The Spotify application is not responding

[OscarArranz]

Plan

Premium

Country

Spain

Device

Personal Computer

Operating System

Windows 10

My Question or Issue

Hi! I've been getting this message after I close Spotify (it usually bugs and I can't search for any music nor see my music inside Liked Songs or playlists). Whenever I close Spotify there's a really high chance (lately almost 100% of the times I close it) that it doesn't close fully, if I try to open it again it says "The Spotify application isn't responding".

I usually fix it opening Task Manager and closing the spotify.exe manually.

This has been happening for a while (3+ months), I have not only reinstalled Spotify but completely reinstalled Windows 10 (for other reasons) and it still happens. I would say there's some bug when closing the Electron app that makes it not fully close on Windows.

I've got a laptop with Mac OS Big Sur and it runs flawlessly there (also no bugs regarding the songs).

Is anyone looking into this issue? It's starting to get a bit annoying as it's been months since it began to happen.

Have a good day!

Oscar.

[OscarArranz]

Hey folks,

We understand your frustration when the app fails to load, however the reasons for this happening could be much different for each and every one of you. We'd be most helpful if we're able to address and troubleshoot such generally formulated requests independently on a case by case basis. 

Ultimately, what we can suggest here is to check the Ongoing issues board for relevant threads that might already address your issue, and before positing your own request also to do some basic troubleshooting yourselves like performing a clean reinstall of the app for example, to see if this makes a change for you.

As this thread here has become too general and has grown a bit old, going forward, we'd like to close it off and refer you to post any further feedback alongside all your details  in a fresh new post in one of the relevant help boards.

We hope this clears things up. Take care!

[OscarArranz]

Hey folks!

We're moving this topic's up to date discussion over here 🙂
Please refrain from spamming, so that we can keep things clear and resolve the issue as quickly as possible.
Thanks!

[CarlosE]

Hey @OscarArranz,

Thanks for reaching out and welcome to the Community!

We're sorry to hear you're experiencing this issue - we'll be happy to help. As a first step, we suggest running a clean reinstall of the app by following these steps. This is more thorough than a regular one and can be helpful to get rid of any corrupted files that might be causing trouble. We also suggest downloading the app again from the Microsoft Store.

If that doesn't do the trick, try heading to settings > toggle the option Local Files on > toggle off any sources that appear there > toggle Local Files off again > restart the app.

Hope this helps. Keep us posted on how it goes.

[OscarArranz]

Hi @CarlosE,

I've already tried reinstalling, even reinstalled Windows itself but still, the bug persists. I've also tried toggling local files on and off and restarting the app with no success.

When looking at Spotify processes on Task Manager it appears there's a particular Spotify process that gets suspended and that causes it to bug. However if I end the process and restart Spotify, it doesn't happen again until I boot Windows again.

Have a good day!
Oscar.

[MafeG]

Hey @OscarArranz,

Thank you for keeping us in the loop.

It's very odd this is repeating after reinstalling your Windows, but there are plenty of things we can try. 

Could you try doing a clean boot? This is similar to starting your PC in safe mode, but it allows you which programs run at startup. 

Let us know how it goes. 

[vonEdfa]

I also have this issue and it persists after a clean reinstall (with cleared cache) of Spotify. I have not used the Microsoft Store version yet, but why would the builds differ enough between your site download and Store download that this wouldn't be an issue on the Store version?

If you can; could you please share the reason behind this so we (the users) can help troubleshoot better? The more info we get, the better we can help.

The issue for me is almost exactly as OP describes in his second post: Often after a "fast boot" I find that I can play music just fine but at some random interval after the boot some part of the app gets suspended and Spotify seems unable to load in data. Sometimes I notice it while trying to open a playlist (it just loads forever and then stops responding) and at other times it dies when trying to load the landing page. It also makes me unable to control the media playing. Hitting pause through either Windows' own interface nor Spotify's would pause playback. Checking Task Manager's detail tab often shows one Spotify process as "Suspended" and the only way to solve the issue is to kill the entire tree and relaunch Spotify from scratch.

It wouldn't surprise me if it's related to the Windows 10 "fast startup" feature which seems to be the default nowdays. The feature is on on my machine and I haven't done much testing of how Spotify behaves after a proper restart but I would rather not need to turn OS features off just to make a simple electron app work. Also seeing Spotify worked flawlessly for me until perhaps a month or so back I strongly believe this issue is more than fixable on your end - we just need to track down the cause. 😉

One thing that is new in my set-up and that possibly could be of interest to explore as a cause is that I recently installed a 2nd network adapter: a Wi-Fi and Bluetooth PCIe card. I still use my original (wired) adapter and mostly have Wi-Fi disabled in the OS (Bluetooth support was my primary goal with the adapter), but it's the only major change I have on my end that I can think of.

[Elena]

Hi @vonEdfa,

Thanks for reaching out about this on the Community and for the detailed answer. 

