Spotify can't play this right now. If you have the file on your computer you can import it

[lukaswil]

Plan

Premium

Country

UK

Device

Desktop

Operating System

Windows 10

My Question or Issue

When I try to play a song I get the following error message "Spotify can't play this right now. If you have the file on your computer you can import it"

I have tried all the fixes I have seen:

Reinstalling app.

Using version from Microsoft store.

Disabled hardware acceleration.

Disabled crossfading.

Changed speaker options.

Deleted local files.

I've had this issue before and it was fixed by using the version from the Microsoft store but this isn't working now.

Spotify works on my phone and my laptop, web player also works only the desktop app doesn't work.

[lukaswil]

Hey everyone,

Thank you for sharing your solutions! We've shared them with the team investigating this 🙏

In the meantime, we have an Ongoing Issues thread on the topic where we'll keep you folks posted as soon as we have any updates, check it out 👍

Cheers!

[itsgary4lives]

it would say "Spotify can't play this right now." Any way to fix this?
I also can't check out albums, playlists, and profiles.

[roguexlr]

Plan

Premium Family

Country

Australia

Device

Windows PC

Operating System

Windows 10 64 Bit

Build Version
1.2.50.335.g5e2860a8

My Issue:

So for the past 6 months I've been constantly getting the "Content Not Available" error whenever I try to use spotify to play songs that are not downloaded on my PC. My mobile devices all work fine. I've tried multiple troubleshooting steps and I still cannot get a workaround for this frustrating issue. It's boiling down to a program coding issue and not anything to do with my machine. I've listed my troubleshooting steps below. I notice that whenever I restart my machine spotify works fine for about 30mins or so and then the error comes up which is incredibly annoying.

Troubleshooting steps attempted:

- Restarting machine

- Uninstalling and reinstalling the program through both Microsoft Store and direct download from the Spotify website

- Reset internet settings

- Restarted wifi modem

- Turned firewall permissions on and off

- Logged out and logged back in (sometimes it results in error codes when authenticating the login, again really stupid and nothing to indicate why this error is occuring)

- Turned explicit mode on and off

- Turned offline mode on and off

- Changed password

I've tried all these steps and I'm still getting this really annoying error which is seemingly not being caused by anything aside from the app having a buggy code. Please someone guide me to what the **bleep** is going on.

[terracottatunes]

I'm on a Chromebook, and whenever I go to the Spotify web player, all it says is "Something went wrong." I can only play songs (not albums, artists, or playlists) that I search up or whatever song I was playing before I went on the website. If I try to play a playlist/album/artist it'll give me an error message. (ex: If I try to play an album, it says "Couldn't find that album") I've updated my computer, restarted it, logged in and out of Spotify, and cleared my cache but nothing has worked to get rid of the message. If anyone has a possible solution to this, I would really appreciate it! Thank you.

[tomato_eater]

I have the same problem on and off on the web player (I'm on spotify premium). This is increasingly frustrating and am already thinking of ditching the service.

[McPhersonTrk]

Spotify won't play on PC after Update to LibreOffice v24.8.3

Plan

Premium-family

Country

USA

Device

Dell Precision 7290

Operating System

Windows 11

My Question or Issue:

I updated LibreOffice to the latest version 24.8.3, while listening to the Spotify Desktop App. When the system rebooted and I went to restart Spotify. I get a warning: Spotify Can't Play this right now.

Spotify plays on my phone, tablet and on the browser. All other programs with audio are functioning. I can play and control the audio on my phone from the Desktop App but not through my PC's Audio devices.  it's not the sound, the music fails to start completely.

