Desktop App Crashes on Launch ONLY on My Account

[user-removed]

Plan

Premium (Duo, I am the plan admin)

Country

USA

Device

HP Omen 45L & Razer Blade Pro 17

Operating System

Windows 11 & Windows 10

My Question or Issue

Been trying to sort this with both the @SpotifyCares support Twitter and the Spotify Support website messaging, both with little success.

As brief as I can be: the Desktop app, after working well for a long period of time, has recently started to fail at launch and its failure appears to be tied to my account somehow. On fresh install, the authentication prompt comes up - it sends me to the browser to login and then send me back the the app, where it only loads a grey screen briefly without any content on it and it closes out. After a number of failed attempts to uninstall/clean reinstall, I tried logging in with other accounts (using my husband's login, and even a Spotify Support acct), and they both login and load up fine. I've also found that the same thing happens on my Windows 10 laptop.

Detail:

A little over a month ago I tried launching Spotify on my main Windows 11 PC and the dark grey window opened with no content in it and then disappeared, seemingly crashing. I was in a hurry so I couldn't troubleshoot it at that moment so left it for a later date. After a week or so I dove back in and ended up uninstalling and downloading the latest version from the Spotify website. Same issue. Then I tried uninstalling and trying the Windows Store version instead, still no luck. Again, was in a hurry so couldn't deep dive.

Last week I had some time to dive in further and spent some time with the SpotifyCares team. They walked me through installing after deleting any Spotify entries in the hosts file in my C:\Windows\System32\Drivers/etc folder (there weren't any), performing a clean install. They asked me to try to load it on another computer and I had to save that for later.

Over this past weekend, when troubleshooting it, I decided to try to use my husband's log in credentials after the re-install to see if it would work, and to my surprise, it did! After retrying my credentials and failing, I pulled out my laptop (Windows 10) and discovered that the Spotify app there was also failing to load with the exact same circumstances. Please note that both apps were working at some point in the recent past. 

Steps I've taken:

• Launching in Administrator Mode
• Launching in Compatibility mode
• Uninstall/reinstall (regular & clean)
• Repairing and resetting the app in advanced settings (available to Microsoft Store version only in Win 11)
• Launching in Safe Mode
• Using the Spotify website version / using the Microsoft Store version
• Changing the app proxy settings on fresh install launch from Autodetect settings to No proxy
• Logging in with other user accounts
• Changing my default browser in case there was an authentication issue caused by the browser (Chrome to Edge and back)
• Using my email address instead of username only to login
• Changing my password
• Changing my username

I'm sending this after spending 4 hours tonight back and forth with the website's support team, being pushed to different advisors and having things dropped. I'm trying to get them to escalate but each time we get close they switch advisors and I have to re-explain everything.

Would love to know if anyone has any other ideas to try or experience with this. 

[Alex]

Hi there @user-removed,

Thanks for reaching out about this in the Community!

Sorry to hear that you're having such difficulties logging in with your account and that the customer support team was not able to find a solution.

Since this issue is happening on two different Windows PCs and it's not occurring on other accounts, the problem is most likely related to your personal account. Sometimes Spotify accounts can get broken and the best solution is to transfer your account data onto a new one. This process takes only a few minutes and you can reach out to customer support, so they can assist you. The only downside is that you'd have to cancel your current subscription and re-subscribe, which might sound like a bit of a hassle, but you can do it pretty quickly. You can also transfer you music library on your own, following these steps, if you don't want to reach out to support. 

This would be the best way to go forward, but there is one more thing that you can try, which I didn't read in your troubleshooting description.

1. Log out Everywhere.
2. Start Windows in Safe Mode and uninstall the app following the clean reinstall guide and remove all files related to Spotify, which can be found under C:\Users\"PC username"\AppData\Roaming\Spotify. While in Safe Mode, you'll have access to some files, which could otherwise be blocked or invisible. 
3. Start Windows normally and re-install the Spotify app, and try logging in. 

Hope this helps.