The Spotify desktop app from the Microsoft Store has been developed specifically to make use of features available only on Windows 10 (such as the Live Tiles integration) and it's less likely to cause any compatibility issues and this is why we recommend using that on machines running that OS.

Could we ask you for the exact version of Spotify desktop app, that causes this behavior on your Windows platform and if it is still ongoing for you?

We'll be keeping an eye out for your reply, so we can investigate this further together, thanks!

[DrSlothy]

I have the same issue - on Windows 10 the UI for Spotify just freezes.  I have spotify set to launch automatically on system startup, and after some time this instance will freeze / stop responding.  If music is playing when the UI freezes, the music continues to play fine and can be paused / resumed using the relevant keys on my keyboard, or through the media controls that appear when hovering over the taskbar icon.  When closing the UI, about 5 or 6 spotify processes remain running in Task Manager and have to be killed (usually killing 1 or 2 will clear the rest - as though they are either grouped or blocked by the instance that was just killed).  I have already uninstalled and re-installed the app, this made no difference.

[Alex]

Hey @DrSlothy,

Thanks for reaching out about this in the Community!

Sorry to hear that you're having such an experience with the Desktop app.

We'd recommend running a clean reinstall of the app. Please follow the steps from this Spotify Guide exactly, as this will assure that all app data is cleared completely, before reinstalling.

If you're using the version from our website, it might be worth trying the version from the MS store and vice versa. The MS store version is more optimized, however it may cause issues on some systems.

Keep us posted on how you get on.

[gregers12]

Same issue. Exactly as described. On multiple computers and systems. Seems to happen often when spotify wants to update.

[spinakel]

Same issue.

[Ver]

Hey folks,

Thanks for posting here.

It's a good idea to give the steps mentioned in the thread a go to see if anything changes.

If the issue persists, could you share with us a screenshot of what you're seeing? We'll look into this further.

Keep us posted.

[lilw]

I got the same issue from windows 10 to 11. The app keep runing in background after close, I can see it eating a lot of CPU, and it will never stop without end task.

I saw a lot people with this problems but I'm not sure why it still available until now without any real fix. It a giant bug keep me from not using it in windows. The macOS version don't have this problem.

[adsdsawdsadsads]

Same problem here.

I resumed my laptop after the night, then spotify played the rest of the song which was paused before it just quit on me. Could not change song, could not open any playlists, could not do anything. Right clicked the spotify icon in the notification-area of the taskbar, and chose "Exit". Then tried to start spotify again, I get a message "The spotify application is not responding.". 

I must go to the task manager to end the process to be able to start it again.

This issue has been ongoing for months (years, maybe?) and I have experienced it on all my 3 computers running windows 10.

[Eni]

Hey @lilw and @adsdsawdsadsads,

Thanks for reaching out about this here in the Community. 

Could you let us know which troubleshooting steps you've already tried? That way we can avoid any repeating steps.

On another note, we suggest that you make sure to turn Hardware Acceleration off in the app settings. After that, restart the app to see if that makes the difference. 

Keep us posted on how it goes.

[siman908]

I am having exactly the same issue described in the initial post and have tried all of the troubleshooting steps recommended in this thread ( I haven't reinstalled windows tho ), I am having this issue for ~4 - 6 months now. 

[Eni]

Hi there @siman908, 

Thanks for reaching out about this here in the Community. 

Just to confirm, have you tried reinstalling the app by following these specific steps? Make sure to download the app again from the Microsoft Store. 

If this doesn't do the trick, we suggest that you head over to the app settings > toggle on Show Local Files > toggle off all the sources that appear there > toggle off Show Local Files. Afterwards, make sure to restart the app. 

Lastly, we'd recommend checking if the OS of your PC is up-to-date.

Keep us posted on how it goes. 

[blackybg]

I had an issue on pc. I discovered an option View > Hardware Acceleration, and when I disabled it, I could start Spotify without a hitch!

[olguitao]

Having the same problem as everyone else. Try the spotify instruccions and nothing. it doesn even allow me to use the panel to play music, all is in grey (instead of white). The only thing that works is to restart the computer, but then out of the blue it stops (And I cannot restart my computer all the time while I have all my work documents open). Very annoying.

Web player does work, as a sad alternative

[Jeremy]

Hi there @olguitao,

Thank you for your reply and for all of the troubleshooting you've done so far!

Can you let us know if you're using the Microsoft store version or the version from our website?

It would also be great if you can let us know which version of the app you're having?

We'll keep an eye out for your reply.

Take care!

[olguitao]

Hi!

I have Windows 11 now. And I had the problem with both versions, the one on
the Store and the one on your website.

This is the version I have now from the store (I have uninstalled the
other one):

Spotify for Windows
1.1.78.765.g5ea20b00

Let me know of we can finally solve this. I am literally listening to less
music because it is so much trouble to get it working.

cheers

Olga