[plath]

wow it's been 3 weeks and web player is still unusable

[rafaello888]

Plan

Premium

Poland

Device

PC

Operating System

Windows 10 64-bit

 Issue

Spotify cannot load any song/podcast from audio (video option is working)

After 3 hours of chatting with support, I found a solution 🙂

Can be that your speaker device has chosen somehow (don't ask me how, maybe Windows Update changed something in the settings) a different default format of sound...

steps to do: 1) go to Windows settings  / Sound / Voice control pannel / right click on your default speaker / Advanced / change to at least 24bit / 44100 kHz and the issue should gone forever, cheers

[localgothgirl]

Plan

Premium

Country

USA

Device

App (PC)

Operating System

Windows 10

My Question or Issue

I keep getting the "spotify can't play this right now" error. it's also changed my username to be a full string of random letters/numbers and icon to be the default, but re-logging in fixed this. It still won't let me play anything. clearing cache, re-logging in, re-installing, and trying to change output devices haven't fixed this. it's been days now and I'm getting really frustrated as I use the app while I'm gaming

[jay-juniper]

This has just happened today but I find can play anything on Spotify via my Alexa devices, either by diverting output from the PC app (Windows 10) or asking the Alexa devices directly. Windows 10 arm-wrestling Spotify maybe?

[terracottatunes]

This was suddenly fixed yesterday.

[rafaello888]

well, maybe after my fighting with support for good 3 hours...

[terracottatunes]

whether it was you or not, thanks for your contribution lol

[stcrmiq]

Plan

Free

Country

Australia

Device

Macbook Air M2 2022

Operating System

macOS Sonoma 14.4.1

My Question or Issue

Whenever I try to play songs on a specific wifi, it says "Spotify can't play this right now. If you have the file on your computer you can import it." When I use other wifi's it is fine, but I mostly listen to songs at this specific location on this wifi so I would like to fix it. I know it is not the wifi's problem as other people can listen to songs on that specific wifi without the error message.

I have tried restarting my laptop, deleting and redownloading Spotify (not using this wifi as it does not let me), using the Spotify website, but it does not fix it and I cannot play any songs.

What I found worked was that if I play the song first using a different wifi such as my mobile data, then the song would play but not if I did not play it first.

If anyone has any solutions that would be great.

Edit: I restarted my laptop again and now I can play specific songs but not all of them.

[LBDuck]

Have to say this is one of the worst apps I've ever come across for random issues - and I've been in IT since the mid 80s..  I've sat at conferences where Spotify has presented on their Agile methodology and how wonderful it is....yet look at the number of potential fixes listed in this thread - not a great example of a stable, mature app.

I started having the same problem with not playing about a week ago after changing my drive.  Cloned my old drive onto a larger one and everything worked perfectly.  Upgraded to Win11 and everything worked perfectly again - except Spotify.  Played in web browser through the same speakers - no problems.  Using the app - no chance. Tried all the fixes - no luck.

Then suddenly today it decided to start working - I have no idea why as nothing has changed on the system for a few days.  Totally dumbfounded....

[mc_frost]

whenever i play a song in spotify, there's always a pop up message that says "Spotify can't play this right now, If you have the file on your computer you can import it."

[TonyMontano]

I'm experiencing a similar issue. I discovered that it only occurs on the Windows app when I'm using any type of headphones. I've tried reinstalling the app, but the same error message appears every time I attempt to play a song. Videos work fine, but the error reappears when I switch to audio.

[ShiroFOX]

Same issue here. It was working fine like couple days ago. And then it can't play anything for no reason even on web player.

Oddly, my IOS app works well but when I tried to switch devices the same error popped up.

[localgothgirl]

i had this fixed (idr what i did) then accidentally logged out, went to log in, and it's broken again. this is getting really frustrating, not a single thing im doing is working. not restarting my computer, checking the sound output settings, clean installing spotify (did this 4 times), nothing, and my internet works fine. works fine in the site, but not the app

[Moonagedaydream818xx]

GET ON WITH REPAIRING THIS LONGSTANDING ISSUE INSTEAD OF IGNORING YOUR PREMIUM CUSTOMERS STILL TAKING OUR MONIES & THEN YOUR ENGINEERS HANGING UP AS THEY HAVE REPEATEDLY TO MYSELF OF LATE !! ??

[apearse69]

Ran into this problem recently on Windows 11, System>Sound>Properties, under Advanced settings>Audio enhancements - I changed the drop drow from Device Default Effects to Off then set back to Device Default Effects and it worked. My guess is a recent windows update made a change that Spotify couldn't work with.

As a side note, I had no issues if I selected a different output source but the moment I went back to my Realtek (built in), it would produce the error.