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Issues with playing tunes outside of Liked Songs or playlists on the desktop app

Hey there,

 

We're aware of issues with playing songs outside of the Liked Songs collection or playlists.

 

This is being investigated.

Hi folks,

 

A few days have passed, so the latest version which includes the fix should now be available to everyone! You'll find more info on how to update the app in this article.

 

Once again thank you all for the collective effort in aiding us during the investigation. You're awesome!

 

Cheers!

Comments
Taylith

I'm glad to hear that Chris.
Happy listening then 🎧🖤

Hzo420

Plan

Premium

Country

Lithuania

Device

PC

Operating System

Windows 10

Spotify Version

Spotify for Windows 1.1.91.824.g07f1e963

 

My Question or Issue

Spotify will not play songs that haven't been downloaded. For example, if I look up a random artist and try playing any of their songs, they won't initialize, the playback bar at the bottom remains empty and greyed out, as if I was offline (see the 1st attached screenshot). However, if I then like the song, and try playing it again, it immediately starts playing without any problems (see the 2nd attached screenshot).

I have tried restarting the PC, updating Spotify, reinstalling Spotify, reconnecting to the internet, my "hosts" file is clean, nothing helps.

The way the issue stands currently, Spotify is borderline unusable, so I would really appreciate any help with this one. Thanks.

1 Before downloading the song.jpg
2 After downloading the song.jpg
Chris_Dthmt

The happiness was short-lived ... the problems are back. Today I can launch some songs from the "most popular" list of an interpret ... but not all ! It looks like I can launch the songs from (let's say) album A, but none from album B.
When I try to launch an album (A or B or anyone), no song starts. But I still can listen to the liked songs.
It's even hard for me to describe the problem because it seems to change every day ! I have no clue about what to do to fix it ... I thought that maybe an automatic update of my laptop or Spotify had fix it, but it's not ...


I don't know if you will be able to help me with such informations, but I already thank you anyway because I'm really desperate.

Dian

Hey @Hzo420,

 

Thanks for posting in the Community and the troubleshooting you've already tried.

 

Does this issue occur when you're using the web player or a different account on the desktop app?

 

Just to be sure, you've reinstalled the app with the steps from this page, right? 

 

Have you also tried switching internet connections, e.g. through a hot spot from your phone?

 

Keep us posted,

 

Cheers!

Hzo420

Hey Dian,

Thanks for the response.

This issue does not occur on a web player. Logging into the app with a different account, however, runs into the same problem of songs not playing.

Originally, I did not follow the steps that you mentioned when reinstalling the app, so I tried them out today. Now that Spotify launches automatically on start-up, it seems to work normally. That is, until I close it and open it again. If that happens, I start running into the same problem once more, and the only thing that helps is restarting the PC (basically its fine as long as I don't close Spotify).

As for switching internet connections, unfortunately I'm using a desktop computer with an ethernet cable. It doesn't have a Wi-Fi receiver, so I can't use a mobile hotspot.

Thanks!

Eni

Hey @Hzo420

 

Thanks for getting back to us. 

 

Would you mind checking if the OS of your PC is up to date?

 

On another note, could you let us know if this started happening after a specific event such as an update either of Spotify or the OS of your PC?

 

Keep us posted.

Yordan

Hi @Chris_Dthmt,

 

Thanks for keeping us posted on this.

 

We've forwarded your feedback to our internal teams so they can look into it. Rest assured we'll let you know as soon as we have any new information to share, so stay tuned!

 

Just to double-check, could you try adding one of the unplayable songs into a playlist (instead of adding it to your Liked Songs) to see if it would play then from the artist page? Try playing it from the playlist afterwards to see if you'd experience the same behavior.

 

You also said that you had another laptop where you didn't experience this issue. Is it on the same OS (Windows 11)?

 

I should also mention that if you're using any VPN services on your laptop, try disabling them temporarily and then restarting the Spotify app.

 

Let us know how it goes. Cheers!

shanenewville

 

Plan

Premium

Country

US

Device

PC

Operating System

Windows 10

 

My Question or Issue
Lately (maybe the past month or so) many songs just will not play.  When I double click them the player does not display the song art, info or playback time.   These songs are indeed available. I can play them on my phone with Spotify, but on PC most will not play right now.   Has anyone run into this? Its making me think Spotify is just broken and I am thinking about cancelling my Premium membership.  What's the point of paying if it doesn't work?  Up until now Spotify playback has been great.

ScreenShot171.jpg
Hzo420

Hey,

I've got Microsoft Windows Version 1903 (OS Build 18362.1139). It certainly wasn't due to an OS upgrade, but I didn't notice if Spotify got updated at that time or not. 

Today, I tried disabling and then re-enabling the ethernet adapter multiple times. It actually helped with getting it working again, but the issue would come back every time I restarted the computer, sometimes even when I restarted Spotify.

It's really difficult to pin-point what is going on exactly, because the behavior seems inconsistent - sometimes it just works, sometimes it doesn't. Having said that, I am fairly certain that this problem has something to do with the network properties.

I'm a bit out of my depth here, but could it be that Spotify uses different ports for streaming audio in comparison to downloading songs to local storage or displaying album arts? If that's the case, is there any way to force it to use the same port? Because I've never had any problems with searching for artists or downloading songs, it's just audio streaming that seems to be problematic.

Thanks!

Amayy

Hey there, thanks for asking in the community!

 

I see you are having problems with the Desktop App. I would suggest you mention the Desktop App version and make sure your App is updated. You can check the version from the menu on the top left corner, then in the Help -> About section.

 

Also, have you tried clean installing the Spotify Desktop App? It tends to solve most issues easily and quickly. Here is an article about how to perform the same.

 

Let me know how it goes!