Songs immediately pause whenever I hit play

[thenetsarenear]

Plan

Premium

Country

US

Device

Macbook Pro

Operating System

Ventura

My Question or Issue

Recently after playing a few songs, one song will just immediately pause upon playing, and trying to make it play again makes it pause after half a second. All following songs face the same issue until I quit and re-open Spotify—only for the problem to eventually return. I've tried clearing my cache, disconnecting Spotify from Discord, and restarted my device, but none of those fixed it. It's not an internet issue since my PC doesn't have the issue my Mac has.

I haven't seen anyone post about this specific issue save for one person from 2016, but they were using an Android and theirs was solved by rebooting their device.

[OscarDC]

Hey @thenetsarenear,

Thank you for reaching out to the Community and welcome.

Just to cover all the basics, we understand you’ve already tried some troubleshooting steps including clearing cache, but to be sure that we're on the same page - did you use the steps for a clean reinstall mentioned in this article? 

Also, if the issue persists, it would be great if you could have someone log in with their account on your Mac - such as a friend or a family member to see if it makes any difference.  

Lastly, include in your next response the OS version of your device, along with the Spotify version you're currently running to continue investigating the case.

We'll be on the lookout. 

[thenetsarenear]

I reinstalled it following the steps in the article. For a while it worked. I'd noticed that the issue only really came up when clicking on a track to play, not experiencing pauses in my queue. However, the problem started up again after many hours so I'm unsure what to do.

Mac version is Ventura v. 13.3.1 and the latest Spotify update

[Dessi]

Hey @thenetsarenear,

Thanks for the reply!

It's worth logging out from your account and back in, as well as trying what @OscarDC suggested about asking someone to log in their own account on your Mac to see if they experience the same thing. This way we can get a better understanding of what's causing this - if it's account- or device-related.

I'd also recommend clearing the hosts file using these steps, as well as flushing DNS:

• Open the terminal by using Spotlight Search or by pressing Command + Space and then type Terminal. 
• Double-click the application icon for Terminal to open it. 
• Type in “sudo dscacheutil -flushcache;sudo killall -HUP mDNSResponder” without quotes 
• Enter your Mac’s password
• Press Enter to complete

Let us know how it goes.

[ianpas]

This has also been happening to me for a few days. I suspect a bad Spotify update introducing the bug. Currently using:

Spotify for macOS (Apple Silicon)
1.2.48.405.gf2c48e6f

The behavior is quite easy to reproduce. Every time my MBP goes to sleep and I re-open it, this occurs. It can be "fixed" by restarting the Spotify app, but this is very annoying and shouldn't be necessary.

[ianpas]

Interesting... to post the above comment I had to sign-in to Spotify again. Now the issue is fixed without restarting.

This makes it seem more like a authorization issue where refresh tokesn are not working as expected. Restarting the app of course triggers the token refresh, as does signing in and out.

[Halvorius]

This has been a problem to me a few days ago, I am using an Acer Laptop (AN515-52) while playing on spotify and it just started doing the same thing as the person who started this thread. I quickly swapped to my iPad Pro 11 to see if my laptop is the problem, but it is also happening on the iPad so I figured it could be something on Spotify's end. 

[MihailY]

Hey @ianpas and @Halvorius,

Thanks for your input on this.

@ianpas, is the music playing while the laptop goes to sleep? Do you get the same behavior when using the web player? 

@Halvorius, is the iPad pausing only when transferring the playback from the laptop (i.e. does this happen when the playback is started from the iPad)? Also, does the pausing on your laptop happen after it goes to sleep as @ianpas mentioned? 

If you haven't already, please try the steps provided by @OscarDC and @Dessi above.

Keep us posted.

[SanderWIllems]

I have wiped my OS over the weekend and did a fresh install of MacOS and also Sportify and ever since Spotify keeps pausing music at random.
I'm on a 2019 Macbook pro running MacOS 13.7.
The iPhone-app seems to be okay. 

[Singer45]

I'm having the same issue As the person who made the thread Above ... I have Reinstalled and even deleted files out of my library folder and have disable hardware acceleration  in the advance settings but yet I'm still having the same issue. It will only fix the issue for a few songs and then all a sudden go back to it pausing the music. Hopefully the next update fixes this issue because with me paying premium I really shouldn't be having to have these issues when all I want to do is enjoy listening to the music that I pay to hear monthly. 

[AlejaR]

Hey there  @Singer45,

Thanks for your reply and for the info shared. 

Just to confirm, have you saved more than 10,000 songs on your playlists and/or Liked Songs? If yes, it'd be important for us to add some insights.

