Pictures not showing/loading in Discover or for users

[nihie]

As you can see from the attached files, pictures are not showing/loading in my Spoify for users or on the Discover page. It does show for artists, and the albums covers also. 

I've tried logging in and out, disconnecting and reconnecting to Facebook, but it didn't help. It's been like this through several Spotify updates. Any suggestions as to how I can solve this?

Edit: I'm using W7and a proxy.

[EvilPuppetMaste]

I've been having this issue via my work proxy for a long time. It didn't bother me much before because it only really affected the Discover page, however since the recent update there are a whole lot of buttons that must be using images which haven't downloaded, so I have no idea what the buttons are supposed to be. It seriously effects the usability.

It seems to me this is likely to be a problem with Spotify itself, since music and other data still download, and even some images such as the now playing album cover work OK. There is something different about the way Spotify is downloading these images that either makes them bypass the proxy, or perhaps they have invalid headers or something that the proxy filters out.

Spotify, please fix your bug!

[Kazakhstine]

Yeah man I'm having the same issue. Browse, Discover, Radio, Messages etc. are all just big black empty voids for me too. I'm connecting from home and tried turning my proxy off to no avail, help would be wonderful!

[Eddy555]

I've raised a support request with Spotify, let's see if I get anything back from them.

[Joe]

@Kazakhstine Could you try the solution I posted here please?

[rwarner]

I'm also using a proxy and have the same exact issues. With the latest update on Spotify tons of buttons don't load and almost all the artwork everywhere doesn't load.

@jwylot I tried executing the command: 

%APPDATA%\Spotify\spotify.exe --disable-accelerated-layers --disable-accelerated-fixed-root-background

But that didn't help unfortunately. Still have everything not loading correctly. It's always been an issue with utilizing the proxy feature under preferences.

[Eddy555]

I had a response from Spotify support (Interestingly based in the UK) asking for more information, I've given them all the info I have including the screenshots. Now awaiting a response.

[Eddy555]

I've had a reply, but it's not much use

Spotify doesn't officially support the use of Proxies and using a Proxy can result in issues like what you are seeing. 

What I can suggest is that you update both your Flash and Java to the latest versions and then run a clean reinstall of Spotify.

If you continue to have these issues then the only solution we have is to connect directly to Spotify instead of through a proxy and this should fix the problem.

I've followed this up with some more questions.

[Rayman2200]

Yeah, instead of using a proxy, just switching to a directly connection is the solution. This is the best solution I've ever heard. If this would be so easy, no one would badger the support.

Thanks for posting this response from the support. I have another solution, just switching the service is much easier 😉 

[Nordmann]

or just use https://play.spotify.com/ instead of installing the client at all...

The Discover Page works there as intended (of course) but i think you cant get the high bitrate as within the client.

Sorry Spotify but ur client support is horrible, or better say: non-existent!?

[Eddy555]

Unfortunately the web player doesn't work either, and I've not worked out why that is yet, it just sits there trying to connect.

[Nordmann]

@Eddy555

You seem to have an even more restrictive proxy then, for the webplayer you need at least HTTPS Connect permissions.

The still unresolved (and even from spotify side completely uncommented/ignored) problem of this thread is that the Discover page in the Spotify Client doesnt use the specified proxy for loading images.

Regards,

N0rd

[Eddy555]

No reply back from Spotify yet.

I've done a little more investigation.

With the use of CurrPorts I can see what ports Spotify is trying to use.

When the proxy is in use it only seems to access the remote port 80, which is fine.

However when I use a direct connection to the Internet with no proxy then the remote port 443 is also used, and you can see a lot of traffic on that port for all the images it downloads.

I'm not sure if Spotify is trying to access that port and failing because it's blocked or if it just doesn't try at all.

I'll see what I can find out from our network admin about the proxy.

[sedatcans]

i also have the same problem. I am behind my  companies proxy. Older version was working correctly. Not loaded images and other things is annoying. I think spotify is using different ports while connecting to music and pictures. We need an update....

[deannnnn]

Same problem here. My work computer is behind a proxy. 

[JAMI3D0DG3R]

I am getting the same issue with this on Mac OS  X 10.9 and version 0.9.8.296.g91f68827. I am behind a proxy at work which I actaully manage so I have been playing. Seemingly once you click the proxy setting on in the Spoficy app is becomes unable to load images which leads me to think there is an issue with the application. We tested this on a Windows 8.1 PC using the autodetect proxy and did manage to get the images to load but had all sorts of issues with it.

It would be good if spotify could sort this.

[chrisnes]

If you continue to have these issues then the only solution we have is to connect directly to Spotify instead of through a proxy and this should fix the problem.

Please tell me this is a joke?

I'm having the same issue btw..

[LoveYouDespise]

Seems very strange that the songs themselves can stream through a defined proxy socket, but not the images/artwork etc. And weirdly, the lower-left-corner album art for the currently playing song works, just fine.

This leads me to believe someone goofed in their coding and didn't do a check for if (PROXY) for the image loading logic, even though the functionality is there.

[Eddy555]

I'm stuck with this as Spotify support seem unable to properly understand the issue or confirm that their developers can fix it.

The idea that I can use a direct connection on a corporare network is no answer at all, it's just not an option. We don't have control over our IT department's setup, and I highly doubt we could even use a direct connection anyway.

The last response I've had is

"Although I may have to return to my colleagues answer that we don't particularly support proxies in the use of Spotify, as we can't promise that the service can be particularly stable when using the service. 

If you can test it with additional access to port 443, then that might indeed work. Otherwise, we'd recommend reverting to a direct connection. "

I'm sure it's not access on my proxy that's the problem but the poor implementation of the proxy setup in Spotify that doesn't correctly redirect the images through the proxy.

While Spotify keep dodging the issue by saying they don't support proxies, surely this one item would be simple to fix?

Who knows.

Anyway I've had to stop using the PC desktop app as it also seems to be causing my PC to BSOD!

The quality of the PC app is pretty disappointing really.

[og_wolf3D]

@Eddy555 Thanks for following this up with Spotify support. From what I have read on this forum I have come to the following conclusions:

• Spotify streams music and loads some images using http (port 80)

• Other content including images for the discover page is loaded via https (port 443) presumably for security reasons

• When the proxy settings are entered http traffic is routed via the proxy.

• https traffic is never routed via the proxy even when a proxy has been configured

Given these issues the fix would be:

• Modify the settings screen to allow the user to configure their http proxy AND https proxy (which may have a different host name or require different credentials) OR use the system configured proxies

• Route the https traffic via the configured https proxy if it is set

I hope that makes sense. Depending on how the networking code in Spotify has been written this could be a small or large amount of work for their developers. Unfortunately it seems Spotify doesn't want to acknowledge this is an issue let alone devote time and resources to fixing the problem for their users. Instead they have changed the UI so it is even less usable (unusable?) by people behind a proxy.

[Eddy555]

Yep, that sounds like a good summary to me. I've checked out network config and port 443 is open. The ball is in Spotify's court to fix their software.