Solved: Spotify doesn't play

[Jerrett]

I have solved this issue but wanted to post to help people who may be experience a similar issue.

The Problem:

I suddenly was unable to play songs on Spotify. I tried local and streamed tracks - nothing played. The Spotify UI brought up the album information and what not. The seek bar would sit at 0.00 and would not move, and at times no time (0.00) would even show up at all. I tried downgrading which would temporarily illeviate the issue until I restarted Spotify - Then the error message "There is a problem with your soundcard" would appear. Nothing seemed to prevail - Clean installations... Nothing.

The Solution:

I started troubleshooting my soundcard as I determined it since the error message showed up in the previous version that must be the issue. So I started going through my settings on the included software with my soundcard (Asus Xonar Phoebus), then I noticed that the features "GX 3.0 game audio engine and Soundradar" were enabled. I had remembered that Spotify worked find prior to enabling these. I disabled these features and restarted Spotify. Spotify suddenly worked again. I tested Spotify with these features disabled and enabled and showed consistently that Spotify would only work with these features disabled.

In Conclusion:

If you are experiencing similar issues I suggest looking through your settings and ensuring these features are diabled or any unneeded ones are in your soundcard settings as Spotify does not play nice with soundcards trying to mess with it's audio track. To Spotify Developers, I understand you carry a heavy task trying to make your product work with all platforms so I cannot fully blame you. However, please take note of this issue and solve it.

Good luck everyone! 🙂

[Taylor]

Hi,

I never had the issue so can't confirm it, but thanks for posting! It's always appreciated. If any other users who have this issue could try this out that would be great.

Anthony 🙂

[catz64]

Hi,

I've been having the exact same issue with Spotify under my Windows 7 notebook, which is becoming a real issue preventing me to use spotify most times and forcing to go back to other players.

Thank you for taking the time to post the solution you found, Jerret. However, I'm afraid I not able to apply the same fix here, since I cannot access the same or similar configurations with my sound card. I have what seems to be a generic High Definition Audio Device with a Microsoft driver (2009.07.13, ver. 6.1.7600.16385), which is apparently the latest version available. I couldn't find any configuration or settings like the ones you refer, unfortunately, so I'm stuck here.

Anyone, please any advice/suggestions?

Best regards

[Peter__]

What version of Windows are you using?

[catz64]

Hi Peter,

Windows 7 64bit SP1

[Peter__]

Are you getting the "there is an issue with your soundcard" error message or does content just refuse to play?

[catz64]

In reality I never got any soundcard error.

Spotify just refuses to play. I can navigate the application, browse contents, when press play, the song doesn't play and the progress bar just doesn't move or even doesn't show any marker in it.

I must also say that this issue doesn't just happen all the time. Most times, when I freshly start Spotify, it works fine and play songs, but eventually it stops after some time. Some times, closing and reopening the application may solve the issue, some times it doesn't.

[Peter__]

Are any of the tracks you are having issues with local files which you have stored on your computer (and appear in the "Local Files" tab inside Spotify)?

[catz64]

The issue is independent of the location of files, either local or online via streaming.

[catz64]

Hi,

I recently found out that, when spotify is suffering from this issue, it can be fixed by logging out and logging in to my spotify account.

Hope this may help pinning down the issue.

[sharpie95]

Ok so I had the same exact problem but as I was reading this post I relized that its only songs that i previously had on itunes before  and when i deleted all of the songs on itunes via the itunes folder everything worked and i could listed to all of my favoite songs on spoitify So to all those with this problem and dont feel like messing with sound cards try this solution first because it is a lot faster

[garionh]

ah HA!

Yup, this is exactly the pattern (I cannot believe I did not notice this commonality!).

Every track I have in my iTunes library, Spotify will not play. I'd rather not delete files, but presumably, there's a way to de-link from Spotify...

{time passes}

Yes, there is. (for Win7), Edit, Preferances, Local Files, un-check each source

Spotify can play these tracks immeadiately now. Huzzah.

[Peter__]

Installing Apple Quicktime should do the trick if iTunes content won't play.

[slungge]

i just restarted spotify and it worked 🙂

[PlatinumRain]

Wow thank you for posting this and finding the problem, I have been looking for this problem for forever lol.

[queenkittykat]

This worked for me! Months of trying to figure out why certain songs would not play... I disconnected from iTunes and everything plays now. Thank you! This was driving me insane.