spotify automatically updated it to the latest version during installation)
• Resetting app data
• Disabling hardware acceleration

Unfortunately, none of these resolved the issue.

I suspected it was related to a recent Spotify update because I had another device running an older version where the feature worked normally. However, once that device automatically updated after I closed the app, the feature stopped working there as well.

For that reason, it seems likely that the issue may be tied to a recent app update. Could this issue be investigated and resolved? I hope this additional information helps. Thank you!

[MihailY]

Hey @letgohimtoday,

Thanks for the detailed response!

We really appreciate you taking the time to troubleshoot this on your own. We have a dedicated thread here where we investigate issues with Friend Activity so if yours isn't working after trying these steps then please check out the Accepted Solution post there, make sure that all prerequisites are met and post in the thread so the team can investigate further.

As a heads up, one of the friends you're following will also need to post in the thread as well, as this is required for the investigation.

Cheers,