Spotify on mac keeps stuttering. Auto quality does not work.

[Chad_Chad_Chad]

Plan

Premium

Country

USA

Device

iMac (Retina 5K, 27-inch, 2020)

Operating System

Mac OS 12.1

I am sick of the constant stuttering/dropping out for a second all the time. 

I have searched the "community" and there is no solution that works.  It would be nice if you had actual customer service / tech support instead of just dumping it on your users, and no, the email option, that warns you it will probably never get answered, is not an option. 

This is my last try at getting this solved. I have used spotify for almost 10 years... but, I think Apple music is calling. I like spotify better, its suggestions and AI, but none of that matters if it doesn't work well. 

[Chad_Chad_Chad]

Hey folks,

Thanks for your patience while we looked into this.

We've heard from the right folks and after some tests, this seems to be related to Apple and the way their hardware/firmware works, hence why some of you have previously mentioned it happening with other apps as well.

If you're still experiencing this, we'd suggest reaching out to Apple's support team to see if they have any comments or resolution to the issue.

If anything else comes up, the Community will be here.

[Yordan]

Hey folks,

Thank you for your inputs!

We've forwarded this to our developers who'll investigate further. Rest assured we'll keep you updated as soon as we have more information to share.

Cheers!

[Yordan]

Hello everyone,

Could you provide us with a short video which showcases the stuttering in action?

Also, if this is present even on the Web Player, could you let us know which browser this occurs on? If possible, try another one to see if the if the stuttering persists there.

Make also sure that you're running the latest version (12.2.1) of macOS.

Thanks!

[zapp_b]

Wow, Spotify is literally unusable on an M1 Mac. I'm exaggerating, there are constant dropouts and stuttering when listening to Spotify in the app or the web player. Is this a joke? All the answers here are typical support answers with obvious non-solutions like "try installing it again". Yea duh, this is a new computer with a new Spotify, installing a fresh version isn't going to do anything (tried it anyway, surprise).

I have the same issue on my M1 Mac mini at home, same stuttering. This is a persistent problem, stop asking people for details and buy one of those Macs for a dev so he can try it out and get on the problem. This is an issue with buffering, memory leaks or something on the line. 

No issues with YT, Amazon Music or any other service. Get your app together Spotify

[Yordan]

Hey @zapp_b,

Thanks for the reply.

In order to investigate further, we'd like to get a clear understanding of how things look on your end as we weren't able to recreate this issue. Could you provide us with a screen recording that shows the app's behavior in action?

Keep us posted.

[kkirbatski]

Let's try to find similarities in how the bug presented and what we were doing when it was presented.

In my case:

- I was wearing bluetooth headphone (though the issue has occurred once or twice without headphones_

- Spotify was in the background (though it has occurred once or twice in the foreground as I was looking for music)

- I had other applications open like Chrome, Teams, Outlook, Safari, VS Code

[zapp_b]

Yea well, as it goes, I was using Amazon Music the last few days, so now I opened Spotify again to make a screen recording. Guess what, runs without problems. 

So unfortunately you'll have to wait until it comes back. Since I had those troubles on two M1 Macs now, I'm going to assume it will be back in due time. 

What I can tell you so far:

- Rebooting didn't solve the problem at the time

- CPU & Energy consumption was quite high as soon as I started playing music. On that day the app accounted for 30% of overall energy use even though I just had it running for an hour until I gave up

- The problem wasn't related to the app since it also happend with the Spotify web player

- All other audio sources worked fine, tried with: Amazon Music (web & app), Apple Music, YouTube

If I'd have to make a wild guess, I'd say you have a problem with streaming and encoding, since it also happened in the web player.

[xkrsxkrs]

this post warmed my heart. i was literally just cursing from reading page after page of "maybe its a vpn" "maybe its your internet" like, if youre going to give basic stuff first, at least list it all at once so we can get to the part where your team actually takes the time to check their source code and assesses performance.

im going through the same thing, newest spotify client, nothing else running, on 5GHz wlan with no heavy users, not on a vpn, no stuttering on any other service, no bluetooth, no external sound card, no other major apps running with 16gb ram on a hexcore i7, did restarts, even reset the PRAM. still stutters erratically, ruins my focus.

[Alex]

Hey folks,

Thanks for the posts.

It would be very helpful if you can share the following info with us.

• Device model and OS version
• Spotify desktop app version
• Any troubleshooting you've done on your end so far
• A screen recording of the issue. It can be added as an attachment or as a link to a video sharing platform.

