Can't play a large playlist

[MarkWilliams123]

Windows 10. Premium. Latest Spotify.

I have a playlist with around 6,000 songs in it. I can no longer play any songs in it.

[Ivan]

Hey there @MarkWilliams123, 

Thanks for reaching out to us about this - we'll be glad to help you out here.

Most common issues can be fixed with a quick reinstall of the app. In some situations however, a clean (more thorough) reinstall of the app might be needed. This way, you can start afresh with Spotify on your device. 

Check out this help page in order to find the steps for clean reinstall on the affected device. 

Hope this helps. Let us know how it goes.

[MarkWilliams123]

No. Didn't work.

[Elena]

Thanks for giving this a try @MarkWilliams123!

Can you let us know if you get any error messages when trying to play the playlist? A screenshot of what you see would also be very helpful.

Do you experience this issue on other devices or just on your computer?

And lastly, could you try disabling hardware acceleration to see if it helps? To do that:

1. Click Edit in the menu bar. Select Preferences.
2. Scroll down and uncheck Hardware acceleration.
3. Restart Spotify.

When we get a bit more info, we'll be happy to investigate further.

Take care!

[MarkWilliams123]

Hi,

I get no error messages. Clicking on the play button simply has no effect. I can still like/unlike songs in the list, I can get the additional options by clicking on the 3 dots. I just can't play anything.

I have disabled hardware acceleration and restarted. That makes no difference.

I have created a new playlist and copied the songs from one playlist to the other. I have the same problem with the new playlist.

I am also getting the same problem on my i-phone. I have also tried clicking "Shuffle Play" on my phone and that does nothing too.

[MarkWilliams123]

I've played around with this a little more. Instead of copying the entire playlist into a new list I have tried doing it in smaller chunks. I can add precisely 4166 songs into the new playlist. If I add so much as another song to the new playlist. It stops working. I can't play anything at all in the list. If I remove songs and reduce the number back to 4166 it starts playing again.

I then tried adding a  small number of songs (7) at the end of the 4166 so that it stopped working and instead of deleting them from the end of the list I tried to delete 7 songs from higher up the the list so as to reduce the number back down to 4166. The playlist didn't work. I had to go to the end of the list and delete the 7 songs I had added to the end. The Playlist then worked again!

So I tried copying 4167 songs from the defective playlist to the new playlist. It didn't work. I deleted the last song from the new list and hey presto it worked!

I tried creating a new playlist sourcing songs from other playlists than the defective large playlist. It worked until I added a chunk of songs that took it up to around 4500 songs I then started deleting and re-adding songs it would only work provided there were no more than 4190 songs in the list. 

There is evidently something wrong with large playlists. Can I suggest your techies test this and see if they can work out what this problem is?

[MarkWilliams123]

Still can't play a large playlist (just over 6000 songs.

I've tried copying it. That didn't work. I've tried copying it bit by bit. This works until I get to roughly 4200 songs and then as soon as I add one more song it stops playing anything.

There seem to be some real problems lately with Spotify and they are truly frustrating. Don't know what was done to break it, but you need to find out really fast. 

[adrienplat]

I have the exact same issue but it seems to occur only when I play song on a connected device.

[sithbastian]

My issue is a little different, even though I made it to my conclusion the same way, by adding chunks of the defective playlist to a new one.

I listen to a big playlist from an amazon echo device, while I pick specific songs from the playlist on my Note 10+ phone. I am able to do so until the playlist reaches 4190 songs, after that whenever I tap on a song from this big list, the phone just won't make the change. If I choose a song from this same list on my PC it works fine, it plays the song at the echo, so I guess this is an android app problem.

[Alex]

Hi there @sithbastian,

Thanks for reaching out about this.

There could be an issue with the cache on your phone which might be the cause of this.

If you've already done a clean reinstall of the app and cleared all app cache, can you try creating a new free account, following that playlist and try playing some songs from it on the new account?

We'll be on the lookout for your reply.

[sithbastian]

Hi, Alex, thanks for answering.

Yes, before trying to reach you I did a clean reinstall and cleared the app cache.

I did what you suggested. Created a free account, but it seems that with free accounts you don't get a full display of a playlist, just a preview where you can't scroll through or tap on a specific song of your choice, you will just get to shuffle play. So I couldn't get to test this on regards of my problem.

Ps. Also, if of any interest, I get the same bug when trying to tap on songs from playlists bigger than 4190 songs that I didn't create but follow

[Alex]

Hi @sithbastian,

Thanks for the reply and going through this troubleshooting process with us.

Can you send us a the URI/Link to one of your larger public playlists so we can test if they work properly on our end?

Keep us posted.

[sithbastian]

Thanks for helping out, very appreciated. Here is the url:

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/6zbqH44SuMhycAfB75xHDs

If I play it only on my phone, it works fine. The problem happens when I play music on any other device (be it my pc or echo), while tapping on songs at my phone.

[CarlosE]

Hey there @sithbastian,

Thanks for keeping in touch and for sending that link.

Although there isn't a set limit to the number of songs that can be added to a playlist, very large playlists such as the one you sent can interfere with the app's performance when playing them on another device through Connect.

In this case, we recommend removing some songs from the playlists until they work properly, or use a different type of connection between devices such as Bluetooth.

We appreciate your feedback and we'll make sure to pass it on to the right folks.

If you have any questions or need anything else, give us a shout.

Cheers!

[1111AA]

Same issue here. I have a playlist with more than 10k songs but it doesnt want to play at all.. tried it on PC, Web Browser, Phone (Android), the playlist doesn't even start. The songs are all greyed out.

[einto]

Same issue here. Long playlists wont play on phone/PC when using Connect. 
I also have this problem when trying to play folders on PC. 

[Alex]

Hi folks,

Thanks for the posts.

Playlists with thousands of songs might fail to play on certain devices. This includes Connect devices, such as smart speakers, as some devices can't handle requests for such large amounts of data.

@einto, Can you clarify if folders fail to play only when you're connected to another device via Spotify Connect?

We'll be on the lookout for your replies.

[After_Dark]

I have the exact same issue

[After_Dark]

I have the same issue also on my computer

[After_Dark]

Hi @Alex, I can confirm that I have the same problem, even when playing large playlists that I did not create. Here are few scenarios:

1. Play them on my phone - No issue

2. Play on my computer - No issue

3. Play on my computer or phone and choose to listen on an echo-dot - does not work

4. Play on my computer or phone  and say "Alexa resume Spotify" so that it will transfer to the echo - most of the time does not work

5. Playing a small playlist on my computer via an echo dot (no issue) and then choosing a large playlist on the same computer (which was already set to listen on that echo). When I press play to start playing the large playlist, nothing happens.

I'm not sure why the echo has trouble when it comes to a large playlist, as Spotify doesn't upload the whole playlist to the echo, It just uploads (not stream, I noticed the behavior using NetFlow as well as a sniffer) one song at a time.