Spotify painfully slow to start up

[GCWright]

Plan

Premium

Country

UK

Device

Laptop

Operating System

Windows 8.1

My Question or Issue

Since one of the recent updates a month or so back, the desktop version of Spotify has become incredibly slow to get going - after opening the app, I get a blank black screen for at least 5 minutes each time. Any ideas what has caused this? I've tried a clean reinstall and it works quickly the first time after the reinstall but then goes back to being slow (the same has happened each time there's been an update). Is there some sort of log I can check to find out why Spotify is running so slowly?

Thanks.

[Helojo]

Exactly.

[musiclover3011]

same

[GCWright]

Latest update on this - not only is this problem persisting but now Spotify also hangs when using the search function (have seen other people posting here with this same issue) and when clicking on a track to play it (this seems to happen at random). I don't understand this at all, essentially the desktop version has become near unusable in that it won't actually play music. I've tried a clean reinstall and this does nothing to help. Are Spotify looking into this at all?

[Alex]

Hi there folks,

Thanks for reaching out about this.

We'd recommend for anybody having issues with the Desktop app to perform a clean reinstall, following the exact steps in this article. Corrupted cache often causes problems with performance. Another thig to try is to remove the local files from Spotify on your device. Check out the solutions in this thread for more info on how to do that.

Regarding the search bar crashing experience - we're aware of this and our team is currently looking into it. Head over to this Ongoing Issue thread and add your +Vote and requested information, to help our developers. You can also subscribe to the thread in order to get notified as soon as there are any updates 🙂

Let us know if the reinstallation and local files clear up helped. 

Keep us posted.

[GCWright]

Thanks for your reply Alex. I've tried a clean reinstall a couple of times and this hasn't helped unfortunately. Similarly I've tried the step with removing the local files and adding them back again and the issue is still unresolved. I do have a large number of local files but this never caused problems before the updates starting from around July this year. If there was a way to add local file songs individually to the Spotify library rather than having to add the whole folder through preferences this may solve the problem?

[Mihail]

Hey @GCWright,

Thanks for getting back to us.

It's possible that the slow start up is due to to scanning a large folder with lots of data for local files to import. To remedy this, you can try removing the cache once more using the steps in the thread that @Alex linked. You can then try reducing the number of song you'd like to import and separate them in another folder. Using the steps here you can then add it as a source for local files.

Keep in mind that you would most likely have to delete the playlists with local files and import them anew as their source location will have changed.

Let us know if that did the trick. We'll be keeping an eye out for your reply.

[GCWright]

Thanks for your reply.

I can try this suggestion but it will take a lot of time and effort to go through all my playlists, single out the songs in them from my local files (which are currently located in my iTunes library), move those to a separate folder and add them back to the playlists.

Is there any reason this would have become a problem with updates to the service in the past few months? I only ask as Spotify never had a problem handling a large number of local files before this time and I haven't added a great many more songs to the iTunes folder in that time.

Also, is this likely to solve the issues with tracks not playing or just the slow startup?

Thanks.

[Mihail]

Hey @GCWright,

Thanks for your post.

This troubleshooting step should help with both the app becoming unresponsive when using the search function, as well as when trying to play an imported song.

From the info gathered so far it seems like the app is facing difficulties when performing the searches and you do mention that you have quite a large collection of imported tracks.

To make sure that that's the case you can try performing once more a clean reinstall and not import any local files or add folders to be scanned - does the app hang then as well?

Keep us posted. We're always one reply away 🙂

[GCWright]

Hi Mihail,

Thanks for the suggestion. I've tried a clean reinstall without importing any local files - it was better the first time but still a bit slow. I've since imported some local files back from a much smaller folder rather than my entire iTunes library and unfortunately I am still getting upwards of five minutes of black screen when opening Spotify.

[GCWright]

OK after following the instructions to the letter spending hours re-importing local files and re-doing playlists (now with a local file library a fraction of the size of the one Spotify had no problem dealing with six months ago), I'm back to square one. The Spotify desktop app:

• Still takes a long time to start up
• Randomly decides to stop playing tracks altogether (as in, clicking play on a track does nothing)
• Lags badly when trying to add and move songs around a playlist

Please can someone tell me what has happened to Spotify in recent months that has caused the functionality to deteriorate so badly?

[Jeremy]

Hey @GCWright,

Thank you for your reply. We're really sorry to hear that you're still experiencing this. We're here for you and we're happy to continue assist you.

Does this occur on one specific device or multiple devices?

It would be great if you can try the following:

• Another internet connection 
• Log in with another account on the device - such as a friend's or a family member's to see if the issue persists

Also - would you mind sending us a screen recording? It will help us understand more directly what's going on from your end.

Keep us posted. We'll have an eye out for your reply.

Cheers!

[reigngt09]

Im also experience a painfully slow Startup of Spotify on my super fast Gaming PC 😛

[Alex]

Hey @reigngt09,

Thanks for reaching out about this in the Community!

We'd recommend you go through the troubleshooting we've suggested in this thread. In general slow start-up to the program could be caused by cache issues, which can come up if you have a huge library with thousands of songs or have logged in with a few accounts.

Try the following:

• Perform a clean reinstall of the app, following this Guide. You can try both the MS store version and the version from our website, see which work better.
• Clear any entries that contain Spotify from your host files. Guide here.
• Disable Hardware Acceleration from the Spotify app settings.

Hope this helps.

[Layback21]

Same issues, including but not limited to graying out songs in a playlist intermittently. Tried above solutions but still persists.  Anyway to revert back to Spotify version that worked before the last update?

Thanks  

[AndresM]

Hey @Layback21,

Thanks for reaching out to the Community and welcome.

Could you send us the make/model, OS version and Spotify version installed on your device. 

On another note, tell us if the issue persists when logging in with a different account. 

We'll be looking for your reply. 

[OvOFRIED]

mine cant even load in

[OvOFRIED]

Mine cant even load in after 1hr

[johangrimm]

It is still EXTREMLY slow to start. All black for almost a full minut.
Spotify för macOS (Intel) 1.2.29.605.g66a43ceb

macOS Catalina, ver. 10.15.7
Mac mini (konec roku 2012)
CPU: 2.5 GHz dual core Intel Core i5
RAM: 16 GB

[Elena]

Hey there @johangrimm,

Were sorry to hear you're experiencing this issue. We are aware of this issue, as other users have also posted about it in this thread. 

We`re looking into it and will post updates on it there, so feel free to check it out and keep tabs on the progress made.

Cheers.