Spotify App Extremely slow and unresponsive on M1 Mac

[s_mallach]

Plan

Premium

Country

Germany

Device

MacBook Air M1 2020

Operating System

MacOS 14.1.1 (Problem started already on Ventura / before Update to Sonoma)

My Question or Issue

Since approximately one week the Spotify App on my M1 Mac is extremely unresponsive and slow, although all other Apps run normally at the same time.

I uninstalled an installed Spotify several times, deleted my cache and so on several times - no change.

[maty-y]

Plan

Premium

Device (MacBook Pro 13, Apple M2)

Operating System ( MacOS Ventura, Version 13.3.1 (a))

My Question or Issue

For a couple of weeks (months?) I have problem with Spotify app on my MAC. It stops working and I need to `Force Quit` it almost every day. Also, my MAC tells me that it is using Significant Energy even when I am not playing anything. I don't see any update avaliable. Do you know how to fix it?

[OscarDC]

Hey @maty-y,

Thank you for reaching out to the Community and welcome.

This type of issue is commonly related to some damaged cache stored on your device from previous updates. In this case, we'd first recommend performing a clean reinstall of the app by following the steps in this article. This will clear all cache that could be affecting the proper behavior of the app and ensure you're using the latest version of the app. 

If the issue persists, include in your next response the Spotify version you're currently running to continue investigating the case.

We'll be on the lookout.

[alekwo]

I am observing very similar problems on an Intel machine. The user interface is hardly usable, it takes a good 20-30 seconds to register a mouse-over and activate controls, then several minutes to open a page or start playback. The list of playlists takes about 10-15 minutes to load into the sidebar.

Spotify for macOS (Intel)
1.2.24.756.g7a7fc7f0

MacBook Pro - 2.3 GHz 8-Core Intel Core i9

macOS Sonoma 14.1 (23B74)

The reinstallation of Spotify didn't help.

Disabling/Enabling hardware acceleration also doesn't help.

[s_mallach · Accepted solution]

I'd like to solve...

Really, really weird root cause, but I found it with tcpdumping my Spotify client.

When launching Spotify on my MacBook it tries to contact another client running on an AmazonFireTV in my network on TCP port 8009, which repeatedly answers the connection attempts with TCP-Rejects an the MacBook client retries to connect infinitely.

When I disconnect the AmazonFireTV from the network, the MacBook Client of Spotify runs some TCP Retransmits as it does not yet know the FireTV is gone, but works overall normally again.

Seems to be an old airplay session or something.

This seems to be an issue of the MacOS Client only as other clients like my iPhone or Windows PC run normal.

[domenb]

Hi there!

Same issue for me - Intel Mac (cannot check the version since it lags so much).

Reinstalled 10 times, cleared cache, HW acceleration disabled - tried that - same issue

Setup:

Macbook Pro 15, 2019, 8core i9, 32GB RAM

Still running Big Sur

Spotify version: latest

[MihailY]

Hey folks,

Thanks for posting in the Community and kudos for the troubleshooting you've done so far.

@alekwo, @domenb, is it possible to do the steps that @s_mallach has done and check if you're seeing something similar? 

Cheers,

[alekwo]

@MihailY, thanks for your answer, but this is not a solution for me... I can't follow the steps suggested by s_mallach as I don't have AmazonFireTV.

[Tomlager]

I do have the same problem (Mac Mini M1, Sonoma) and have tried same procedures as you, but  without any positive result...

[s_mallach · Accepted solution]

@alekwo @Tomlager :

It must not necessarily be a FireTV, just think about probable other AirPlay or Spotify Clients in the same network.

Also a try would be to see if the client runs normal when not connected to your home LAN / WLAN.

[domenb]

Have tried turning off Wifi... it sure looks like that helps. When wifi turned OFF it Spotify works normally (well - the UI works normally - cannot stream anything since khm... I am offline 🙂 ) - but it looks like that is the direction to look at... 

Just dont know how to solve this... I assume this is something that needs to be solved on the Spotify side, right? 

[alekwo]

@s_mallach @MihailY

I first tested completely disconnecting my MacBook from WiFi, and using my cell phone's hotspot to connect to the internet - then the app is working with no issues, so, it's certainly related to my local network.

I have one Spotify Connect device (AudioPro A10) - but disconnecting it from the network didn't help. 

I have several Chromecast-enabled devices - Chromecast Audio, Chromecast Video, AudioPro G10 Smart Speaker, and Philips Smart TV (Android).

Disabling them one by one, I found out that most don't matter, but when I disable the Philips Smart TV, the Mac application starts to work normally. 

Please fix this, as having my TV disconnected when I want to listen to music on my computer is not feasible. 

[s_mallach]

@alekwo

Pherhaps it helps to completely power down your tv once by removing the power cable.

If not, and if you're technically able to configure that, an (ugly!) temporary workaround could be blocking multicast between your Mac and the TV. But in a longer term Spotify should make their app resilient against that problem.

[primusd]

Same issue here - and like so, so many others (with posts dating back to 2019 if not earlier)...

Following the instructions above, I performed the clean install (all files deleted, restart, reinstall with latest version, etc.). On first-run, same issues again: Spotify doesn't quit properly, stops responding, CPU usage cranks to 100%. To stop it, I have to force quit.

Spotify for macOS (Apple Silicon) / 1.2.24.756.g7a7fc7f0

MBP 14' (2021) / Apple M1 Pro / 32GB RAM / 13.5.1 (22G90)

I've been paying for this app for years, and running it on this laptop since 2021... I'd say this only started happening (for me) about 3-6 months ago.

Please sort this out once and for all now. This is clearly not some one-off random bug, but something pervasive.

Thanks!

David

[thomasmills89]

I've been experiencing this issue for the last week now - and this must be it, as the issue has started ever since I opened the new spotify tv app last week (Philips Android TV).

Am I correct in reading the only current solution is to disconnect my TV from the internet? So my TV is unusuable if I want to listen to Spotify? 🤨

Update: On Android TV go to the app settings, select Spotify and choose 'Force stop'. My Macbook app was instantly smooth again for a few minutes but then slowness/freezing returned.

Now I tried uninstalling (the TV app), restarting the TV and restarting desktop spotify, it seems to work smoothly now.

Update2: It's slow af again, basically nothing moves or responds so it's completely unusable. Spotify can we get some attention on this, it definitely is not solved. Your desktop app is now unusable on macbook m1 for almost a week now?

After the whole your library sidebar redesign nightmare now this 😞 Happily paying for 10+ years this last year is quite a joke.

[haxxor]

Same here, Philips Android TV.

Definitely a bug in the desktop client. The client is overflooded with network traffic both ways. If something in the connection to Android TV doesn't work then it should be rejected and the client should function normally. This is true when communicating with any sort of client through a network.

Please fix this!

[thomasmills89]

Yep, i'm not sure if there was something left on my TV after uninstalling + restarting but now 2 days later the desktop app seems stable again (with TV on). This only happened on my M1 Macbook, never on my work intel macbook