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Saved Songs Becoming Obsolete Versions of the Same Song

Saved Songs Becoming Obsolete Versions of the Same Song

I have a collection of saved songs, like everyone does on Spotify. Every day, I log on to Spotify and start listening, and each day may main playlist queues some songs to download. Each day, a few new songs undergo this problem. The saved song I have in my playlist is no-longer the song that each artist has on their page and it instead the same song stored in a weird phantom album that doesn't appear anywhere other than through the song saved in my playlist. Why does this keep happening? I go to an artists pages and see that I don't have songs saved that I thought I did. I save them again and now they appear twice. It might be when an artist re-uploads a song (to change album art or tags on songs), an artists' page recognizes that it's the same song, and the play count continues upwards, so why doesn't my playlist? The only fix is to manually remove the old version of the song (and remove it from any playlist that I have it in) and then re-save and add to the playlists. This is an horrendous issue that is making me consider just leaving Spotify. New music in my discover weekly or daily mixes are just songs that I dont have saved anymore. Is there a fix? Are Spotify planning on fixing this issue?

An example:

spotify:album:0rRNLpdA8nA8Sm8Fk490b9 https://gyazo.com/8f21e24754af80ab0f3191de227082f8

spotify:album:4bud6XY9UtafCOiYzv2vOl https://gyazo.com/e46695db85adba57a97f0ccc60b7f6cb

 

I use Spotify on my Android 8 phone and on two Windows 10 devices. I run the most up-to-date version of Spotify possible.

 

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8 Replies

Hallo,

 

I have the exact same problem as described above. Really annoying.

 

Fix it Spotify!

Hello @caVV and @eniff,

 

Thanks for searching for the answer you need here. We'll gladly share some light on the situation.

 

The way the app is currently structured, if the same song is uploaded twice, let's say in two different versions of an album, it's recognized as two distinct songs. This has the advantage that if the sound quality was remastered or any changes made between the two releases, users can enjoy them both.

 

It seems also that some other users feel the way you do and  went ahead and posted this idea requesting the feature to consolidate duplicates. You can add your support there by up-voting the idea. We'll inform on any developments there, as soon  as there are any. So make sure to subscribe, if you haven't already. 

 

Hope you find this useful. Keep us posted if you have any questions.

Mihail Moderator
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Hello Mihail

The problem is not with different versions of the song. I can understand keeping different version, for example a song was released in 1960 so it has that version and it has a remastered version from 1990 and a remastered version from 2010. It is logical to keep all of them as they are different and people prefer one over the other.

 

I am talking about the exact same song in the exact same album becoming outdated as it is not listed anywhere, it becomes a ghost album with fewer listen count than the listed album. It may be because the song was replaced with a higher bitrate version or I don't know.

 

The problem is: the song gets replaced on the artist's page (without perceivable difference) BUT it doesn't get replaced in my liked songs. My liked song become outdated and gets demoted into a ghost album.

Screenshot (17).png
Screenshot (18).png

Hello @eniff,

 

Thanks for keeping us in the loop!

 

We can confirm that the issue you're describing is related to the idea @Mihail shared in our previous response. In this case, we'd recommend adding your vote to the idea and following up there for any updates. If possible, you can add the URI for both versions in your post there.

 

Cheers - Let us know if you have any other questions 🙂

XeniaModerator
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Hello Xenia,

 

No, you are wrong, because the thread Mihail linked is a totally different issue. It was about merging songs in one's Liked songs if a song exists as a single and in an album for example. I don't agree with this idea as Single versions of songs usually differ from their album counterparts and they are different entities.

 

I am talking about a BUG in the spotify code that creates ghost albums for absolutely no reason. This bug creates another version of the SAME album or the SAME single which is unlisted and is not findable in any way by anyone except the the user which has this bug. It is very annoying because when after years I go back to an artist's page who I listened to I find that I have not saved his song BUT actually I did, It just doesn't show up because it exists in a ghost album between my liked songs.

 

Look at my screenshots, It is the exact same Single, The exact same entity but one is a ghost album with no listen counts and the other is listed on the artist's page with correct listen count.

Hi again @eniff!

 

Thanks for keeping us in the loop.

 

We can confirm that the issue you're describing is related to the idea we shared in our previous response. In this case, we'd recommend adding your +Vote to the idea and following up there for any updates. If possible, you can add the URI for both versions in your post there.

 

Let us know if you have any other question.

AlexModerator
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You can keep on denying the existence of the bug but it is there. The thread that Mihail linked has other replies discussing the exact same issue/bug I am talking about here. But the Original post of that thread is not connected to this issue so I am not going to vote for that. People have replied to that thread about "shadow albums". That is what I am talking about here. This "shadow album" bug is not connected in any way to the original posters intents.

 

It is 2 completely different topics.

-Original poster:  wants to merge same songs if they were released on more, separate occasions in separate albums or as singles and albums. For example if an artist released an album with a song in 2001, then the artist released the same song on a different album in 2015, the original poster wants them to be merged into a single entity when saving to skip duplicates

 

-Replies connected to "shadow albums": They are showcasing the bug that I am talking about here. The exact same entity, the exact same album or single gets split for some unknown reason creating an unlisted shadow or ghost album only existing in one's liked songs. It is a totally different thing and it is a bug in the spotify code. It is not a missing feature.

 

I am not going to vote for that as the original poster wants a completely different thing.

 

What I am talking about is not a missing feature, it is a bug.

This is infuriating, but you really should just give up. You won't get any response except one from their Cut n' paste list of formula platitudes.

 

I just wrote a rather long post detailing how this forum doesn't actually listen to and help users. Instead it just does it very best to deny the existence of real problems. My post was deleted as SPAM. That says it all really.

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