Random pausing with "can't play the current song" error message

[DrBunker]

I realise there are a million posts about this error but I've been through dozens of them and none seem to reflect my specific issue.

Essentially, I can happily listen to a number of songs without issue but every now and again a song will "pause" with the error message in the title. If I skip the track forward it will start playing again. Sometimes I have to skip it 20 second, sometimes 5 seconds is enough. I've just had one track (over 7 minutes long) which paused twice.

Additionally, when I skip back to the start of the song when it's finished it doesn't pause in the same place. This doesn't happen when I stream Spotify using a device like Alexa so it appears to be a desktop only issue.

I've turned off/on Hardware Acceleration, turned off/on high quality streaming and I've reinstalled more than once.

Does anyone have any idea why this might be happening and/or have any idea how to fix it?

Thanks in advance.

Windows 10 64bit, 16gb RAM

[Sebasty]

Hey @DrBunker

I suggest trying out the clean reinstall (which will replace all Spotify files)

1. Close Spotify and uninstall it.

2. Go to %AppData% in Windows Explorer, and delete any Spotify folders you find in Local and Roaming folders.

3. Restart your computer.

4. Now reinstall Spotify.

This error may reflect possible soundcard / driver issues, so I suggest installing available Windows updates as well. 🙂

Keep me posted!

[DrBunker]

Wrong thread, methinks! 

[DrBunker]

---

@Sebasty wrote:

Hey @DrBunker

I suggest trying out the clean reinstall (which will replace all Spotify files)

1. Close Spotify and uninstall it.

2. Go to %AppData% in Windows Explorer, and delete any Spotify folders you find in Local and Roaming folders.

3. Restart your computer.

4. Now reinstall Spotify.

This error may reflect possible soundcard / driver issues, so I suggest installing available Windows updates as well. 🙂

Keep me posted!

---

Thanks for your initial suggestion. I've followed your steps (I've done this before as well) and having made it all the way through one album, it stopped half way through the first track on the next one.

I'm not sure it can be a hardware issue given that it physically pauses Spotify each time.

[Sebasty]

@DrBunker

If the issue returns, you can try disabling hardware acceleration too. 🙂

Click on the three dots in Spotify - View - Hardware Acceleration. The client will restart itself.

Hope that helps!

[DrBunker]

Tried that... it's fair to say it didn't help! Now I'm getting these error messages when trying to open Spotify. I haven't installed any new programmes or reset my machine since I installed it earlier.

[Sebasty]

@DrBunker

Well that's an unexpected result!

It's possibly easiest to uninstall Spotify by doing that:

1. Close Spotify and uninstall it.

2. Go to %AppData% in Windows Explorer, and delete any Spotify folders you find in Local and Roaming folders.

3. Restart your computer.

..and installing Spotify using the offline installer.

Keep me posted 🙂