Playlists say they are downloaded but aren't

[Aflorack]

Hi folks! I just got a new Macbook Air, redownloaded Spotify (I have premium) and tried to download all my old playlists. They are downloaded on my phone, and I can play the songs on there, but unfortunately I can't get them to play on my computer. My computer shows all the songs for my old playlists, but there are two main issues:

- when I click on a song, it says "unable to play this title at this time" or "Spotify can't play this at this time"

- when I click download, the little green button automatically says "Downloaded," but in reality, not a single song should be downloaded

I deleted the app, redownloaded it, but am still having the same issues. Does anyone have a clue what I can do?

[Katerina]

Hey there @Aflorack,

We really appreciate you sharing this here in the Community!

We hope you don’t mind us replying now as we just stumbled upon this thread. Just to confirm, are you still experiencing this?

If so, we'd first recommend making sure that the tracks you're trying to listen to are still available in your location. You can find more info about missing content in the app here. 

You can also check if the tracks were local files saved in a different desktop device and are no longer available. 

Let us know how you get on! We’ll be happy to help further, just give us a shout.

Have a lovely day 🙂

[Aflorack]

Hi there Katerina, 
Yes I am still having this problem. I just checked my computer, and strangely it briefly almost seemed to work. I was able to double click on specific songs in the playlist and have them play. I was also able to press the "next song" button and have another song from the playlist start to play. However, if I pressed the "Play" button at the top of any of the playlists, a blue banner would pop up saying "Spotify can't play this title right now" - the same problem as before. Similarly, the download button still didn't seem to do anything, because it immediately showed my playlist as "downloaded" but all the songs were still in that faded coloration, and they still didn't play (again, just like when I sent my initial email).
The songs worked for about a minute of experimentation, so I know that Spotify can still play them (also I am able to play all of these playlists without problem on my phone). 
BUT once I clicked on the general "Play button" on top of the playlists, it seemed to jolt it out of functioning again, because now I cannot get any of the songs in these playlists to play, even by clicking on individual songs. (just like when I sent my initial email).
I'd really appreciate your help getting this fixed 🙂

[Ivan]

Hey there @Aflorack, 

Thanks for keeping us in the loop. 

Can you confirm if you performed a clean reinstall of the app or a regular one? We recommend the clean reinstall as this step is more thorough compared to the simple one and will remove any old cache on your device that might be causing the issue. 

It's also a good idea to check if your hosts file includes entries that need to be removed. Just follow the steps below:

1. Open Finder and, in Finder’s menu bar, select Go > Go to Folder. In the box, type the following location: /private/etc/hosts and press Return
2. A new Finder window will open and your Mac’s hosts file will be selected. Click and drag it out of the Finder window and drop it on your desktop
3. To open it, simply double-click and it will display the file’s contents in TextEdit 
4. Check for any entries with "Spotify" in the address
5. If you do find any lines with "Spotify", please remove them
6. Save your changes and restart the Spotify app

Hope this helps. Keep us posted.