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Why is my spotify often so slow?

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Why is my spotify often so slow?

I open spotify, let it load for a bit and when I try to search for an artist, the whole program lags ridiculously. Won't let me search, and when it does search, loads them so slowly. Albums for the artist take several minutes to load and then they stream very poorly.

The internet is not the problem as every website works quickly and youtube loads very quick.

 

Why is my spotify so slow and laggy? I have the latest public version, Windows 8. Restarting it doesn't help the issue. I often have to wait it out a couple hours.

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98 Replies

Search - slow

Scrolling - slow

Loading - slow

Taking "premium" money from my account - fast

 

None of these issues on my phone.  Only desktop.  

This did the trick for me. Huge speed increase with Hardware Acceleration disabled! Who would have thought.

Thanks!

Same here. 

 

On a Mac, at least, the desktop app is an absolute catastrophe. has been for at least a year. Cache has to be manually cleared every week or two or it's completely unusable.

 

Even then, it's buggy and slow. Just starting up takes ages on a 2017 iMac. Search takes ages using a >280mbps fibre connection. 

 

Even when I've found what I'm looking for and it's playing, there's a better than 50% chance that the application will lock me out and I can't control playback.

 

My vote: Pause development on the perfectly good mobile app for a while, fire the entire desktop team and let the iPhone app team take a look at desktop.

…oh yeah – and it rarely quits properly. Nearly always needs an additional 'Force Quit' before**bleep** down completely.

 

Who have you got coding this thing? Work experience kids?

Spotify, if you don't care about desktop, then why offer the app at all?

What would make you prioritize this?
Public shaming from a well respected tech tabloid? A celebrity tweet?

Your team needs to take some time from its personal-web-browsing-and-texting-at-work (I assume?) to improve the UX, not from superficial UI design but from smarter, cleaner engineering.

PLEASE!

Sincerely,

Paying Customer

Voicing my extreme displeasure as well.

 

The moment I find a service that parallels to my liking, I am switching.

The moment I manage to get my music offloaded, I am ceasing my subscription.

 

Which will come first?

 

Dare I ask for an application that loads properly? Humor me, and stop circlejerking over your electron app with distinct feature teams that don't work together. HELLO. That's why your app takes infinitely long to load? You have to index each playlist I have? Are you nuts?

 

No, no, please, the right solution is clearly having an app that's a black screen for 5 minutes till it loads.

Yes, I've reinstalled with full removal. Yes, I've cleared caches. Multiple times. Yes, I've disabled Hardware Acceleration. Are you delirious with me yet?

 

I can see how the app works from being an educated front-end user for so long. Your approach is trash, and the good things you've thought of I was suggesting from within 30 minutes of using your app when it came to the US in 2012.

 

Get your act together.

I have been upset about the Mac Desktop app loading for 3-5 minutes for several years. I learned to just live with until I came here, saw the fix and applied it. For me all I had to do was uncheck "Hardware Acceleration." Is that counterintuitive or what? But it worked and Spotify now loads in just a few seconds. **bleep**!!!

This problem is far from being solved, solutions are just workarounds.

I made everything listed here, but searching, playing, skipping and stopping songs (even when I close the application) is painfully slow. I just saw an improvement in the speed when I open, but I don't care, it's unusable.

I'm very upset because developers doesn't take this very seriously.

Reply from Stej01:


"For Mac Users:

1.  If you do not have hidden files set to display by default: in Finder, press the Alt/Option key to access the Library folder under the Go menu. If you do have hidden files accessible: in Finder, just go to the Library folder in your user directory.

2. Go the Caches folder and look for the com.spotify.client folder.

3. Delete everything inside the Storage, Data and Browser folders, but not the folders themselves. You can select all of the items by pressing Command + A.

 

My Two Cents:

Disable Hardware Acceleration, this seemed to fix the issue for me personally. Clearing the local cache is always a good idea though first.

 

Click on Spotify window > Top Left Select Spotify > Select the Hardware Accelaration option to untick it

 

Let me know if you have any further questions.

I've tried all of these fixes, including this one, and have had no change or improvement. I have the latest version of Spotify, and am using a very clean Mac Pro, latest model. There should be zero problem with this, but it's been happening for me for about 6 months. I'm probably going to deactivate my premium account and move to another provider. It's sad because I've been with Spotify for years, but I need it for work as I'm a full time music producer/recording artist and performer, and I cannot have these issues slowing down my work. Good luck to Spotify in the future. I hope they eventually get this issue worked out.

Same here. It's been an absolute catasthrophe the last year. It is and should be embarrasing for Spotify how poorly their product works after this company just turned 10 years.  

