No audio playback upon exiting macOS Energy Saver (sleep mode)

[horsman]

Plan - Premium Family

Country - UK

Device - iMac

Operating System - macOS Big Sur 11.1

Spotify App - 1.1.52.687.gf5565fe5

My Question or Issue

The Energy Saver setting on my iMac are active, including 'Put the hard disks to sleep when possible' and 'Wake for network access'. I rarely shutdown and I almost always have the Spotify app open.

When I exit Energy Saver (sleep) and log back into the iMac I am almost always unable to initiate audio playback in the already open Spotify app. I can search and find tracks without issue, but when I try to play them there is no audio. The play button may transition to the pause button, but it is greyed out (as are all the other playback controls) and the track timeline indicator doesn't move past 0:00. Closing and opening Spotify enables playback as normal.

As far as I can recall this has been happening for the last 6-9 months and I don't recall this behaviour prior to that (I've been a Premium customer for over 10 years). I have no issues with any other applications and network access after exiting sleep mode.

Quit/Open Spotify after sleep mode is a mild inconvenience rather than a big problem but I wondered if there are any obvious fixes to stop the playback failures?

[CarlosE]

Hi there @horsman,

Thanks for reaching out to the Community and welcome.

Have you checked that Spotify has all permissions enabled on your Mac to fully operate after exiting sleep mode?

It's also worth running a clean reinstall of the app by following these steps. This can be helpful to get rid of any cached files that might be causing trouble.

We also recommend checking your firewall and making sure that Spotify doesn't have any restrictions.

Keep us posted on how it goes.

Cheers!

[horsman]

Thanks CarlosE. The cache clear and reinstall appeared to work for a few days but the behaviour is back again - no playback upon waking the Mac from sleep, playback control icons greyed out. I've checked firewall settings as suggested and there is nothing to suggest that there is a problem there.

Back to restarting Spotify after every energy saver session.

[Alex]

Hey there @horsman,

Thanks for the reply.

Can you check if you have entries containing Spotify in your Host files and delete those?

You can follow this Solution for instructions.

Let us know if the issue persists after that.

Cheers.

[horsman]

Thanks for the pointer but there are no (zero) references to Spotify in the hosts file.

S.

[Eni]

Hi there @horsman, 

Thanks for getting back in touch and letting us know that. 

Would you mind sending us a screen recording of what you're seeing on your end?

On another note, could you ask a friend or a relative to log in to their account in your device to check if this issue persists with a different account?

Keep us posted!

[horsman]

Hi

Screen recording attached as requested.

Upon exiting sleep mode I focused on the Spotify app (the app was already open) and searched for 'Streetmark'. The search results came back successfully and I selected an album but I was unable to play any tracks. I moved to a different album and still no playback. I then went to Recently Played and selected an Andrew Weatherall album - still no playback. I then selected a Gojira track from Recently Played and playback worked this time.

Following the above (and not captured in the screen recording) I went back to Streetmark and continued to be unable to playback. I also opened a new artist (Ora the Molecule) via a WhatsApp (Desktop) link a friend shared with me and was unable to play any of the tracks.

Quitting and reopening Spotify enabled full playback of all the previous playback fails.

[Mihail]

Hey @horsman,

Thanks for getting back to us with the video.

Could you check if disabling Hardware Acceleration in the setting of the app makes a difference in this behavior?

Additionally, do you have any battery or storage optimization apps running? The fact that a clean reinstall temporarily resolved the issue hints that something may be interfering with the app's cache. 

To further test this - we're you able to give it a go with another account as @Eni suggested? You can create a free one with a different email here.

Keep us posted. We're always one reply away.

[horsman]

Hi

Many thanks for the response. I've disabled Hardware Acceleration as suggested and I will test this over the coming days. If the issue reoccurs I will test using a different account as suggested.

I do not have any battery or storage optimization apps running above or beyond the Energy Saving settings that are baked into macOS.

Cheers, Steve