Songs not starting at the beginning of the track

[Shadowalker]

Every once in a while, I'll get to a song where spotify will skip the first 1 or 2 seconds of a song. I can move the seeker all the way to the front, it says it starting at the beginning, but spotify will still skip the first few seconds of the song.  

It's not something dire, but after a while it gets annoying.

[1110737308]

Ain't my SSD with 500MB+ read and write speed enough for Spotify? Ain't 10Mbit/s down and 1Mbit/s up enough?

[xboxremote]

I have this issue too, and have been having it since I started using Spotify at least a year and a half ago. It happens on multiple machines (a Dell laptop running Windows XP, Intel Core i5 at 1.17 GHz with 3.24 GB of RAM, and my 2011 Mac Mini with an Intel Core i7 at 2.7 GHz and 16 GB of RAM). It's not a problem with my machines. It seems like a bug in the Spotify software (whether or not it actually involves the buferring process). It's not a network problem on my end because it happens no matter which network I'm on (which are usually very high speed). So it could be a problem with the Spotify side of the connection, but I doubt that too.

I haven't noticed this happen on my iPhone or my iPad, just with the desktop client. It happens quite frequently, but not 100% of the time.

[tomotheos]

I am also having this problem. It's not a buffering issue, as has been suggested. If that were the case, what would happen is you would press play and then a second or two later the song plays from the beginning. That is NOT what's going on. What we are experiencing is this: you press play and the song starts playing right away but half a second or two INTO the song. We are not hearing that first half second at all.

[Vinnie]

I too have this problem. I thought it would have been fixed by now 😕

It didn't always do this.

[jwolfe]

I seem to be able to consistently reproduce the issue.

For a concrete example, using "The A Team" by Ed Sheeran.

Play "The A Team" for ~2 seconds. Pause it. Wait a second. Double-click the song again. The initial bass note will be largely missing, and the playtime counter will jump to 0:01 almost instantly (I'd guesstimate it starts at 0:00.75, but I'm human and probably terrible at guessing that). Double click the song again, and the strong bass note has some audible time on its own.

If I do not pause the other song first, this does not happen.

Gapless disabled, crossfade disabled.

[bursson]

Same problem, internet connection or computer performance isnt the issue.

[Accipiter46]

I have this problem too and have to click the song twice to hear the beginning of it.

Come on, this is a music player and the primary functions have to be working before you add the social stuff.

[Rollo_]

I notice this happening frequently as well.  Not well into the track, but just enough to notice it.  Half second, maybe less.

[SixBlades]

I have a very fast Mac Pro with bootcamp. Spotify is installed on OS X Mountain Lion and Windows 7. I only experience this on the Windows side.

So, it's not a "your computer or internet is too slow" issue. I notice it if I've been paused for longer than a few seconds.

[adamdoyle]

This is a problem for me as well.

[mike_nap]

I'm actually very disappointed in Spotify for not fixing this in over a year. A year of missing the first second of a song! So how many people listen to music on Spotify... Call it 6 million? So if 6 million users listen to 5 songs a day that skip the first second of music, that's 6 million times 5 songs per day times 1 second per song = 30 million seconds per day of skipped music! That's 347 days of music total per day skipped. So Spotify is robbing the world of a year of music... Every day. And this has persisted for over one year. So in conclusion:

(347 days of music skipped per day)*(365 days this has persisted) = 347 years of music skipped.

Spotify, you do a lot of stuff right, but this isn't one of them. That being said, thanks for giving me the other... 300 seconds of music per song.

[Rymdapan]

I made an mp3 consisting of dead silence, since Spotify doesnät seem to be late when switching from other songs. (Even if it's dead silence) But yeah this is outrageous. Spotify must fix it IMMEDIATELY.

[sanderdekoning]

24 million,  so multiply your 347 years by 6!

[xboxremote]

This is ridiculous. We're coming up on a year since I posted in here, and the issue is still occurring for me. It's also been over a year and a half since the OP started this thread. I still have it happen quite frequently, and it only seems to affect the desktop client. I have never noticed this on my phone (I've owned an iPhone 4, iPhone 5, and now a Samsung GS3 since I started using spotify). I also haven't noticed this on Spotify's beta web player. Again, it's not a buffer issue because it's not that there is a delay between when you click on a song and when it starts. It's the fact that there is a good chunk of one second that just flat-out doesn't get played.

The worst is when you have a drum intro to a song (for example, Young Legs by Anthony Green). Always takes a moment to figure out where the beat is in your head.

I've had pretty quick response (in regards to other issues) on Spotify's support team on Twitter. I'm going to reach out to them and point them to this thread and see if they're aware.

[SofiFoxi]

I have same issue.  😞

It happen every song I double click.

I have:

8GB RAM DDR3

SSD

30 Mb/s Download

Intel i5-4670K @ 3.40 GHz

x64 Windows 7

I think it is issue of Spotify software, not hardware or internet connection.  Maybe our computers are too fast?

Please have Spotify software wait for data before playing!  It would be very appreciated!  🙂

[Richard]

Hey everyone, this thread is long overdue for an update. Sorry for not checking in sooner.

We're sorry to hear that some of you are still affected by this issue. So far, we haven't been able to reproduce it ourselves. But I'm keen to get it some more attention - which means we'll just need some more information from you.

If you could provide the following info for us, that would be great:

1. Your operating system

2. The version of Spotify you're currently running

3. Your internet connection speed

4. As much detail as possible as to how you can reproduce the issue (eg. what triggers it, how often it happens, anything you think is relevant).

Thanks! 

[Accipiter46]

The most reliable way I have been able to reproduce it. Choose a song with a good start, like sweet child o' mine:

*Double click to play song

*Pause ~5 seconds in

*Wait ~5 seconds

*Double click to play again

It doesn't truly start a second in, it's more like it compresses the first second into 1/10th of a second and plays it very fast. Play timer is at 0:00 for a VERY short time until it says 0:01 (or even 0:02).

Happens consistently for me, most songs, with varying frequency.

Windows 8.1 64 bit

Spotify 0.9.6.81.gd359a796

SSD drive

gbit network

Intel 2500K

[mike_nap]

1. Windows 7

2. Version 0.9.6.81.gd359a796

3. Whatever the fastest FiOS is

4. Literally every time I go from no music playing to pressing play on (or double clicking on) a song from the start of the song, I miss out on the first second of the song, entirely. If I play a song before the desired song, or play the last 2 seconds of a song before the desired song, Spotify will play the beginning of the desired song fine. Occasionally, if I start and restart a song multiple times, Spotify will pause for a second or two and finally start the desired song from the beginning.

Thanks

Mike

[imkingdavid]

1. Windows 7 (also noticed it on my parents' Windows 8 laptop)

2. 0.9.6.81.gd359a796

3. 15mbps down, 5mbps up

4. It's not necessarily a constant thing but it happens often enough to be noticeable. It happens when I either double click or press enter to start playing a song (I'm not sure if it also happens when I click on the Play icon). It doesn't always happen on the same songs, and sometimes it doesn't happen at all. If I restart the song, it plays the intro correctly. If I try what someone else mentioned before, i.e. pausing the song for a few seconds and starting again, it once again skips the first half second or so.

If you need to test a song, it's been happening to me today on the following track: Children 18:3 – All in Your Head

[TiesTorN]

Exact same thing has been happening to me too also for a year now, so annoying...

Been using Windows 7... And whatever the latest spotify version is. I always update when it is available. Internet speed is definitely not an issue as it is 60/13.

Happens when I start playing a song after a long while...

I'd rather wait for a second than to miss it.