Spotify crashing my computer

[Adsteriuss]

Plan

Free

Device

PC

Operating System

Windows 10

Version

1.1.17.543.geb9254e9 (Microsoft Store)

My Question or Issue

Spotify crashes my computer, when spotify has been idle in the background for a longer time or when I try to close it, CPU/RAM usage of the app spikes up to about 80%, whatever it can take, then my computer starts freezing and after about 20 seconds my screen and sound definitely freezes and I have to hard reset. When closing spotify I always have to keep in mind to end it by task manager to not crash my computer, if I accidentaly play spotify by media buttons while running a game it crashes my computer too, sometimes.

I've tried the microsoft store app, the normal app, disabling hardware acceleration, complete reinstall by cleaning the spotify folder, RAM diagnostics, updating drivers, everything.

My computer is pretty weak but I can't really invest into upgrading, and this seems like a issue from spotify's side, like a memory leak possibly? There is no reason for the app to spike up to 80% RAM/CPU while it's just closing.

[Sebasty]

Hey @Adsteriuss 

That is indeed weird!

I'd suggest disabling local files in Spotify Preferences. Try enabling them for a moment to deselect all sources, then disable the local files.

Has this issue been present for a while or did it start happening recently?

Let me know how you get on 🙂

[Adsteriuss]

I've been dealing with this for about a year, started happening around the time when big Windows 10 updates rolled out that impacted perfomance, October 2018 specifically. I disabled local files and I'll see how it goes since it only happens when it's been idle for a longer time or when my computer is under slight load. Then I will report back and mark your response as solution if it helps. Thank you for the response!

[Adsteriuss]

It sadly did not help, when I shut down spotify, the window closes but the process still runs and takes up lots of CPU, after a while it completely freezes my computer forcing me to hard reset.

[Sebasty]

@Adsteriuss 

Alright, thank you for reporting back!

Do you by any chance use "--enable-audio-graph" command on Spotify? If yes, that's a very likely culprit causing system-wide freezes.

You'll need to remove that command and then Spotify should work good.

You can also try out the offline installer. Uninstall your Spotify client as instructed here and then try that offline installer I just linked. 🙂

Let me know how it goes. 🙂

[Adsteriuss]

I've never used any command on spotify, so probably not the case unless it's on by default.

I uninstalled the microsoft store version, did a clean reinstall and used the offline installer, it seems that the offline installer version performs worse than microsoft store one, still crashes. I'm gonna revert back to the microsoft store one.

[Beachkiwi]

I have the same problem. I've uninstalled Spotify, reinstalled it using the suggested link but the minute I started it up again within seconds the whole thing had crashed again. This is infuriating while I'm trying to work! It's clearly at Spotify's end and it seems many of us are having the same issue. FIX IT!

[Adsteriuss]

yeah, i've been dealing with this for a long long time, but it seems that not enough people share this issue for it to be major priority or at all a concern for spotify to fix, most likely uncompatibility with older and weaker hardware, the optimalization of the application is really bad

[Beachkiwi]

I’ve given up and gone to the web player. Constant crashing interferes with my work so it’s either play CDs or drop the app.