Announcements

Help Wizard

Step 1

NEXT STEP

FAQs

Please see below the most popular frequently asked questions.

Loading article...

Loading faqs...

VIEW ALL

Ongoing Issues

Please see below the current ongoing issues which are under investigation.

Loading issue...

Loading ongoing issues...

VIEW ALL

Spotify won't play "local files" songs!

Solved!

Spotify won't play "local files" songs!

Hi there!

 

When I want to play files from "local files", some of them won't play. I don't really understand why ?

They've been imported from itunes. The bottom bar doesn't show anything and the "point" has disappeared!

 

If any of you got an idea? 

Cheers! 

Reply
86 Replies

Downgrading works, currently on v0.9.7.16.

since the black spotify update nothing works.....

Doesnt work for me either, after trying everything. Here's the detailed report:

 

Description
Local files don't play, even after following all troubleshooting steps (but play when added to queue)

A more detailed description, using numbered steps
1. Installed Spotify on a new Windows 8.1 machine
2. Copied my music files (structured into folders) into Music library
3. Next day opened Spotify, found them under Local Files, pressed play on one
4. Play button Turned to how it looks like when playing for a moment, then again turned back to Play button. The song didn't play. None of the songs did.
5. Installed codec from http://www.free-codecs.com/mpeg_layer_3_codec_download.htm, QuickTime, didn't help
6. Did everything from http://bit.ly/15Oxh2h - didn't help
7. Added a local file to Queue, opened Queue, played from there - it played!
8. Added 2 files to Queue, could play them both (used Next button)!
9. Tried to play them from Queue -> History. The last one played, the previous one didn't.
10. Tried to add all local files to Queue (I have 5000+ songs) - but it was by then prefilled with songs from non-local playlist I had on, and as such amount made Spotify very sluggish, I couldn't navigate down enough in the queue to try playing them. So adding my local files to queue is not even good enough for temporary workaround.

What I expected to happen
Play local files of different formats (mp3, ogg, flac)

What actually happened
See above description in steps

My Operating System
Windows 8.1 (fresh install, but then installed what was recommended in Spotify forums)

Is your Operating System 32 or 64 bit?
64 bit

Do you have a Service Pack installed?
No

My Spotify version
1.0.4.90.g0b6df40b

My internet provider and country
TEO, Lithuania

Did you do a clean install of your current Windows version or did you upgrade from a previous version?
if you upgraded, which version did you upgrade from?
It's a newly bought laptop with pre-installed Windows.

My username
11128954134

Anyone have any idea how to install the codec on an Android device?

Since the codec is a .exe, it can't be installed easily. I attempted to install apps such as aDosbox, Dosbox Turbo, but none of them worked.

My problem is that some of my local files play and some wont. I'll try to play them, but they'll be 'greyed' out and won't allow me the option to play. They are format compatible (mp3, m4a), and will play on my computer. Just not on my phone.

So, is there a codec that can be installed for android specifically?

Can't play local files with the current version of Spotify too.

It works only on older versions of Spotify for example 0.9.15.27.g87efe634.

 

I hope it will be fixed in the next time...

Version 1.0.4.90.g0b6df40b on OS X 10.10.3 is experiencing the same problem; clicking on a local track doesn't do anything.

I'm on OSX 10.7.5 and I'm unable to play any songs in the local files catagory. When I move them to a playlist I can. Some song wont even show up on spotify even though they are in the same folder as songs that I have in spotify. This has been going on for the passed few months. Getting the point where I'm going to cancle Spotify unless it's fixed. 

I'm a noob to Spotify trying to determine if I want to throw cash at the product so imagine my frustration when I go to run it through my local library of 22K songs and it chokes***.  I assumed it was like every other app and couldn't handle a decently sized library.  After reading the below thread and playing the toggles for "Local Files" in setting with no luck I went to "Add Source" and pointed it to my "Music" folder on my local music drive.  I kept the "Music Library" toggle to off and it is currently reloading all 22K Songs.

 

I just hit play on some tracks that are loading up et voila!  It worked.

 

I think this might circumvent some of the issues people are having in relying on iTunes to play nice with Spotify.  Point spotify to the actual files and leave the iTunes "Music Library" out of it.

 

I will update if I run into any more issues.

 

*** To be specific "chokes" means it sat and did nothing. Files all seemed normal and healthy and pointed back to actual files on my music drive but would not activate.

I'm a noob to Spotify trying to determine if I want to throw cash at the product so imagine my frustration when I go to run it through my local library of 22K songs and it chokes***.  I assumed it was like every other app and couldn't handle a decently sized library.  After reading the below thread and playing the toggles for "Local Files" in setting with no luck I went to "Add Source" and pointed it to my "Music" folder on my local music drive.  I kept the "Music Library" toggle to off and it is currently reloading all 22K Songs.

