Help Wizard

Step 1

NEXT STEP

FAQs

Please see below the most popular frequently asked questions.

Loading article...

Loading faqs...

VIEW ALL

Ongoing Issues

Please see below the current ongoing issues which are under investigation.

Loading issue...

Loading ongoing issues...

VIEW ALL

Horrible new desktop update

Horrible new desktop update

Looks like the desktop application changed drastically, and not only it all looks bad, with smaller covers and worst quality, but it also became pathetic for navigation. Before this horrendous update I was able to access everything I wanted on a band page right in the top. I could directly access the tabs for related band and information. Now it's on the bottom of the page. It is completely ridiculous. Clearly designed by someone that never used Spotify.

Oh! And btw... the artist information now appears on a pop up window! LOL! what a trash!

 

Plan

Premium

Country

 

Device

Laptop

Operating System

Windows 10

 

My Question or Issue

I'd like to install the older version and completely block future updates. Where can I find the older version? 

Reply
21 Replies

It's awful, isn't it. Worst update I've seen. 

 

The Android update isn't great either. It used to be so fast and snappy, it now feels a bit clunky. 


I've reverted to an older version on my desktop and blocked all future updates. However, I'm using Linux, not Windows - I sympathise with your issue, and I hope someone can sort it out for you because seriously, the latest update on more than one platform is pretty bad.

Right!

 

New version is not useful! Please bring back the old version or at least give us an option to select which version we want. Friends activity is gone. Following/follower is gone. List cover view is huge, unnecessary screen design. Not useful. Sorry. I have been using Spotify and have a premium account since the beginning! And for the first time, I have to write a complaint! 

The search bar! Where did that go?!

At least they could use this new horrendous version to free users and let the premium users to use the old interface. This new user interface is so awful that probably they would get a lot of new premium user to avoid it. I have this trash paid until the end of the year, and this update feels like a fraud. I should be able to use what I paid for, at least until the end of my paid subscription. Basically we paid for a service that we enjoyed and a couple of months late they destroy everything with an useless, incompetent an utterly ugly interface. I noticed that even the covers are starting to be less squared, like most of new trashy interfaces. 😕 Everything is horrible in this new update. I really can't understand this constant obsession of changing what is working and well.

In my recent years of using Spotify I have learned how not to run the latest version if needs be. On my desktop I am running an old version, on my laptop too, and on both I have blocked any updates. This is possible because of the way Linux works. 

 

On Windows, will it just automatically download the new update? Is there no way to prevent this? Surely there are websites out there which have older .exe files, or do these executables just pull in the newer version?

The only way I know is blocking Spotify on firewall, but I guess it would stop play music too. They really need to let user block updates.

PLEASE!!! Revert the last update! This thing is a total and absolute trash! It is unbearable. At least let premium user chose the version to use. I'm stuck with the desktop version 1.1.58.820.g2ae50076-a and it is HORRENDOUS! HORRENDOUS! HORRENDOUS!

I agree. Search bar gone, Radio button gone, some play buttons dont interact with hover over. Clearly a step back in time.

Would it be wrong of me to point out that certain other competitors have a nicer interface and offer higher quality audio?

Hi there folks,

 

Thank you for your posts and feedback.

 

We're always testing things by adding or removing features to make Spotify better overall and we’re constantly aiming to improve our features. We’re sorry that this means you’re not able to use Spotify like you wish to do at the moment.

 

In this case we suggest that you head over to this thread to leave your feedback, as we're going through that thread and take your feedback into consideration. 

 

Once again - thanks for the feedback, we appreciate it. Let us know if we can help you with anything else. 

 

Take care!

JeremyModerator
Help others find this answer and click "Accept as Solution".
If you appreciate my answer, maybe give me a Like.
Live, love, laugh and listen to music 🙂

At this point I don't even trust that this will get better. I just want to know how to revert this trash and block all future updates. At your end you should fire the interface designers that destroyed your desktop application and revert the update. Nothing good will come from this horrible update. Meanwhile I just noticed that the search is a button now, a thing that was always ready, now is a button. Every change you did was a stupid and incompetent change. Nothing is better now and even the overall visual aspect is now hideous. Just revert it or let us revert this and block future updates. I have the premium update paid until the end of this year and I didn't pay for this. I should be able to use the desktop application in the way the service was sold to me.

I had hoped that today's update will bring some improvement and some features are back (e.g. global search box).

It's still a terrible update, poor performance, clumsy to use, not very intuitive (but neither was the previous version). I've been using Spotify for years now, since version 0.8, which was a rudimentary copy of iTunes back then, but fast and mature above all.

Until today I miss search for a title on the artist page, compact views, etc..

What is the idea behind this GUI? The user is only deprived of functions without any real added value or where should the journey to the desktop client go? Some thought will have gone into this GUI by a company like Spotify, right?

Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version)

If you want to get the old UI back (because it's useless to ask for anything in their feedback thread, they couldn't care less about feedback from their users), you can add  ui.experience_override="classic" line to the prefs file (just add it at the end of the file with a text editor) that's located on your User/AppData/Roaming/Spotify or User/AppData/Local/Spotify folder.

This will not work anymore sice the last update. pref-File overwriten on restart

Well it still works for me so far !

I don't care if they change the look of Spotify to please the people again IF IF IF: YOU KEEP ALBUM ART NEXT TO SONGS AND KEEP THE NUMBER OF PLAYS INSTEAD OF A POPULARITY METER FOR SONGS please for the love of god these features are such an improvement..

Tidal. I've been with Spotify since the Beta days. I was there for the 'amazingness,' and eager-to-please service. Then I was there when the competition started arriving. Spotify didn't even bat an eye. They were miles ahead.

 

I stayed with Spotify, even as their competitors clocked rapid improvements - narrowing the innovation gap. Spotify didn't so much as lift a finger to address the UI complaints (it was crappy way back then). Instead, while other services were making strides to improve, Spotify would drop a bunch of **bleep** that didn't work, or that they wouldn't support six months later. And every week you could chart the unrest and complaints about the piddy UI. We even went through a period where Spotify was double billing some of us who added an iPad (and required AppleID - gotcha!) for months. And after moaning and moping and pretending for months, they deigned to award us 6months premium gift certificates. But a better UI? Not possible. And I was one of the mugs that stayed. I'm so embarrassed.

 

And now, after all the uproar for so long (everybody hated the old interface), last month they actually put their clown car in reverse gear and delivered an even worse UI. I'm going to Tidal. I've shadow-played them for a few weeks. They're good. much better UI, some spectacular content, a bit less of what I didn't listen to anyway - and their customer relations are excellent compared. They are a bit more expensive, depending on the subscription. And they are owned by artists - so at least some of ther money is getting to the right place. Tidal.

Thanks, I'll give Tidal a try then, and see how it compares to this dying Spotify !
Do you know if there's a way to export/import our Playlists maybe, so we don't have to redo everything ?

 

EDIT : Yes we can, and it seems really simple : https://tidal.com/import-playlist

So, yes, it seems that with the new update they prevented us from modifying the prefs file, so we can't go back to the old UI.

Imagine a dev team beeing so upset, butthurt and pathetic that their main concern was to come up with an update just to annoy their users as much as possible  🙂

Suggested posts