Spotify Windows 10 desktop app recently starting crashing.

[Earththing]

Plan

Premium

Country

USA

Device

Homebuilt Desktop Computer

Operating System

Windows 10

My Question or Issue

This whole week (today is 5/14 and I first noticed the issue on 5/10) Spotify will start playing a song and then just go away. (it crashes) nothing else on my computer is affected. I have checked for and installed the latest windows updates, I have uninstalled and re-installed Spotify. I have rebooted and tried with very little else running. It works great on other devices. I have even played Spotify on other devices and controlled it on my desktop computer. The desktop app crashes, but the other devices play on. I had not made any changes to my windows computer before this started as I was running a long calculation (more than a week) and did not want to stop it. But as this was frustrating me, I stopped that calculation, re-booted, and tried again. Still same issue... then all the other troubleshooting steps above.

[CarlosE]

Hi there @Earththing,

Thanks for reaching out about this here in the Community.

Try heading to the app's Settings and toggle the option Local Files on > toggle off all the sources that appear there > toggle Local Files back off.

This should do the trick. Keep us posted on how it goes 🙂

[Giorgio8]

HI,

I'm having the same issue, my computer works perfectly fine yet the desktop app won't launch on request and crash. 

I tried the clean re-install (even in safe mode) and all the stuff I read on another posts. Nothing worked.

The only thing that works for me right now is to re-install each time I turn on my pc. When I do that I can use spotify perfectly, yet is horrible to keep reinstallig each day.

I hope this is some kind of software-related problem that can be fixed. 

[Giorgio8]

HI,

THANK YOU SIR, THIS WORKS.

I've been hitting dead ends with this problem for 5 days long, this actually works.

Thanks 🙂

[Alex]

Hey @Giorgio8,

Thanks for reaching out in the Community and letting us know what has worked for you.

Don't hesitate to get back to us if you have questions or need help with anything.

Cheers.

[NinjaChimp]

I had resigned myself to reinstalling Spotify from the Store every time I rebooted PC until I saw this. I had just come to post the issue which I've had for a couple of weeks. I had assumed it was just an issue for me as I didn't find anything when searching previously.

It didn't matter if I did a clean install, installed app from store or from exe. Without fail, as soon as I closed Spotify, the next time I opened it, it would crash after a few minutes.

Local files toggle as suggested seems to have worked for me, thank you! It makes some sense why it takes a few minutes before crashing as presumably it is attempting to scan files in the background. It's not a feature I use so a not sure why it started crashing out of the blue. I can't think of what changed, other than a background app update.

[Alex]

Hey @NinjaChimp,

Thanks for your confirmation.

We've passed this feedback on to the relevant team at Spotify who're looking into this.

Cheers.

[Earththing]

I did not have local file on in the first place but while I started Spotify to check it just crashed before I could try that toggle anyway.

[Earththing]

Sorry it took so long for me to respond. I did not know that there was any answer. I am glad your solution works for others, but that is not my issue. In my situation was really odd just suddenly one day it stopped playing more than 1 song, and often not even that. No known changes. 

But since then updated windows, and Uninstall/reinstall Spotify a few times still no help. I only today found the suggestion to use the web player and that seems to be working which is good as I was ready to cancel my family subscription. So Spotify is not yet loosing me as a subscriber. Still I would like to solve this!

[Novy]

Hey @Earththing, 

Thanks for getting back to us. Not to worry, we'll be happy to continue with the help.

Just to confirm, did you make sure to follow these exact steps when reinstalling the app? This is more thorough than a regular reinstall and can be helpful to get rid of any cache that might be causing trouble.

If you've downloaded the app directly from our website, could you give it a try downloading it from the Microsoft Store and vice versa?

Let us know how it goes.

[Earththing]

I followed those steps closely and was able to play 1 1/2 songs before it crashed. When it crashes, it just goes away/closes. There is no error.

[Novy]

Hi @Earththing, 

Thanks for keeping us in the loop. 

Would you mind giving these steps a try in order to check your host files? 

Also, remember to let us know if it happens when downloading the app both from the Microsoft Store and our website. 

We'll be on the lookout.

[Earththing]

Right, both the Windows store and Direct download. I was pretty sure I tried them both before, but to be sure I did this all again. Through uninstall, reboot, reinstall and test. Then when it fails, do this again with the other download. This happens with either one.

I looked at my hosts file and there is no conflicting entries. I even checked some backup hosts. The only uncommented IP address are on the local subnet and don't reffrences Spotify or fastly. 

[Novy]

Hi again @Earththing, 

Thanks for this info!

We understand that the app simply closes without any error message. However, it would be helpful to have a video or a screen recording where we can see this. It will help us investigate further. 

You can send a link to it or attach it using the Insert Video option in the post editor. 

Keep us posted.

[Earththing]

Grr... The upload video option seems buggy. It does not like my video no matter the setting but the link works. Lets try this: https://youtu.be/RqIYGGqEjvk

You can see I start Spotify and about 4min later it crashes. I was not doing anything on the computer and Spotify was not even playing a song.

[Novy]

Hey @Earththing, 

Thanks for getting back to us with this info. 

We'd like to suggest a few more things just to cover the basics. If possible, could you try this on a different computer?

Also, let us know the exact app version you're currently running. 

We'll be right here.

[Earththing]

The version that crashed is: 1.1.59.714.g7e040462-a
I will work on finding another computer that I can try it on. I suspect it is just *this* computers situation, but I don't know what changed from before the crashes to when they started. There have been a BUNCH changed since as I have tried to troubleshoot. Even if it is just my main/everyday/all day computer that has the issue, others may have a similar situation. I do know it works with the web player, amazon echo devices, I *think* I have played it on my android phone (not sure)

I'll get back to you if I can find another computer that I can try this with for a while.

[Novy]

Hi @Earththing, 

Thanks for your reply. 

Another thing you could try is reinstalling the app in Safe mode to see if you notice any difference. 

Keep us posted on how it goes.

[Earththing]

I was able to find another computer and it worked fine as I suspected. I tried installing Spotify in safe-mode and it stayed open a long time with out crashing. Then when I rebooted to non-safe-mode, it crashed very quickly after opening. Does Spotify do any logging while it is running? Something like that could be pretty helpful in trouble shooting issues like this.

[CarlosE]

Hey @Earththing,

Thanks for bearing with us.

We'd like to confirm if you could try the Local Files toggle suggestion. Keep in mind that even if it's already toggled off, the app might be scanning for Local files in the background if there are any selected sources. You just need to toggle Local Files on and toggle off all the sources that will appear there. Then, toggle Local Files back off.

Let us know how you get on.