Spotify stopping working partially the longer it is launched

[ulmi91]

Plan

Free+Premium

Country

Czech Republic

Device

Desktop

Operating System

Windows 10

My Question or Issue

Hi,

I am experiencing an issue for several weeks (just decided to try some investigation with you). When I am using my desktop, Spotify launches automatically and works fine but the longer my PC is turned on and I'm doing anything like playing games, browsing internet etc, the Spotify app stops working continually depending on how long my PC is on. For example - If I start to listen to any of my playlist right after launching my desktop, everything works fine but if I listen for lets say one or two hours, Spotify gets unclickable on its several features (completely random ones) like for example I cannot select specific song from my playlist because I can enter it but songs are not clickable. Another random example is that I cannot pause, skip or switch back to previous song. Simply said, the longer spotify is launched in my PC, the more is unclickable until I cannot click on anything because nothing reacts and I have to open task manager and close Spotify task in there so I can restart and it works fine again. Interesting fact is also that once Spotify is partially clickable (like launched for an hour and some features are unclickable but not all of them), all of my actions done during that time are rolled back in time once I end Spotify in task manager and restart it. Example - Spotify is partailly working because its launched for one and half hour only, but volume is still clickable and working. I lower the volume a to almost zero and end Spotify in task manager. After restart, volume is on the same level like before I lowered it. This scenario applies to any action I do in Spotify. The last thing I want to mention is that this was happening to me during my Free subscription and during premium I have at the moment as well and also reinstalling the application didn't help.

[Lyubka]

Hey @ulmi91,

Thank you for reaching out here in the Community.

It sounds like you've tried a couple of things already, but let's try some more troubleshooting.

First off, open the Desktop App's Settings and turn off "Enable hardware acceleration". This setting is located under Compatibility then restart Spotify. After you toggle it off, the setting should look like this.

As a second step, we'd suggest that you disable any antivirus or ad-blocking software that might interfere with the app's performance on your PC. 

Lastly, it's worth checking your hosts files - steps for this can be found here.

In case the issue persists, we'd like you to try to reproduce this with a different account. If a family member has a Spotify account, could you ask them to log in on your device to see if the app behaves the same way?
 

Hope something here helps. Don't hesitate to reach out if you have further questions 🙂

[ulmi91]

Hello Lyubka amd thank you for your tips. I googled a bit more after posting this topic and found the thing about stopping hardware acceleration. Unfortunately it helped for about a day only. The day after I my application got again frozen after couple of hours. I do not have a family account unfortunately so this is all on me, I cant check this on different account.

If you have any other tips how to troubleshoot, I'm open to it.

Thank you for helping me with this.

[Alex]

Hi there @ulmi91,

Thanks for the post.

Can you try altering your hosts file, like @Lyubka has suggested in her previous post. 

If that doesn't help, create a new free account for test purposes and try using that one for a day or two to see if the app functions properly. 

It's also a good idea to check if your PC has enough free storage.

Keep us posted on how you get on.

[ulmi91]

Hello Alex and thanks for reaching me,

I am bringing results of all tips from you and Luybka.

Unfortunately second account makes no difference, Spotify became unclickable after few hours. Also I forgot to add to my very first message that it can be closed by X in top right corner, but cannot be reopened with popup - Spotify application is not responding.

I also tried to rewrite ttext in hosts file as per instructions Lyubka provided but no success as there are no keywordy to remove, please see how it looks inside my hosts file:

# Copyright (c) 1993-2009 Microsoft Corp.
#
# This is a sample HOSTS file used by Microsoft TCP/IP for Windows.
#
# This file contains the mappings of IP addresses to host names. Each
# entry should be kept on an individual line. The IP address should
# be placed in the first column followed by the corresponding host name.
# The IP address and the host name should be separated by at least one
# space.
#
# Additionally, comments (such as these) may be inserted on individual
# lines or following the machine name denoted by a '#' symbol.
#
# For example:
#
# 102.54.94.97 rhino.acme.com # source server
# 38.25.63.10 x.acme.com # x client host

# localhost name resolution is handled within DNS itself.
# 127.0.0.1 localhost
# ::1 localhost

Regarding free storage in my PC:

- SSD (C:) = 500GB (42GB/485GB remaining) Spotify is installed here

- HDD (D:) = 2TB (1,81TB/1,81TB remaining) 

I will try to reinstall my Spotify application to HDD, but no idea about any other tips, do you have any?

Thank you for your efforts.

[ulmi91]

small addition to me previous message: I did not manage install spotify to HDD, it installs automatically to SDD.

[AlejaR]

Hey @ulmi91,

Thanks for your reply and for the info shared.

We understand you've tried to change the location of Spotify when installed. Let's try this for now: it's possible to download the app from both the Microsoft Store and our Web page here. So in this case, if you install the desktop app from the web page, try to uninstall that version and try installing the one from the Microsoft one or vice versa.

On another note, and just to confirm, are you using a VPN service? If yes, try switching off to see if you notices any changes in this behavior. Just to confirm, did you notice if this started to happen after a specific event such as an OS update? If yes, please send us the details.
 

Lastly, can you please try running the app in Safe Mode or Safe Mode with Networking to rule out any issues with your default Windows settings and basic device drivers? Give it a try and let us know how it goes.
 

Keep us in the loop!