App becomes unresponsive, can't end task in task manager -- have to restart

[Idskot]

Plan

Premium

Country

United States

Device

PC

Operating System

Windows 7 Ultimate SP1

My Question or Issue

 I have been using the app for years with zero issues (on the same build/install of W7) up until two weeks ago or so. The desktop app stops responding. Usually if the machine comes back from sleep, but has also often stopped responding in the middle of using it. Once Windows does its whole "looking for how to fix this" thing, there are still 3 or 4 Spotify.exe tasks on Task Manager. All but one will close. The last process will not close regardless of what I try to do. (This isn't my first rodeo. I'm skilled with computers and this has literally never happened to be me before in my life.) If I try to open up Spotify, it gives me an error saying 'The Spotify application is not responding.'

The only fix is to restart the machine. The Spotify app will work for a bit, then will ultimately freeze and stop working.

I have tried a fresh re-install, as well as every other thing that shown up on a Google result. I'm hoping to find another alternative to constantly restarting my computer and closing the program if I'm not actively using it.

(Side note: I work on my computer, so this is not just a slight annoyance. This has resulted in me having to stop my work to restart my computer multiple times. I would use the Web app, but it doesn't accept the media controls on my keyboard so... womp womp.)

[Loxer]

Hey @Idskot, welcome to the Community.

Hope you are doing great!

Could you please try using this guide to completely uninstall Spotify?

You can also try creating another user account and install Spotify there to see if the issue persits.

Let me know how that goes 🙂

[michelaudet84]

I'm seeing something similar on Windows 10. It doesn't randomly freeze for me, but I'm reproing easily returning from sleep, even if I closed Spotify.

I see a similar behavior though, multiple spotify.exe in task manager, one cannot be killed. Need to restart the machine.  

[synzaar]

I have this exact problem, same OS, plan, country, etc. Anyone find a solution?

[PhxnkLxrd]

I have the exact same issue with windows 10 but at the same time, my browser stops responding too and only works again after rebooting the machine...

[Novy]

Hey @PhxnkLxrd,

Thank you for reaching the Community.

Sometimes the residual information saved in your device can cause issues with the proper function of the app. We suggest a clean reinstall following the steps mentioned here.

If the issue persists, please clean the host files of your PC following the next steps:

1. Open Notepad as an administrator (right-click - Open as Administrator)

2. Go to File - Open and navigate to C:\Windows\System32\drivers\etc

3. Choose "All Files" instead of "Text Documents" next to the File Name box. You'll see a handful of files. Pick hosts and click on Open

4. When the file is open, you will see a block of text with # in front of each line and might see entries like 0.0.0.0 website.com127.0.0.1 website2.com

5. Check for any entries with Spotify in the address. Examples may look like: 0.0.0.0 weblb-wg.gslb.spotify.com0.0.0.0

6. If you do find any lines with Spotify, please remove them

7. Save your changes and restart Spotify

Let us know how it goes.