 

I just hit play on some tracks that are loading up et voila!  It worked.

 

I think this might circumvent some of the issues people are having in relying on iTunes to play nice with Spotify.  Point spotify to the actual files and leave the iTunes "Music Library" out of it.

 

I will update if I run into any more issues.

 

*** To be specific "chokes" means it sat and did nothing. Files all seemed normal and healthy and pointed back to actual files on my music drive but would not activate.

So dissapointed! I switched from Google Music to Spotify because Google Music was adding so many duplicate songs to my playslists. I cannot get Spotify to play any of local library. I have tried everything the other commenters said. Is this a temporary problem with a recent update?

Nothing will work the program is now broken as f.u.c.k and no one seems to want to fix it we are dead in the water folks they don't care about us anymore so looks like we find something new. 

Most of my local music wont play. But the weird thing is that some still does.  This is all music i have ripped directly from CDs into Spotify.  There are no iTunes and codecs should all be the same.

 

why wont Spotify comment on this?  really pissed off as I paid for Premium but get sh1t.  can anyone suggest a music app that actually works on desktop and android (not apple).

Marked as solution

Since this is a large enough thread bumped to recently and this is a huge hit for google for looking up why spotify doesn't like their customers.

So the only way to play local files is for you to go to settings, preferences, scroll down to local files, and add sources.
Now so for example, if my music is located on my desktop I will find the directory and open it. Now spotify will recognize ALL music supported within that folder. 

BAM now you can PAINFULLY add YOUR OWN music to a platform YOU MAY BE PAYING 10 DOLLARS A MONTH FOR.

I have quit Spotify for now and trying other services, as Spotify disrespect for user support issues horrifying (and also I'm trying to compare Google Cast vs. Spotify Connect).

Nevertheless, I thought I'd share what helped me partially solve the local files problem (they are still not usable without search, but at least now they can play). It turned out that in my huge library there were 6 songs with copyright on. This resulted in Spotify not playing any songs without any message whatsoever. The only way I could identify those songs was adding my library folder by folder and checking if they still played, and if suddenly they didn't, removing everything and digging deeper into the last added folder.

Hope this helps those still willing to try and use Spotify for local files.

Which codec? Are they all the same, if so I downloaded it and it still doesnt seem to work for me.

What the hell is going on? Why Do I even pay for premium? Half the time I have to use Winamp because spotify doesn't support FLAC or because songs are unavailable in my country/not on spotify at all... even some AB-Soul albums....

Anyway, aside this rant here is my current issue:

 

http://puu.sh/oW2Fr/54de14f521.jpg

 

I click open containing folder to check if it's located properly, cause happened already that Spotify loose files....

http://puu.sh/oW2Fr/54de14f521.jpg

 

And here we are: http://puu.sh/oW2Gi/2f0a527a91.png proper folder with proper metadata....

 

Yet spotify keep telling me "it's unavailable and need to import it" NO JOKE, IT'S F****ING IMPORTED... So many random BS on Spotify these past months, seriously I will go back to downloading my music and listening on Winamp if I can't make my playlists work properly on Spotify I don't see the effing point of paying 10 bucks a month.

 

I tried adding this specific folder as a source, doesn't change anything.... So either I need to get "Jenova" and "Stay Calm" on winamp so I can play properly my whole "Sweet Valley" playlist there, or I need a fix to make this album work on Spotify, cause it's the only one that doesn't (and "So Serene" and "Ghetto Cuisine" work perfectly fine....)

Thank you so much!

 

This actually works with me.

This is absolute bullcrap. Same issue here, local files suddenly "unavailable" despite them being right there in the folder, no protection, import on. tried installing codes. What the H-E-L-L spotify, how do you manage screwing up the most core functionality of the app - playing music?!

jup.
same old, same old.
I am as well paying for premium. spotify doesn't seem to care for anyone with their own music offline. Can't import new songs. Some (older ones) work others don't.
"If you have the file on the computer you can import it." Haha. guess the joke's on us

Having just sorted out the Cache issue this new error of "If you have the file on the computer you can import it." is incredibly frustrating. Same error on two different high end PC devices. Yet the same tracks/playlist are fine when played on iPad/iPhone with "Downloaded" tracks, sourced from the same PC devices.

So it's a PC/Win10 specific error? 

You don't even know how much of a relief it is to find out there are more people suffering like me. This service is a joke. Don't get me wrong, I'd take Spotify over iTunes any day based solely on the presentation alone but this is ridiculous. **bleep** customer service, **bleep** updates and coding, and they make people pay for it? Truly sad. (PS I've also tried every thing I've seen here and half my local files still wont play.)

Cheers to everyone else and a middle finger to the mods. 

Suggested posts