Playlist Folders Lagging, folder expansion takes seconds to minutes

[SustainedNote]

Plan

Premium

Country

USA 

Device

Macbook Pro late 2021 M1

Operating System

Ventura 

My Question or Issue

Spotify folders are lagging extremely. When I open a folder to view my contained playlists, the "opening" of the folder can take up to 3-30 seconds, sometimes doesn't even happen at all. I've tried uninstalling and reinstalling the app. When I "open" a folder in Spotify, Mac Activity Monitor shows Spotify jumps from 0.06% of CPU to 99.6% usage! I am running a M1 Pro with 36GB RAM! How could opening a folder pull that much of my CPU? 

I've filmed a video of this issue here.

Thanks!!

[kaworu_bloodpaw]

Hey @SustainedNote

It looks like you have a ton of playlist folders! I'm glad you're finding good use of this Spotify feature. I've never seen expanding a folder take that long before. Does it take as long if you click on the folder instead of expanding it?

If you'd like, you could try a clean install of Spotify.

Keep in mind, in Activity Monitor, 100% of utilization means 100% of one core. If your CPU has 10 cores, for example, that percentage goes up to 1000%. Applying a conventional 0-100% range to that scale, Spotify usage is only 10%.

[SustainedNote]

No, it takes less long if I click into a folder. But, then I'm unable to move songs around between playlists (a major reason why I would expand a playlist). 

Yes, I have many spotify folders & playlists. I use them to gather ideas for my work. It's essential that I keep my old playlists. 

I did the clean install of Spotify, but no change in duration of opening folders. What's strangest about this, is that this problem is solely seen on the Mac Desktop app. On Android phone apps (even on OLD devices) the folders still open really quickly. I'm running the fastest Mac I could buy. Why is the app so much slower on the desktop?

[Ivelina]

Thanks for the response @SustainedNote!

Would you mind opening the Web Player on your Mac and let us know if you notice any lags there when you're navigating throughout Spotify?

In the meantime, just give us a shout if you need help with anything else 🙂

[teh_hahn]

I got similar performance issues, currently using Spotify for Windows (64 Bit) 1.2.39.578.g0ea3f38b. This problem exists since the last larger UI "upgrade". I got quite a lot playlists (almost all of them are private) in quite a lot of folders. Opening and closing folders (via the expanding + collapsing icon besides them) does required a lot time (sometimes 5-15 seconds), and dealing with the playlists isn't fun anymore in the Windows app. Clicking on the folders is a bit more responsive, but also quite bad in the Windows app.

This wasn't an issue at all before the UI upgrade.

Note that navigating through the folders and playlists in the Android app is much faster. The main issue in the Windows app is expanding (and also collapsing!) folders containing playlists.

[SustainedNote]

Opening a folder takes 2 seconds on the web player and between 10 seconds and infinite seconds on the Mac OS desktop app. I tried clearing the app cache, but that did nothing. 

[Novy]

Hey there @SustainedNote,

Thanks for getting back to us.

This is odd. We'd recommend making sure that your desktop device has enough storage/memory space (at least 1GB). 

Also, keep in mind that a lot of the lagging issues within the app are usually related to a huge library. We understand this might not be ideal, but downsizing your library is another option that could help. 

Keep us posted.

[SustainedNote]

I have 500gb available. I have a Apple M1 Pro with 36gb of RAM. I run ProTools & Rekordbox concurrently with a visualizer. This computer has massive capacity to multitask. It's not my computer.

I have a promise to my friends that I will keep my playlists that I've made for them up forever. I can't downsize. 

And if it was my collection size, why would the Webplayer work quickly but not the desktop app??

[SustainedNote]

I've been continuing to experiment and Spotify is lagging so hard for me. I've filmed a video showing how fast my computer and internet is, and it's taking Spotify 5 seconds to open a folder and 12 seconds to open a playlist... 

Here's the video I've filmed of the issue
https://youtu.be/XWxuAvXLbcM

[Elena]

Hey @SustainedNote,

Thanks for the video!

Can you try toggling the hardware acceleration off/on to see if it makes any difference? You can find it at the bottom of the settings menu under Compatibility.

You can also check if all toggles in the Settings > Your Library are off if you are not using Local Files. Toggle on Local Files to and make sure all sources are off. Like so:

And then you can turn Local Files back off.

Let us know how it goes.

[LeeMortis]

Plan

Premium

Country

Sweden

Operating System

Windows 10

My Question or Issue

Ever since the latest update:

Spotify for Windows (64 bit)
1.2.41.434.g39a25e2c

Spotify on my desktop has become practically unusable. When I start the program it takes 1-2 minutes to load my playlists in the library. Then I have to wait about the same time once I click on a specific playlist I want to play.

  Same thing happens if I open my folders, and even when I click to go back to previous - every single time it takes anywhere from 20seconds to 2 minutes to load.

