"Spotify can't play this right now. If you have the file on your computer you can import it."

[itmeleftie]

Plan

Premium

Country

USA

Device

PC

Operating System

Windows 10

My Question or Issue

As stated in the title I cannot play any music and get an error saying Spotify can't play this right now. If you have the file on your computer you can import it. I have deleted local files in the roaming data section for the app already and I have uninstalled/reinstalled the app as well as uninstalled and then reinstalled using the microsoft store. Nothing is working. The music will play from other devices such as my phone just not on my PC. Any advice would be helpful as I feel like I have tried everything. Thank you!

[FrenchyKimbo]

Plan

Premium

Country

Belgium 

Device

PC

Operating System

Windows 10

+1 here - I'm experiencing the same exact problem and also have tried all the trouble shooting proposals from double-checking the host files, to the dumping of the local cache files, to the reinstalling and rebooting of the computer and none of these seem to work. I've also tried the web player but that is also returning an error message saying that I need to enable secure playback, but the files being linked to it are not applicable to my Windows 10 OS... so not sure what's going on. 

[EerilyBlack]

Plan

Premium

Country

The Netherlands

Device

PC

Operating System

Windows 10

Same here.

It just broke randomly. Nothing will play in my spotify client on windows 10. No playlist items, no liked songs, not a searched found song.
Songs are not greyed out. just the famed "Spotify can't play this right now. If you have the file on your computer you can import it"
message and nothing.

I'm on spotify premium.
I tried:
1. Deleting all caches (including the local-files.bnk file)
2. Uninstall + reinstall
3. Moved it from C:\Users\<USER>\AppData\Roaming to C:\ProgramData\Spotify
4. Disabled hardware acceleration
5. Not running any ad blockers, nothing strange in my host file except some docker and kubernetes entries pointing to local IP addresses. Nothing has changed there.
6. Disabled "Show local files" setting

[FrenchyKimbo]

It seems to be working for me today. So perhaps there was a temporary server hiccup or something? Unless you're experiencing it still now!

[EerilyBlack]

I am still experiencing the issue. If I use my phone everything works as expected.

[frozensavaas]

Same issue here

[EerilyBlack]

Ok, I just figured it out today. This machine had an audio hook-in/plugin installed called `equalizer APO`. After uninstalling this (using the uninstaller found in the install directory, ?:/Program Files/EqualizerAPO by default) it was working again!

So, please check if you have any software installed that hooks in to the windows audio stack. If so, uninstall it to check if it is the problem or not.

Maybe either windows or spotify should implement an equalizer.. Quite flabbergasting it's not there already.

[TNTgamer1]

Get it from the microsoft store.

[momchil5000]

If you have an equaliser, that may be a problem. But I don't know how to fix it I am training to find a solution because I have same problem.

[Dian]

Hey guys,

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

This is indeed a classic error message, that can be due to a lot of factors. The one with the 3rd party equalizer is one, because it most probably redirects the sound output in some way. This is only a speculation though.

This brings us to the importance of making sure, that the sound settings on your device are set properly. One way to make sure this is so, is to perform a clean reinstall of the desktop app as described here and checking if the sound options on your device match the ones described in this thread. Also make sure to install the latest sound drivers or just uninstall them and install them again.

How did this go?

Keep us posted,

Cheers!