Keep in mind there's a limit of 10,000 songs that you can save in both your playlists and Liked Songs. Having this limit can ensure the proper functioning of the app. When passing it, it's expected to experience issues as this is one of the limitations. Remember this also would mean your device might need more resources to functioning properly.

If this is your case, we'd suggest you divide your playlists in several to not pass this limit. We'd like to gather additional information. Please send us:

• The make/model and OS of the affected device.
• The exact Spotify version you're running there.
• Does this happen if you open a different account on your device? You can ask for the account of a relative or a friend to open it on your device and check.

Keep us in the loop!

[Sinthius]

ive been having the same problem lately, it would pause right after i hit play, so i was listening to "everybody wants to rule the world" and quite literally, i had to hit the space button at the same beat to the song and i did it all the way to the last 20 seconds of the song, up to the last second, and every song after that has "suddenly" been fine. it's weird, i have premium and i see the replies to this issue are within the last couple weeks so i now know its a recent problem. ive tried restarting my pc, making sure that spotify isnt open, i have windows, under the bottom right arrow. didnt work, also looked at my discord and my spotify isnt even connected, so thats definitely not the problem. ive reinstalled and logged in and out of a browser version even of spotify. please advise further

[Yordan]

Welcome to the Spotify Community @Sinthius!

Are you using a VPN? If so, try disabling it to see if that does the trick. Something else that might help here is switching the proxy type in the app's settings to No proxy.

It's also worth checking if the issue would persist on another network (if available). Make sure Spotify is allowed through your Firewall as well: you can disable it temporarily to see if the playback would resume normally then.

Hope this helps!

[Singer45]

My Mac Model is MacBook Air (13-inch, Early 2015) and it's running Mac OS Monterey version 12.7.6

I'm using the latest Spotify Version 

and Yes it still keeps pausing the music on a whole other account 

I did notice that my likes are past 10,000 songs so I have been in the process of putting the songs in different playlists 

but it's weird that this just all a sudden started happening recently when my like playlist have been past 10,000 for a while so why it's starting to act up all a sudden doesn't really make much sense to me.  

[Maria]

Hey @Singer45,

Thanks for the additional details here!

Just to confirm, do you experience the same behavior when using the Web Player? Also, could you double-check for any available updates for your device's OS?

If possible, it would be great if you also could try logging in to your own account on another computer to see if the same things happens there.

Let us know how you get on.

[ezague]

Plan

Premium

Country

Denmark

Device

Windows PC

Operating System

Windows 11

My Question or Issue

I've had the same issue for over a year now, where every time I play something from Spotify, I can start the song, but then everything becomes unresponsive - media controls, volume controls, playlist selection, everything.. and when that one song is done playing, it keeps being stuck on the last second of the song, and won't continue. Only way to fix it, is by opening task manger, closing down Spotify from there, and opening it up again. Then I can play one song again, and same issue happens. That can't be right, and I am really tempted to close down my subscription and finding some other way of listening to music whilst working and being on my pc in general. What's the problem?

[maybe_em]

Something similar has started happening to me recently (within the last week) and has only been happening when listening on desktop (Mac). The song will just pause randomly and won't respond when I click play or I'll hit play and the song will play for half a second and immediately pause again. It usually resumes playing after about a minute but it's been very odd. There don't appear to be any updates that I need to make to the app on my laptop. 

Strange. 

[vvojtek]

I'm experiencing a similar issue with Spotify on macOS Sequoia 15.1. This problem first occurred after updating to the latest OS version, so I initially thought it was an Apple-related issue. However, I'm now on 15.1, which should have included bug fixes, but the problem persists. I've also read that this is happening on older Mac versions as well. @Spotify support, what is the solution for this?

[Singer45]

So when I try to listen to music on the web player it does the same thing plays for a bit and than pauses 

I don't have this issue on the iphone but my Mac yes and I tried to sign in on my sisters computer and it's still doing the same exact thing. 

Like I said before this literally just started happening to me  in the beginning of Oct before than no issues and I had way over 10,000 Songs in my Like Playlist and it would play fine no issues Until Now! 

[Yordan]

Hey folks,

A few users who seem to have been experiencing the same issue reported in this other thread that disabling Hardware acceleration in the app's Settings > Compatibility did the trick. Could you give this a try to see if it works for you as well?

If the issue persists, could you confirm if this only happens after waking the PC from sleep, with Spotify running in the background? Also, is it only with songs that have music videos or all in general? A short screen recording which captures the exact behavior in action would be greatly appreciated.

Keep us posted on this.