"can't play this right now" when clicking on tracks on an artist's discography page

[lathans]

Plan: Premium

Country: Norway

OS: Windows 11 23H2 w/all updates

Spotify for Windows (64 bit)
1.2.63.394.g126b0d89

Sometimes for me this results in "Spotify can't play this right now" after a short while:

1. Open the page of an artist

2. Click on "Show all" to the right of Discography.

3. Double clicking to start a track, seeking a bit, playing a few seconds at the time.

4. Repeating the previous step for a few (usually less than 10) other tracks on different albums (all while remaining on the discography page for the same artist).

5. Suddenly Spotify refuses to play another song when double clicking on a track in the discography list, giving me the "Spotify can't play this right now" message.

The funny thing is that clicking on the album title and playing the track from there works all the time. Going back to the artist page might work after navigating for a while in Spotify.

Also clicking on the Play button to the right of the cover arts on the discography page works as well, but it often plays the wrong song if the "can't play this right now" error showed up.

Clicking on the play icon that appears at the far left if you hover over a track produces the same "Spotify can't play this right now" as when double clicking on the track.

When this happens is not very consistent. For the past weeks when Spotify to quickly check out some snippets from tracks from an artist to see if I want to add them to my playlist, it has happened every day, and usually with the first, second or third artist I browse, after browsing maybe around ten tracks for each artist. Right before I wrote this I had this happen with several artists, but right now I cannot seem to reproduce it.

Since the same tracks works fine when played from the album page instead of the artist's discography page this has to be some kind of weird bug in the Spotify desktop client.

I have tried reinstalling Spotify, but I keep experiencing the same. The same also happens with different audio devices and different artists, and no other applications running on the computer.

[lathans]

Hey folks,

Thank you for the reports.

Our tech folks will investigate further. We're unable to provide an ETA for a fix at the moment, but we’re regularly looking for opportunities to enhance the user experience for everyone, so your feedback on this is greatly appreciated.

In the meantime, make sure you're always running the latest version of Spotify so you don't miss out on any updates.

The Community is here if there's anything else you need assistance with.

[lathans]

How do one get Spotify to take it seriously? My thread was merged with this one, although I can always play tracks from the album pages, but not always from the artist discography page, so it is clearly a bug in Spotify, and not a problem with my audio devices or whatnot. Seems to be the same experience as Malakias posted above, but I don't think it is related to the backend. Only the client. It can even happen with tracks that I have downloaded and available offline! See the video I attached.

[Yordan]

Hey, @lathans,

Thanks for reaching out! Heads up: I've moved your post to a separate thread so we can better troubleshoot this.

I was unable to reproduce via the steps you've shared. Would you mind sharing another screen recording which captures how you replicate this behavior so we can investigate further? There's another thread about the error message occurring in the discography tab which involves quickly scrolling through it, so I'm wondering if yours is somehow related.

I can also see that the songs are downloaded for offline listening. Have you checked if the same behavior occurs with other artists whose songs you haven't downloaded?

You mentioned you've reinstalled the app, but have you tried installing it from a different source? If you downloaded it from our website, try the version from the Microsoft Store instead or vice versa to see if the issue would persist.

Let us know how it goes 👍

[lathans]

Thank you for the attention!

It does not always happen, and I am not sure what makes it more or less likely to happen. In order to reproduce it I am doing what I describe. I play a few seconds here and there from different tracks from the discography page of an artist. Sometimes it does not happen and everything seems OK, and when I try again later it suddenly happens again.

It does not matter if the track is available offline or not. It can happen with any track.

It can also happen even if I recently started Spotify.

I did try again now and this time I was able to play many tracks from several artists' discography pages. Then suddenly it happened again.

In this video you can see that:

1. Playing tracks from the discography page stops working.

2. Playing tracks from the album pages still works.

3. Pressing the play button to the right of the album cover arts starts playing another track elsewhere on the discography page.

4. The same tracks that played fine from the previous steps still produces the error message when trying to play them by double clicking on them or using the play button in the far left of the track line.

I am using the normal desktop version from your web page.

I tried installing from Microsoft Store now, and the same thing happened. Is the Microsoft Store version different? About Spotify still shows "1.2.63.394.g126b0d89".

Edit: It seems like the poster of the thread you linked to might be on to something. When pressing the END key to quickly go far down the discography page and then quickly try to play a track seem to trigger this behavior more easily. Also going up to the very top of the discography page and playing tracks from there seems to work, and after this I can scroll down to any track on the page and play them.

But apparently you can trigger this behavior just by scrolling down and double clicking on a track as well as I experienced so many times, although it is not as consistent. Or perhaps as I accidentally did in the attached video: Go to another page, go back and quickly start playing a track.

