Windows app scanning hard drive

[ajoh]

Plan

Premium

Device

Windows 10 (app) desktop

My Question or Issue

Everytime the spotify app starts (on start up) I can see it thrashing the hard drive, looking at task manager confirms it's hammering my hard drive.

I don't want apps stalking through my hard drive, I certainly never gave it permission to do this.

I can't see how to disable it eaither. I've looked in preferences and the 'show local files' option has been disabled.

Is it possible to stop this behaviour? I'm not going to be using the app until I can.

Thanks

[Sebasty]

Hey @ajoh 

That's quite a strange issue!

Local files should not cause the "hard drive hammering" unless maybe once when Spotify collects local file data (with "show local files" turned on) and there are thousands of mp3's.

I would definitely recommend reinstalling the app. It could be an odd glitch removable with a reinstall. See this article on how to do a clean reinstall!

You could try a different version of a Spotify app - if you're using a standalone install, check out the Microsoft Store's Spotify app, and the other way around.

If the issue continues, it might be useful to install Process Monitor. This tool (created by Microsoft) shows all processes that are taking place and can show what Spotify is trying to do.

Let me know how it goes! 🙂

[ajoh]

Hi,

Thanks for your suggestion. I tried the windows store version (I was previously using the standalone app downloaded from the website). This does exactly the same a few seconds after it loads it starts hammering the drive.

I haven't installed processes but the drive that's getting hit (at 100% according to task manager) is the one with all my MP3s on, so I guess it's scanning them.

It's a fresh install from a couple of days ago as I've only just started using spotify.

Honestly, it seems more like a virus than an app.

[Sebasty]

Hey @ajoh 

Is there a lot of mp3s on that drive, and did you turn off local files (as well as unselect any sources) in Preferences?

It could be that Spotify is stuck to reading one of them. I haven't seen this happen to Spotify, but I have had such an issue with some wav files and Windows itself where Procmon shows huge amounts of "read" processes on a single file. Removing the file helps in that case.

I understand you have multiple drives in your system?

Let me know how you get on 🙂

[ajoh]

Yes it is a separate drive, and it does have a lot of MP3s (10,000s).

I can't see anywhere to unselect sources in preferences, just the option to include local media (which is disabled).

[Sebasty · Accepted solution]

@ajoh 

The source selection pops up when the "show local files" is enabled. That's when you can unselect specific sources.

Yea, I have seen users with such high numbers of mp3's having issues with Spotify and local files...

Maybe it stops when you try unselecting the sources.

Let me know how you get on 🙂

[ajoh]

Thanks, turning those off after turn on local files did the trick.

Still seems like really bad practice on the part of spotify scanning your drive when you haven't told it to and then hiding the option to disable it until after you've turned local files on!

[uncajesse]

While that might be a problem also, that doesn't really solve the problem though. It's related to the Spotify cache. That's the one that takes 15 to 45 minutes of grinding on my computer. For many years now.

If I close Spotify, and open it up again, it's not nearly as bad, because Windows is caching whatever Spotify is accessing.

And Yes, I did disable the "Downloads" folder from Local Files, as well as disabling Local Files. There are also no audio files at all in my "My Downloads" folder.

I've reported this a bunch (all been deleted now), and I even have a few friends that work at Spotify. There's nothing that can be done about this problem because they do not care. They. Do. Not. Care.

Can you imagine all of the energy and resources that are being spent because of this problem? Can you imagine how much customer money is being wasted by having their SSD/HDD ruined by Spotify? It's pretty wild... I can't even imagine what the justification for this to go on for so many years really is...

[spot_kwr]

Hi @Sebasty, It is 2021, and I still have the same problem.

I only have 1 HDD on my PC (others are SSD). And the HDD is large and usually windows keeps it powered down because it is not linked to anything anywhere. I use it very rarely.

The moment I open spotify, I can hear the HDD powering up. It is quite annoying - I am not listening to the songs on that drive (there are none!!). I already tried the "Solution" marked above, but it still doesn't stop my HDD from powering up every time I start spotify. No other program does this.

THIS. IS. REALLY. FRUSTRATING.

[Mihail]

Hey @spot_kwr,

Thanks for reaching out to the Community.

Just to make sure that we're on the same page - you've enabled Show Local files, removed all sources and disabled it again, right?

If that's the case it's a good idea to also disable Hardware acceleration from the advanced settings menu. If the issue persists, we recommend that you perform a clean reinstall as @Sebasty suggested.