 

Spotify desktop is barely usable on my MacBook to the point that it's unacceptable. I've had spotify for 10 years and it's inconceivable that it's getting worse with time when you would reasonably expect it to be improving. I'm at this point where it's barely usable. 

 

I've done everything that is suggested in these forums. I've restarted the application. I've reinstalled. I've cleared the cache. I've turned off local files. I've turned off machine acceleration. Clearing the cache used to make it better for a while but I've cleared the cache and reinstalled the application once every single day for a week with no improvement whatsoever. I can't browse at all and have to go through spotify web player in order to do so. I haven't been able to use the browse section without several minutes lag for a long time so I've gotten used to it but that does not make it acceptable. What's eggregious right now is that I can't even view my own playlists like I used to be able to do even with the browse being unsuable, not without waiting 5+ minutes for my own playlists to appear. Sometimes they never appear and I'll restart the app and if I'm lucky it will load for 5 minutes before it allows me to access it. I also have to force quit and restart the app several times a day to be able to use Spotify even in the poor functioning state it's in.

 

A new problem that's appeared this past week is that I cannot even right click the songs on my desktop app in order to add songs to other playlists and embed songs. You know, the thing you do to add a song to a playlist, embed, share it or QUEUE it. How is this acceptable???

 

Like I said, I've been a customer for 10 years. I want to be able to love Spotify as I've done for many years, but it's becoming extremely difficult to do so when the application isn't just running slow, but its most basic functions don't work.

Hi Capillaries,

 

Do you notice any issues in service with the web service at all?

 

From what you are describing with your app it sounds like an issue relating to the machine you are using rather than the spotify application. I am a Mac user and have not come across any of the problems you have outlined above.

 

These are the specs of my Macbook for your reference:

Intel Iris Graphics 6100 1536 MB

8 GB 1867 MHz DDR3

2.7 GHz Intel Core i5

Version: 10.14.2

 

How does your machine compare to mine?

Hi,

 

How do you mean issues in service with the web service?

 

Intel HD Graphics 4000 1536 MB

4 GB 1600 MHz DDR3

2,5 GHz Intel Core i5

Version 10.11.6 (15G20015)

 

My specs are not the same as yours, but I don't understand why the spotify application can't work adequately for an older Mac? None of my other applications or the laptop itself has problems or runs slow otherwise. 

Well said. It's inexcusable actually. 

I closed spotify and it didn't do anything.

Thank you for that information,

 

The specs are a little different, but not drastically. I would kind of expect it to run on Earlier version of Sierra.

 

Have you updated the Spotify app up to the latest avilable version? This is often a good way to resolve performance issues.

 

You can check your Spotify version by going into the app and clicking on Spotify in the top left of your screen, next to the Apple logo.


Select About Spotify > I have attached a screenshot of my app for your reference.

Screenshot 2019-01-27 at 21.20.16.png

It is actual. Maybe it was hosts file, i use it to block ads, now it is faster when i removed it. Before it didn't load, today it took 2-3, before removing hosts file entries.

Hi all, 

 

For any issues with Spotify, give these a try:

  • Restart the Spotify app. 
  • Log out and back in. 
  • Check the app is up-to-date.
  • Close any other apps you’re not using. 
  • Reinstall the app.
    Note: After reinstalling, you'll need to redownload any music you've made available for offline listening.
  • If possible, try a different internet connection. If this works, see 'Check the connection' below.
  • Try playing on a different device, or with the web player. If this works, your inability to play on the first device could be an issue with the device itself:
    • Check the device is supported and up to date.
    • Your device should have at least 250MB available memory (you may want to remove any unnecessary files and apps).
    • You may need to perform further troubleshooting with the device's manufacturer.
  • Check @SpotifyStatus for any ongoing issues.

Tip: We recommend using Spotify with a WiFi connection, on a supported device that has at least 250MB available memory.

 

If you're still having trouble we want to know about it. Please start a new thread in the Help Boards so we can invesigate (this thread is quite old from 2014). 

 

Thanks!

@Meredith the fact that this thread is so old but still getting comments would indicate that the problems have existed for years and never been addressed by Spotify. Doing all of those additional steps (uninstall/reinstall, deleting folders/clearing cache, etc) is all Spotify ever comes back with, and not only is it a huge pita, the problem will just come back again eventually. That said, I think the key in your comment is this bit "a supported device that has at least 250MB available memory." It seems that your apps have become resource hogs, and so us folk with older devices are getting horrible lag. The only device that seems to play without lag is my Echo Dot, which of course has no graphic UI. 

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