It is not as I was ever trying to trigger this in the first place. I just wanted to find some songs to add to my playlist.

I hope that the bug can be identified and fixed!

[AlejaR]

Hey there @lathans,

Thanks for your reply and for all the info shared.

Thanks for the video, it helped us a lot. We could not replicate this behavior, so we'd suggest you:

• Run the app in Safe Mode with Networking to rule out any issues with your default Windows settings and basic device drivers.
• Clear your host files. 

On another note, we'd like to gather some additional info. Please send us:

• Do you use a VPN service? If yes, try setting Spotify as an exception. Keep in mind Spotify doesn't officially support VPN. This means that issues with the app while using VPN are expected behavior.
• Does this happen if you open a different account on your computer? You can ask for the account of a relative or a friend to open it on your computer and check.
• Does this happen over WiFi? Ethernet? Both? Does this happen if you change the internet connection you're using? If possible, you can create a hotspot on your phone and connect your computer to it, to see if you notice any difference.

Keep us in the loop!

[lathans]

It can happen in safe mode with networking.

My host files has no entries.

I have tried on my laptop as well as on my desktop computer where I initially experienced this, and I am able to reproduce it there was well.

I do not use any VPN services.

My computer has wired ethernet. I have tried with Wi-Fi and mobile hotspot too, but there is no difference.

[OscarDC]

Hey @lathans,

Thank you for keeping in contact and for the info shared. 

We tried to replicate the behavior again using the END key, but the playback seems to be working properly. So to continue investigating this behavior, could you confirm if this same behavior happens if you use the Web Player instead of your desktop app to see if it persists?

It would also be great if you could have someone log in with their account on your device - such as a friend or a family member, to see if the issue persists. 

However, if none of this seems to work, it's most likely related with this post that we've currently under internal investigation. So we'd recommend keeping an eye on that thread as any relevant updates will be posted there.

We appreciate your report. If anything else comes up, the Community will be here for you. 

[lathans]

It sometimes takes a several tries to trigger the behaviour, and it needs to be done in rapid succession - clicking the "Show all" to get to the discography page, immediately pressing the END key to go to the bottom and then immediately double clicking on a track to play it, and repeat this for several tracks near the end and continue on to different artists. In my experience it can happen within ten tracks of the first artist, or within ten tracks of up to around five or ten artists.

I did try the web player, and at first it seemed to work fine. After going to maybe five different artists, going to the discography pages and clicking end and quickly playing a track, I was suddenly met with the same error message again - "Spotify can't play this right now" (but without the if you have the file you can import it part), and the web player started to only play one second of the track before skipping to the next. This continued even if going to the album page, artist page or any other page. After closing the tab and opening it again it continued to work fine again. See the attached video recording I did after I experienced this.

I haven't had the chance to let anyone else try to log in to their Spotify account on my devices, but I will get back to that.

It seems very likely that it is related with the post that you are linking to since this is exactly what I am experiencing. I have trust in that it will be fixed as long as the right people are working on this. Thanks for the help!

[OscarDC]

Hey @lathans,

Thank you for your swift response!

We appreciate the time you spend following the processes we mentioned, describing in detail every step you took and for the videos you attached to your posts, it's really helpful. 

We will also be waiting for this to be fixed and we hope it will be as soon as possible. Don't forget to subscribe to the main thread (3-dot menu > Subscribe) so you don't miss any improvements coming your way.

If you've any additional questions, the Community is just a post away.

[ROYNORTHT]

Clearly, with so many users having this exact problem, the issue is not on our end. Continuing to tell us that wastes everyone's time and does not get you any closer to solving the problem. Blaming the victim is not helpful here.

[cleazoid]

I am also having this exact same problem

[Yordan]

Hey folks,

Thank you for the reports.

Our tech folks will investigate further. We're unable to provide an ETA for a fix at the moment, but we’re regularly looking for opportunities to enhance the user experience for everyone, so your feedback on this is greatly appreciated.

In the meantime, make sure you're always running the latest version of Spotify so you don't miss out on any updates.

The Community is here if there's anything else you need assistance with.

[soracia]

I am having issues playing songs from artists' pages on Desktop (windows 10).
I have Spotify Premium.
The same songs will play from a playlist (even liked songs), but not from the artist's page.
This happens with all artists, for all songs and all albums past the first few.
If I add the song to a playlist it will play (not a content issue), but launching it from the artist's page gives an error and won't play.
This happens both when following the artists and not.

I have tried reinstalling and even deep cleaning Spotify from my computer with removal utilities - the issue persists.
I don't have this issue on my phone, only on Windows.