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No internet connection detected at lower bandwidths

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No internet connection detected at lower bandwidths

Plan

Premium

Country

Australia

 

Device

Macbook Pro mid 2015

 

Operating System

Mac OS 10.13.6

 

My Question or Issue

Since the latest Spotify update, Spotify seems to be saying "no internet connection detected" for internet speeds lower than 10 Mbps. I have an internet connection, but it is slower than 10 Mbps at home. If I am already logged into the app, it shows "no internet connection detected, error code: 4". If I am logged out of the app, it shows the error "No Internet connection detected: error code: accesspoint:31" when I attempt to log in.

 

I have tried the troubleshooting steps suggested on the help site, first deleting and reinstalling the app, then deleting all cached preferences/properties files, etc. and restarting/reinstalling. Neither worked. The app works fine at work with higher bandwidth internet connections.

 

I cannot currently get the Spotify version information since I am logged out of the app after my last troubleshooting attempt, and "About Spotify" is unavailable when logged out.

 

I strongly suspect that the latest Spotify update decided to de-prioritize low bandwidth internet connections. If that is the case, I will be looking for another music streaming service as I am currently paying for a service I can't use. Please confirm whether this is the case or if there are additional troubleshooting steps that will fix this problem.

Screen Shot 2021-01-22 at 4.06.04 PM.png
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Marked as solution

After close to one year of paying for a service that has been unusable on my desktop computer, Spotify now "works". I suspect there have been multiple underlying issues going on making troubleshooting difficult, as the bandwidth issue was the main symptom but there are clearly many bugs that need to be worked out. I wonder how long this fix will last. 

 

After getting fed up with Spotify always starting itself on login, only to show a blank black page (or give errors providing absolutely no information) I trashed the Spotify app. (I could not access Spotify preferences to change this because the app was entirely unresponsive, other than constantly starting up, and Spotify does not obey OS-wide settings for application startup at login - nice hubris there). Then I untrashed Spotify and lo and behold, it now works (guessing because trashing/untrashing deleted the folder in ~/Library/Application Support with prefs/cache/user data, which happened to solve this particular bug). I had already tried deleting spotify's application support folder this months ago to no avail, hence my suspicion that there are multiple issues which maybe (?) are fixed (?) for the time being. 

 

And no, I will not be submitting anything to the idea board. Tech companies don't get my labour for free (other than the labour I've wasted on this thread trying to get a paid service to work properly) and suggesting that I give more free labour is insulting.

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10 Replies

Hey @roboanto,

 

Thanks for reaching out to us and welcome to the Community 🙂

 

The troubleshooting steps you've tried so far are very good. We'd like to add a few more.

 

It's a good idea to check if the issue occurs only with the Spotify app or with other services in the same network as well. It's also important to make sure that a firewall or anti-virus software is not affecting the performance of the Spotify app.

 

Keep us posted! We'll be right here if you have any questions.

Ver Moderator
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No, of course it doesn't happen with other apps and services on the same network. If that had been the case, I would not be asking here as it would indicate another issue. This is a Spotify-only issue. No, no firewall or anti-virus. Spotify works fine on my (much faster) work network. The problem is at home on my slower network. This behavior has been consistent for months now across all updates. And no, I will not reinstall for the 800th time.

 

My city just went back into lockdown so now I only have home internet. I am begging you to fix this. It really isn't fair to those of us who can't afford ultra-fast internet to put an artificial bandwidth floor on an app that we pay for.

 

Waiting for an actual fix, although I won't be holding my breath since it seems clear that spotify doesn't really care about fixing underlying issues. Going to make the switch to apple music and see if they actually care about their customers and creating working products.

Hi @roboanto

 

Thanks for getting back in touch. 

 

We're sorry to hear that you feel this way and will do our best to help.

 

Even though there isn't a minimum required internet speed for the app usage and 10Mbps should be enough for just streaming music, keep in mind that if you share your internet connection with other people/devices, or if you're doing any sort of download at that moment, that will reduce the bandwidth and might cause interference with the app's connection to the server. 

 

On another note, since Spotify is the only app with this issue, it's a good idea to double-check that the firewall isn't blocking it.

 

Lastly, could you let us know if the web player is working fine?

 

We'll be on the lookout for your reply.

