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.

[dragonbytes]

1. Windows 8.1

2. Spotify 0.9.6.81.gd359a796

3. 30 down/10 up

4. basically load spotify and select specific tracks by double clicking them. it happens on any song, its not song specific. it seems to happen when spotify is idle for awhile and then u double click a track to play. when u reboot windows and open spotify for the first time that session, the first song plays properly. anything after that may or may not skip first few seconds. the issue is not connection related either as it happens with offline music that is stored on the hdd also. its defintely an intermittent issue. is there any sort of diagnostic mode or some sort of dump we can do to assist you in debugging? also you guys have been rocking the 0.9.x version for a long time now. the UI is as bare and plain as ever, and laggy scrolling. i hope you guys are working on 1.x. hoping for a less buggy and nicer looking windows client

[TiesTorN]

UI cannot be faster than this, wth are you talking about? There is no lag at all.

Though I also have the same symptoms as your description of skipping, exactly the same.

[dragonbytes]

the lag isnt so much waiting for stuff to react, its more the way the app refreshes. i get tearing when scrolling and other slow UI updates

[Richard]

Hey guys, thanks for all the information you've provided so far. We just need a little more as we hone in on what's going on here.

Firstly, what kind of internet connection are you all using? We're interested to hear if you're using 4G internet connections or anything like that?

And next up, if you create a playlist of say 5 tracks, will this reliably happen on each track? Or is it just the first? (And if so, is it the first every time?)

We know some of you have provided the answers to this questions already, but the more information we can get - the better!

[Accipiter46]

Yes, it happens on each track. I made a video to show the problem I am describing. Could not find a better way to do it, is there seriously not a debugging tool?

In the video description I listed the obvious times when something went wrong.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bp3ELIHGuEk

[TiesTorN]

This problem has nothing to do with connection type. Even if we're using a very slow connection, what spotify should be doing is just waiting a few secs before starting the song, not skipping the first 1-2 seconds entirely. There is no justification for this bug 🙂

This happens on every track randomly (mostly when you start playing a song while the player is idle) doesn't matter if there are 5 songs or 50 songs in the playlist...

[Accipiter46]

I have overclocked my computer, could that affect it? It feels like spotify is executing tasks too fast.

[jwolfe]

If a stable overclock matters, then the developers have done something very, very wrong.

[Peter__]

I don't think any overclock should matter.

[LeN-e]

Windows 7 64bit

Spotify 0.9.7.16.g4b197456

Happens on every song that I can recognize that would start differently. 

Running on 100/10 DSL

Easiest to notice when starting a new track from silence (not after another song).

[jimitaylor]

This is my biggest problem with Spotify, why do they think that missing the first few seconds of a song is a better experience than waiting a few seconds for it to start?  The start of a song is a vital part of the story.

If everyone who is annoyed by this clicks on "I've got this problem too" at the start of the thread, perhaps they'll take notice and fix this.

[Peter__]

Just to confirm guys, does this only happen when starting a track manually via double click and not when Spotify moves from one track to another on its own?

I do wonder if this is caused by the weird faded pause Spotify uses.

[jimitaylor]

Happens to me when you start a new album or playlist, so not when it's continuing to play.  Have 100Mb fibre connection, so don't think it's that.

[Accipiter46]

It has never happened to me when spotify goes to the next track in a playlist. Only on the first song.

Double click and pressing enter both trigger this behaviour.

[TiesTorN]

Are you guys planning to fix this or what? It's been several months -even years- and still no news about fixing this issue... I'm getting sick of having to start a song twice to prevent skipping everytime after idling...

[GabbyLir]

I'm having this exact problem. These last months the issue is getting worse, it's happening more often. 

The fact that this threat is 2 years old tells me that I better get used to this.  😞

Spoiler

[TiesTorN]

lol they are constantly changing the UI and add other shenanigans but still couldnt fix this issue... sigh...

[xboxremote]

Ok I think I've figured out how to methodically reproduce the issue:

1. Pick a song (any song!) and start playing it. The one I used was "Let It Go" by Zach Brown Band on the album "You Get What You Give (Deluxe)."
2. Let the song play for a couple seconds (or however long you wish).
3. Pause the track.
4. Play another track on the album by hovering over it and clicking the play button. The one I used was "As She's Walking Away (feat. Alan Jackson)."
5. You'll notice that the first second or so is cut off - In this example, the guitar starts mid-strum.

Now if you pause that track and try to play the original one ("Let It Go"), it will do the same thing - In this example, you'll hear the cymbal that starts the song, is in the middle of ringing out. Clearly not right.

If you don't pause and you play the next song directly, it seems to work.

One other note - I disabled the gapless playback option in the preferences to see if that was the cause. However, the issue is still occurring.

I'll be hopping over to Twitter to get @SpotifyCares to look at this thread again, because they seem to have lost interest again.

[KazNaka]

It happens when I'm just normally listening to my playlist. THE PROBLEM: Most songs start as soon as you click play. Spotify skips first half second of every song. SOLUTION: MAKE SPOTIFY WAIT HALF A SECOND to play any songs. OR Do it yourself. Record a second of silence and add it into the start of each song using a music editor (This would be a major pain in the ass).

[mHatfull]

I think this a spotify issue, I get it on a machine with high speed, high capacity ram and a 6 core fast cpu, a sound card that can handle anything and a 100 meg connection. I also have 4 solid state drives in raid 0 getting 1 gig read speeds or more, it happens on mobile too. I can't see any bottleneck in my system so it must be something their end, maybe validating your account to have access to the song? Not sure what it is but SPOTIFY GET YOUR STOOF TOGETHER!