[Desktop Win11] Spotify keeps crashing my computer

[casti3l]

Plan

Premium

Country

USA

Device

Intel® Core™**bleep**
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080 SUPER

Operating System

Windows 11 Pro

My Question or Issue

[Very lengthy post but the subject is basically the TLDR]

02/28/2022

For a couple of months now, Spotify has been freezing my computer and forcing a restart every couple of days but I kind of ignored it. Then about two weeks ago, it's been skipping songs (it would skip certain songs but happened in different albums and artists), crashing, and freezing/force restarting my computer about every 10 minutes. This issue happened on both my computer and laptop (both Win11) so it wasn't a device issue. This happens on different internet connections (tried cafe wifi, home wifi, school wifi/ethernet, etc.) Initially, I tried uninstalling and reinstalling Spotify using both the desktop download and the Microsoft store version of Spotify. Both reproduced the same issues. I tried on the Spotify web player and it didn't have the skipping songs issue but did crash and force restart my computer. I was using this version of Spotify (see below) which was the most up to date version of Spotify at the time.

Spotify for Windows
1.1.79.763.gc2965cdf

I proceeded to contact customer service who gave me a test account. The test account did not reproduce any of the issues and worked fine. I then proceeded to make a new account and it had the same issues. I also made a new account on my iPhone (iOS) and logged into it with my desktop and had the same issues.

A list of different stuff IT suggested that didn't work

First method (Signout Everywhere)

- Go to your own account's overview page here: https://www.spotify.com/account/overview/ (make sure you log into your own original account)
- Scroll all the way down and tap "Signout Everywhere". It will log your account out from all the devices you've logged it into.
- Uninstall the Spotify app, then restart your PC and router
- After restarting, install the app again and log back into your account

Second Method (Safe Mode)

1. Click Start (Windows icon) and tap the Settings
2. Select Recovery and look for Advance Startup
3. Click Restart now button and another Restart now option
4. Once the blue screen appears, select Troubleshoot
5. Click Advance Options, then Startup Settings, then Restart button again, then you'll see some options again
6. Select the number 5 to run it in Safe mode with internet access.

*** I actually was not able to do this method because internet access only works thru ethernet in Safe Mode and I only had Wifi at the time***

Third Method (Deleting entries of Spotify on Notepad)

- Open Notepad as an administrator (right-click - Open as Administrator)
- go to File - Open and navigate to C:\Windows\System32\drivers\etc
- 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
- 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
- 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
- If you do find any lines with Spotify, please remove them
- Save your changes and restart Spotify

*** I did not have any Spotify-related entries on Notepad***

Fourth Method (Flushing DNS)

1. Type ‘cmd’ in the search bar of Windows 11 (Start). Right-click the Command Prompt from suggestions and select ‘Run as Administrator’.
2. Now you need to enter this command: ipconfig /flushdns
3. Press the Enter key. After a few seconds, you’ll get a pop-up saying the operation was successful.
4. Restart your PC again and re-open the Spotify app

These solutions didn't work so IT told me they would pass it over to the developers and let me know when the issue is resolved via email.

03/01/2022

The day after I chatted with IT, all the previously mentioned issues started occurring on my iPhone's Spotify app.

03/03/2022 (or sometime around this date)

iPhone issue resolved spontaneously.

On my computer, skipping songs issue resolved but still keeps crashing every now and then (ranges from every hour to a few times a day).

03/15/2022

I contacted customer support again. They said, "The iOS app issue is a separate one from your Windows 11 app issue. Due to it being coded for different platforms. The iOS issue is still ongoing, so as a heads-up, you might see it from time to time."

As for the Win11 problem, they had me try these steps:

1. From the Start menu search "Optional feature"
2. Press the "View Features" button on the top right corner (beside the "Add an optional feature" label)
3. Search for "Media Feature Pack"
4. Install it, and reboot

When I tried, I didn't see a "Media Feature Pack" but when I clicked "More Windows features" at the bottom of the page I already had a "Media Features" file that was checkmarked. They told me that the Tech team is still working on the issue and would let me know when they have a solution but no timeframe as to when.

My Spotify still crashes and freezes/force restarts my computer even when not playing a song and just sitting in background. I uninstalled Spotify from my computer a few days ago and it no longer freezes/force restarts which supports the evidence that the Spotify app was the likely cause. I was probably using this version of Spotify (see below) right before I uninstalled it.

Spotify for Windows
1.1.80.699.gc3dac750

If you read this far, thank you. I am now a sad boy listening to Spotify only on my phone which is frustrating because I am usually on my computer with a headset either in video conferences or gaming. Any help/solutions would be greatly appreciated. Thank you again.