EniModerator
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“Music acts like a magic key, to which the most tightly closed heart opens.”– Maria von Trapp

There isn't a minimum bandwidth requirement for the *desktop* app? This does not happen on mobile, only desktop. 10Mbps is more than enough for Netflix, Youtube, etc. all of which are higher bandwidth than music streaming. Spotify is the only app with the issue.

 

As I stated previously, I am not using a firewall. I am the only device on the network. I intentionally limit all downloads and other bandwidth-intensive things. I work on a ship usually and thus have all extraneous auto-downloading stopped on my computer. Trust me.

 

The spotify web player works without issue.

Hey @roboanto,

 

Thanks for getting back to us.

 

There's an additional troubleshooting step that we'd recommend trying out - check your host files. Id you find any Spotify entries go ahead and remove them - sometimes these can impact the connectivity to our servers. Even though it was written for another topic, this page has instructions on how to do this.

 

Hope this helps. Let us know how you get on.

Mihail Moderator
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Seriously? Why would Spotify ever need to modify my hosts file??? Give me one good reason why a music streaming app would ever need to modify the system networking without my knowledge.

 

And no. There are no entries pertaining to Spotify in my hosts file.

 

As of this morning Spotify has yet again updated itself without my permission... god forbid we go a whole 36 hours without an app update introducing yet more bugs. As you can see in the attached screenshot, Spotify is now entirely useless, instead of just halfway useless like before. Offline mode no longer works, I cannot even access the songs I've already downloaded.

 

How about you guys spend a little more time unit testing and a little less time randomly introducing UX changes?

Screen Shot 2021-07-18 at 11.54.13 am.png

Hey @roboanto,

 

Thanks for the reply.

 

As forum moderators we don't have info why Spotify makes entries in the Hosts file. The developer teams are trying to make the app better with every update, however issues can occur.

 

Something else you can try is to connect your computer to a mobile hotspot and check if you get the same error messages and connectivity issues. This will help us test if it's coming from your home WiFi or from the app itself.

 

Keep us posted.

AlexModerator
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As stated in my very first post, "The app works fine at work with higher bandwidth internet connections." I am already on a mobile hotspot at home. We have officially come full circle to where we started, and wasted a lot of my time in the process.

Back to my original hypothesis, Spotify doesn't appear to care about serving those of us who can't afford blazing fast internet. I am no longer wasting my time on this and will instead pursue a refund. I will not be paying for your developers to play around in learn to code camp.

Hey there @roboanto,


Thanks for the reply.

 

Since the issue is related to your home network, we'd recommend turning to your ISP for assistance, since there isn't much we can do at this point.

 

Spotify constantly strives to improve the user experience with its features and the easiest way to achieve this is by regular app updates. That’s why we appreciate you taking the time to share your suggestion with the Community. 

 

If you think other users might also like the app to get optimized for lower bandwidth/ speed connections, go ahead and create an idea on the relevant idea board. We always take new ideas and feedback into consideration to improve the app. Here you can read more on how ideas work.

 

We also suggest checking this help article for useful tips on how to submit an idea. As a heads-up, it's good to know that the higher the number of votes an idea gets, the more likely it is for the idea to be implemented.

 

Hope this helps. Let us know if you have any more questions.

AlexModerator
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Marked as solution

After close to one year of paying for a service that has been unusable on my desktop computer, Spotify now "works". I suspect there have been multiple underlying issues going on making troubleshooting difficult, as the bandwidth issue was the main symptom but there are clearly many bugs that need to be worked out. I wonder how long this fix will last. 

 

After getting fed up with Spotify always starting itself on login, only to show a blank black page (or give errors providing absolutely no information) I trashed the Spotify app. (I could not access Spotify preferences to change this because the app was entirely unresponsive, other than constantly starting up, and Spotify does not obey OS-wide settings for application startup at login - nice hubris there). Then I untrashed Spotify and lo and behold, it now works (guessing because trashing/untrashing deleted the folder in ~/Library/Application Support with prefs/cache/user data, which happened to solve this particular bug). I had already tried deleting spotify's application support folder this months ago to no avail, hence my suspicion that there are multiple issues which maybe (?) are fixed (?) for the time being. 

 

And no, I will not be submitting anything to the idea board. Tech companies don't get my labour for free (other than the labour I've wasted on this thread trying to get a paid service to work properly) and suggesting that I give more free labour is insulting.

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