  It also behaves like this if I add or delete songs from any playlist.

I had absolutely no issues prior to the latest update.

I did try to clear cache (didn't help). I then re-installed and that fixed it... until I closed it and was forced to install the latest update again. Now re-installing doesn't help either (guess the download no gets the latest update). So my problems are without question linked to the update listed above.

Please help on this, because I just can't use my desktop app at the moment. Online version works fine... but I don't want to use that - I want to use the desktop version.

[TanyaS]

Hi @LeeMortis ,

Thank you for reaching out to the Spotify community 

I would request you to check and see if the issue happens on a different device. If it doesn’t, it could be an issue specific to your device. Make sure:

• Your device is up-to-date
• Your device has at least 250MB of available memory
• Your firewall isn’t blocking Spotify (desktop only)
• Your device's battery is sufficiently charged.

[LeeMortis]

As stated in my original post - it only happens on the desktop version (Windows 10). Browser works fine - Android works fine.

Just to be sure, I just uninstalled Spotify completely and did a fresh install. Took me 5 minutes and 40 seconds to get my playlists sorted and be able to click play on a song.

All this happened after the latest update - prior to that it was instant as I browsed my folders and playlists. Now it has become unusable. Any kind of navigation involving my own playlists takes 1-2 minutes to load.

Everything is up to date. Sufficient memory and no firewall issues. As stated as soon as the latest update installed - that's when these issues appeared. Reinstalling before the install file was updated to the latest version worked fine, but now I can't access that file again.

[TanyaS]

Hi,

Thank you for taking the troubleshooting excercise. 

Can you try restarting your PC while in Safe Mode and let us know if the issue persists that way?Additionally, could you ask a friend or a family member to log in to their account in your desktop app to check if the issue persists with a different account?

 Open up the app settings > click on Show Advanced Settings > Scroll down and disable or enable Hardware acceleration depending on your current setting > Close the app, ensure it's not running in a process in the background and restart it.

Hope this makes the app running better. 

[LeeMortis]

Still an issue if I start the computer in Safe Mode. Enabling/Disabling Hardware acceleration makes no difference. Turning off firewalls/anti-virus makes no difference.

I did manage to log into another account, and didn't notice the problem. However - this account has like 2 playlists. I have thousands... so it's not really comparable.

This is really disheartening. It was fine - then I see the update notification - restart Spotify and immediately this issue appears. At that time I was still able to reinstall Spotify, but the install files have since been updated.

It is very clear that this is not an issue on my end as it is, without question, connected to the latest update. I have previously made no changes to any settings.

Also - worth mentioning - sometimes after clicking a specific playlist Spotify is unable to locate the playlist (I've seen this is something which has been mentioned elsewhere).

[TanyaS]

Hi,

Thank you for trying the steps,

Could you once confirm this loading issue is only happening when you are trying to access the playlist and the app is slowing down due to that? Could you also confirm the playlist size too?

Additionally, the exact make and model number of the device, so we can look into the issue.

Thanks for your patience.

[LeeMortis]

It's happening at any time I do any UI navigation. I open a folder in my library (which only consists of sub-folders) and I wait. Open the next folder (which has playlists) and I wait. Click on one of the playlists... and I wait. Click Back button... and I wait.

Playlist sizes are mostly 10-15 songs (they are albums saved as playlists so I can sort them in folders... which would be better if you could do with albums directly). I only have one large playlist currently with approx. 250 songs. Regardless of playlist size it takes a long time to load.

I am starting to believe it has something to do with how it reads/stores custom playlist images as I noticed there are issues with the browser version when I try to add a custom image to a new playlist. And, don't ask me to remove all custom images - like I said I have thousands of playlists... it would take me weeks. And, as stated - there were zero issues loading playlists prior to the update.

Some info:

Processor Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-7700K CPU, 4.20 GHz
Installed RAM 16,0 GB
System type 64-bit operating system, x64-based processor

Edition Windows 10 Home
Version 22H2
OS build 19045.4651
Experience Windows Feature Experience Pack 1000.19060.1000.0

Edit:

What I would really like is a rollback to the Spotify version previous to this update, so I can reinstall and prevent updates until this issue is fixed. I am really unable to use spotify at all right now...

[TanyaS]

Hi,

Thank you for confirming the details lastly I would request you to share screen video.So that we can get more understanding on the exact behaviour. Could you send us a screen recording showing the exact issues? If the files are too large to attach here in the Community, you can send them to us via Google Drive or as unlisted YouTube videos. You can mask any private details.

[LeeMortis]

Alright... Let's see if we can get to the bottom of this. I've made a video showing the issues - you should be able to access it here:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1upvHmxUT4e4zffJhkT1gC4cOi6rHMmAv/view?usp=sharing

[TanyaS]

Thank you for sharing 

We will get back to you shortly