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

[spot_kwr]

This is correct, I did enable Show Local Files, and remove all sources. I did not disable it again - I will try the further solutions suggested by you and report back.

[Ivan]

Hey @spot_kwr, 

Hope you're doing great today. 

Jumping in here to check if you managed to try the steps suggested by @Mihail above. 

Feel free to let us know if you need more help with this.  

We'll look out for your reply. 

[melocouto]

Does not work. Very unusual behavior, like a true virus.
Spotify is actively reading all my php files ! Despite "show local files" is disabled.
I have a web development environment on my notebook, the same computer I use Spotify to listen music.
This is kinda weird bug or worst! Please fix it !!!

[CarlosE]

Hi there @melocouto,

Thanks for posting on this thread and welcome to the Community!

Just to confirm, did you enable Show Local Files and disable all the sources?

If you did and there wasn't any difference, could you let us know all the steps you've tried so far so we can see what else to suggest?

Remember to run a clean reinstall to get rid of any corrupted files that might be causing trouble.

Keep us posted. We'll be on the lookout.

[teardrops]

Since I'm having the exact same issue as the creator of this thread, and I have tried all the steps described to fix the issue - nothing did help.

I now have uninstalled Spotify, because there is no legitimate reason Spotify would scan all filetypes, even text files, movies, archives, etc. with all local file options disabled.

To repeat:
1) I have reinstalled Spotify
2) I have disabled hardware acceleration (has nothing to do with the local drive search, but anyways)
3) I have disabled searching local files for music
4) The searched folders are not even within the source list, rather a completely different drive containing no music
5) I have restarted my Windows 10 PC for hundreds of times over the course of months, the issue still persists.

Since this issue persists since a long time already, and is not being fixed, while any open source developer is able to fix such an obvious bug, I have no choice but uninstall.

Being a developer myself I find this to be very intransparent and obviously illegitimate behaviour of an application, especially since this issue was reported back in 2013.

Looking forward to any excuses or false promises, keep me entertained. This is intentional behaviour. NSA is greeting lol.

[Eni]

Hey there @teardrops, 

Thanks for reporting this and for the troubleshooting so far.

Would you mind sending us some screenshots of the local files settings in the app and another one showing where Spotify is scanning? Make sure not to send any private info.

We'll be on the lookout for your reply.

[uncajesse]

No offense moderator, but did you just start working here? The Windows software has been like this at least since 2013.

Can anyone explain how Spotify is calculating the carbon footprint of this issue?

To everyone else, just uninstall this **bleep** and move to a service that actually has lossless and cares about their customers. Preferably something that uses Echonest to assist music discovery but, sorry Glenn, but Spotify is such a **bleep** that I'm willing to leave (and have, years ago) the epicness that is your musical robots if I don't have to deal with not having any usable Windows app. And also let's face it, Spotify is never going to offer a lossless service. Tidal is also garbage, and hopefully Michael Fremer has the balls to publish an article in the next 1-2 months, about how insanely bad MQA is for the music industry, now that we've properly informed him, and he has easy to understand "ammo" for everyone to let the truth slap em in the face.

This kind of behavior isn't anything new from a corporation though. A great example is Rockstar Games, GTA V, it uses p2p netcode with synchronous session initialization, and literally no timeout, ever. "What could possibly go wrong..."

And they've never changed it. Someone even re-wrote part of the loading process, and Rockstar gave them $10,000 to avoid being SO embarrassed (I'm sure their legal teams have other words for it), as if it was something only a reserve engineer could accomplish. xD

So clearly... it's just more of the same.

Cary on moderator, carry on, because there's nothing you can do to help this problem. It's clearly an issue that's being caused from the top down. And the top doesn't care, as long as the money keeps flowing. This is not speculation. This is a history lesson.

Disclaimer: I'm a co-founder of the now defunct radioio, who once competed with Spotify, but also did amazing things with Echonest ourselves. So technically I used to be tied to Echonest/Spotify in some way. radioio was destroyed by a hostile takeover attempt where I lost millions. It had nothing to do with Spotify or Echonest, but it did open my eyes to more things. Anyways, just in case someone were to mention that I might be potentially be biased, I'm really not. I haven't cared about the industry in 10 years. I left broadcast completely now, and am fully back in mastering music, mixing live, producing (in the traditional sense), etc.... music. My love for music can never die, and gets stronger every day.

Be well everyone. 🙂