Podcasts Not Playing

[mxfaiman]

Plan

Premium

Country

USA

Device

Web Player (Chrome, Windows 7)

My Question or Issue

Podcasts aren't playing on the web player. I click the play button and nothing happens. I have tried several of my podcasts and none of them are working. Music and Music playlists are working just fine. The issue is only with podcasts. This has been going on for a 2 days. I have cleared my browser cache, restarted the browser , & updated Chrome. (I have not restarted the PC yet, not sure if that would make a difference.)

Any help would be appreciated as I miss listening to podcasts while I work on the computer. Everything is working fine for me on my Android App. Also this is a work PC so I'd rather not download the desktop app as I need the space on my hard drive. Also my work doesn't have a firewall that blocks any of Spotify's connections.

[Suleymantekin]

Same and it doesn't play more than one episode, this has got to be fixed

[Suleymantekin]

And it only plays the podcast that you selected and the very first episode of it, and it's irritating.

[Suleymantekin]

And unfortunately this isn't only on the PC, the same problem also shows up on my iPad. 😞

[Suleymantekin]

This must be a bug dude, you can now no longer relisten to all of the episodes unless if that episode isn't completely played or something, like for god's sake can we fix this right now??

[Novy]

Hey folks,

Thank you for reaching out to the Community.

To investigate this further, we'll need as much information as possible. Could you try to play a podcast from the Web Player in a private/incognito window? You could also give it a try using a different browser to see if it makes any difference.

@Suleymantekin, can you confirm in your if you’ve followed the troubleshooting steps mentioned in the original post?

We'll be on the lookout for your next response.

[mxfaiman]

The problem still exists in Incognito mode. The only other browser I have is internet explorer which isn't supported by the web player. 

I will say while in incognito mode I tried listening to a podcast while not signed in and that was working. The problem only came back once I signed in.

Also I did a restart of my computer as well and that changed nothing (as I thought it would).

I will try my personal PC tonight and see if I have the same problem there as well when I am signed in.

[OscarDC]

Hey @mxfaiman,

Thank you for your message.

To keep investigating this issue, we'd like to know if you have a VPN active on your PC. If that’s the case, deactivate it to check if it makes any difference. Also, try to log in to the Web Player on your mobile device and let us know if the issue persists.

Lastly, as the podcast plays normally when you're logged out from the Web Player, would you mind checking if it happens with a different account.? It could be a friend or familiar account.

In case you don't have any other account available, you can create a free test account with a different email here.

We'll be waiting for your response to help you further.

[mxfaiman]

I do not have a VPN on my work computer or my home network / personal computer.
I have just tried the web player on my personal PC (windows 10, Chrome) also (windows 10, firefox) and the same issue occurs with both browsers.

I had my wife login to her account on my computer and everything was working just fine in Chrome. So I think the issue is isolated directly to my account.

I tried to use the web player on my phone but it kept taking me directly to the spotify app, which everything works fine for me in the android app. Also, I have the spotify desktop application installed on my personal PC (windows 10) and everything is working just fine in that as well. So not sure why the web player causes issues.

[Eni]

Hey @mxfaiman, 

Thanks for your reply. 

This seems to be account related indeed. In this case, you can create a new account on the link @OscarDC sent previously and check if the podcasts play fine in the web player using that account. If so, you can transfer your content to the new account by following the steps in this article to keep your favorite music and playlists always with you. If you have an active subscription currently, make sure to cancel it first and then you can re-subscribe on the new account.

Keep us posted on how it goes.

[mxfaiman]

Well that was not the type of solution I was hoping for. Creating a new account seems like more of a headache then a help to me. As I have 1 email address that I want my account tied to, and it is currently in use by my current account.

There clearly seems to be an issue with the web player and certain accounts. Which the issue only appeared recently (possibly some update) and just abandoning my account seems like a lame solution. Thank you for the help / support, but I guess I'll just live without my podcasts on the web player. Or at least until the developers find the issue and address it.

Thanks.

[Suleymantekin]

@mxfaiman This issue is still there unfortunately... I am waiting for those people to solve this before it is too late...

[Kiril]

Hey there @mxfaiman and @Suleymantekin,

Thanks for your replies here.

We understand where you're coming from and how this could be a frustrating user experience. Unfortunately we weren't able to replicate this situation on our end and therefore we can't promise you a dedicated solution for this. Still we can suggest you few more things here. For instance to check and ensure that you don't have any browser extensions or plugins that might be interfering with the web-player, including ad- or tracking-blockers. It's worthwhile to also see if the toggle for the 'Digital Rights Management' (DRM) content playback is enabled in your browser's settings. Below are steps how to check this for the Chrome browser:

1. Go to chrome://settings/content
2. Scroll down to the bottom of the page and click on Protected Content
3. Click the toggle button so it says "Allow sites to play protected content (recommended)"

If none of the above helps, we recommend falling back to the dedicated app, although we are aware some devices cannot run it or there might be other reasons for you not wanting to use it.

Hope this helps. If you have any questions or need anything else, the Community is here for you.

[Bil3ygr]

I discovered that I'm facing the same issue as well. I did what the solution was and that was check if podcasts were playable on an alt account. Turns out, they were. So now it it apparently account related and the only solution offered is to create a new account.

Which is a pretty big hassle, as I've had this one for many years and all my stats and listening time is stored here. Not to mention transferring data is still not very fun business. 

Just wondering if anything else works. I'd rather live without podcasts on the web browser than create a brand new account.

[bellumdiligo]

I recently on my phone app i put the settings to hide explicit content.

After a few days the web player updated to my phone settings.

But i also noticed that all my  podcasts are unplayable. This is the only thing I can think of is that setting. It also may be, but unlikely your company may block thru there firewall explicit content. 

Just a thought. Hope this helps.  -10-28-2022

[stellabrickroad]

Wait - the only solution to this is for every single Spotify user experiencing this (which seems to be a lot) has to now create a new account to fix it?  That's not a fix.