[SOLVED] SERIOUS problems with the Spotify Windows desktop app

[qat]

SOLUTION: I fixed my issue by removing Spotify-related entries from my hosts file. I'm assuming they were added there to bypass ad servers -- no idea how they got there, though.

Plan

Free

Country

USA

Device

Desktop PC

Operating System

Windows 10 (version 1803, OS build 17134.523) 

My Question or Issue

 For the past several weeks, I have been experiencing the following issues in the Spotify Desktop app:

• Playing a song I've never heard before doesn't work. I click the Play button, and it turns into a Pause button (as though the song is playing), but the song never starts and the timer just sits there at "0:00."
• Searching for playlists returns results, but many of these playlists show no songs at all or are completely empty. For example, I search for "Swing" and click on Playlists. There is a playlist Swing Revival curated by Spotify. I click on the playlist and it says "This playlist is currently empty." Some other playlists show only a song or two.
• Click on Radio, I get "Error - Failed to load."
• My Discover Weekly playlist has 5 songs in it. Usually it has 30+.
• Uninstalling and reinstalling seems to work UNTIL the computer is restarted. Then, all of the above problems occur again.
• I am running the latest version of Spotify.

[KMOX4]

I cant fix this, As notepad wont load as a admin.

[user-removed]

I'm in the same boat, except I updated to 1.1.0.237.g378f6f25.  Now all search results are missing, and I can't even click on icons to play them.  Nothing works!  How is this possible, Spotify?!

[militonius]

Simply go to your C:\Windows\System32\drivers\etc directory,

copy the hosts file to your desktop,

open it with notepad,

delete any entry having to do with spotify,

save and replace the file in the directory above.

[Marcoocrammarco]

I love you!

[ghillo1998]

**bleep** Thanks! I had the same problem.

[sirdaws]

Thank you so much! You've honestly saved me so much hassle

[TheCommander]

Big thanx to you! I have tried everything but this file yet! Now all works again! Thx!!

[jacoblivianu]

God Bless your soul sir