[Musiclover000]

Is your computer up to date to check this go to settings and type in the search update. Is you Spotify up to date?

[casti3l]

Yes. My computer and Spotify are both up to date.

[Musiclover000]

ok. thanks. try rebooting your computer bye click windows icon click power icon click restart and see if it happens again. also i would like to move this conversation to my profile if you dont mind?

[casti3l]

Yes, I have restarted my computer and the problem still persists. Also, I do not know how to move this conversation to your profile?

[Musiclover000]

click my profile and hit massage there is not a way to move the hole conversation to my profile and let me look at a few things and i will get back to you.

[Musiclover000]

hey, ok sorry so you have windows 11 wich is very buggy just because it is new so it is most likely a windows issue but i can still help with this if you could move to my profile as it is easier for me and keep your phone nearby just for the day till we figure this out if you dont mind so i can get this solved you can also use my personal email if you would like as i can give it to you when you email me on my profile as it is private but still monitored by spotify. i will also talk to windows developers about this if we pinpoint the problem.

[Thijs0605]

Hey, I'm having the same problem and I was wondering if (and if so, how) you manged to fix the issue. Any help will be greatly appreciated, since I always listen to music when I use my PC. Thanks!

[Jeremy]

Hi there folks,

Thank you for reaching out to the Community. We just came across this thread.

You bot have done an amazing job with the troubleshooting!

@casti3l - can you confirm that you followed the steps that's provided in this article? There's some more steps to help thoroughly uninstall the app from your device, so if you haven't, we'd highly suggest it since the steps will make sure there's no old cache files causing this.

We'll keep an eye out for your reply.

Take care 🙂 

[AZIT]

i also have the same issue here

[Alex]

Hey @AZIT,

Thanks for reaching out about this in the Community!

Can you let us know what troubleshooting you've gone through so far, so that we can offer better advice.

Cheers.

[AZIT]

I think i fixed my issue on both my cellphone and PC by deleting my cache on my computer, it's still gonna take 1-2 day to be sure but so far they seem gone.

before doing so, what i ahd was that my windows would randomly freeze while i had spotify laucnhed (i didn't need to nescecerly be listening to music) and the only to fix this issue would be to completely restart my computer by pressing the power button otherwise it would just load the stopping screen indifinitely.

on my cellphone, it didn't showed the song i was listening to, the only to fix  temporarly was to disconnect and reconnect to spotify, but each time i would want to listen to music i would have to redo it again.

has i said, both seem to have stopped so far since i removed my spotify cache files on my computer for some reason.

[Jeremy]

Hi there @AZIT,

Thank you for your reply and confirmation.

We're super glad to see that everything works as it should for you so that you can enjoy Spotify.

If anything comes up we're always one reply away.

Have a great continued weekend 🙂

Cheers!

[GGVis]

I'm having the same issue. It started happening randomly today, shortly after doing a Disk Cleanup.

I will open Spotify, it stays open for ~10-15 seconds, then crashes. No message, no error, no nothing. The only form of message I can find is in the install directory for Spotify in debug.log is the message:

[0525/161426.872⚠️task_impl.cc(32)] No task runner for threadId 0
[0525/161426.872⚠️task_impl.cc(32)] No task runner for threadId 0

My hosts file has nothing in it, I have done a clean install twice, and this issue has only just appeared within the last hour, so I'm not sure what it could be.

The same issue persists on the regular desktop client and the Microsoft Store client. I am running Windows 11 Pro version 21H2 (22000.675) with Spotify version 1.1.85.895.g2a71e1b8.

[GGVis]

To update to my last post, installing in Safe Mode with Networking allows Spotify to stay open for longer than 15 seconds. It's been open since I tried this and seems to work fine. I will try restarting in normal mode and testing again and respond back.

[GGVis]

Seems to be working for now... hopefully it stays that way. I have no idea what caused it.

[Eni]

Hey @GGVis, 

Thanks for getting in touch about this and sharing what worked for you. 

We're glad to know that it's working as expected now. Give us a shout if it starts misbehaving again; we're always here to help. 

Have a good one!

[Ave2]

Hello! I also having the same issue. I've been reinstalling the app on my desktop and keep on clearing cache. I also did the signing out on all my devices however it still keep on crashing 

[rustrobski]

Hey! This issue persists on my Spotify Desktop App too.

[RetroMaster]

Same issue here, have done clean reinstalls, cleared cache. Downloaded both from windows store and from the website, disabled local files things, disabled hardware acceleration, ran as administrator, ran in compatibility mode.
Spotify is unusable at this point. Will have to look for alternatives i guess