The right folks at Spotify are aware of this issue and the more examples we can gather, the faster it might get resolved 🙂

[PaulStylo]

Hi

having exactly the same issue after upgrading to an M1 Mac, Monterey 12.3. Worked perfectly on my old Intel iMac playing in the background and the mobile version works perfectly on same network.
When I tried to screen record it, it stopped. To me it seems to happen when certain things happen at the same time – I use Adobe at the same time and it stutters a lot when I am working, also stutters a lot if I'm using WhatsApp desktop and Apple Mail.

Have tried all the things you've mentioned. Very frustrating. Also tried using ethernet cable with wifi off and same thing happens.

Thanks

Paul

[kkirbatski]

I am running:

Spotify for macOS (Intel)
1.1.81.604.gccacfc8c

MacOS 12.3.1 on a MacBook Pro (16-inch, 2019) 2.4 GHz 8-Core Intel Core i9 with 32GB of RAM

[markfabrizio]

This is happening for me as well. I've tried a clean install, but it didn't help. It's really annoying - stutters constantly. Given the people here that have all had the same problem, I find it hard to believe you can't reproduce.

MacBook Pro (14-inch, 2021) (M1 Pro chip)

Monterey 12.2.1

[OscarDC]

Hey Folks,
 

Thank you for keeping in contact and for the info you shared.
 

We're receiving more reports about this issue. However, to keep investigating the case, it would be great if you can record a short video and attach it to your response.
 

You can attach it to your next response by using the Insert Video option in the post editor. You can also upload it to Google Drive and share the link with us (make sure the video has the permissions for anyone to see it). This will give us a better look at the issue.
 

We'll be on the lookout. 

[Ragheedalhyder]

Same for me, Spotify is stuttering when in the background on macOS Monterey, if I select the Spotify window there's no more stuttering. 

[Chad_Chad_Chad]

Not sure how long this message will stay up but, I let my premium subscription run out and switched to Apple Music. This problem does not happen with Apple Music.

It kinda is common sense. Macs are a very small percentage of Spotify's install base. They mainly care about phones, and then PCs after that. Apple music is made by Apple for Apple, they have the expertise, recourses, and motivation to make sure their software runs well on their hardware.

[unluckypaul]

Very much affected by this must be something up with Electron as other apps aren't affected.

[Alex]

Hey everyone,

It would be great if someone can record a video of the issue, as this will help us get to the bottom of this.

You can attach it to your reply if it's under 5MB or add it as a link to Youtube or similar platform.

Looking forward to your replies.

[ogletree]

I'm having the same problem Macbook Pro 13" 2017 2.3 GHz Dual-Core Intel Core I5. 8 GB 2133 LPDDR3 Memory.  macOS Monterey Version 12.3.1.  256 GB Apple SSD and only using 50GB.  I just wiped this mac and freshly installed everything.  I have no other programs running.  I was using Amazon music before and it worked fine.  I am using a Volt 1 USB-C Audio Interface with Beyerdynamic DT 770 PRO 250 Ohm headphone.  I have AT&T Fiber Internet.  I just did an Internet test and i'm getting 446Mbs download and 428Mbps upload with a 3ms ping and 0.92 jitter with 0% loss. I'm sitting less then 4 feet from the wireless router.  I am the only one at home.  

Clearly there is a problem with your app or backend.  Too many people are having the same problem.  

beyerdynamic DT 770 PRO 250 Ohm

beyerdynamic DT 770 PRO 250 Ohm

beyerdynamic DT 770 PRO 250 Ohm

[jo160]

Same here, constant stuttering when CPU load is around 10 % on MBP 14 " with M1 Max. Quality is on automatic. Tried fresh install, didn't help.

[OscarDC]

Hey folks,

Thank you for your patience.

We tried to recreate this issue in our end with no results still. We appreciate the troubleshooting you've done so far, but to be sure that we're on the same page - did you use these steps for a clean reinstall? They are more thorough than a regular one. That way you can make sure that your device is running the latest version of the app.

Also, would you mind checking with different audio settings (auto/low) to see if it makes any difference? It would also be great if you could test it with a track you haven't played before.

Lastly, could you check the drive space you have remaining? Sometimes storage can cause these types of issues.

In case that the issue persists, could you record a short video where we can take a better look? You can attach it to your next response by using the Insert Video option in the post editor. You can also upload it to Google Drive and share the link with us (make sure the video has the permissions for anyone to see it).

We'll be on the lookout. 

[Snowekim]

I have the same issue but I don't think it's Spotify only, it happens pretty much for all the media content, youtube videos, music (Spotify, youtube music, Amazon music, VOX, etc)

I have a M1 Mac 12.13.1, the only way I can get rid of the stutters for a bit, is to restart the Mac, but it comes back after a while...