(Desktop) Playback issues with local files

[Maria]

We're receiving reports of users experiencing playback issues with local files. This seems to happen specifically on the desktop app, where playback stops at 0 seconds after every song.

[Szaszkee]

Hi @Eni.

Thanks for the tip, though I think I will just remove the songs affected and maybe look for alternates as I don't have the tools or knowledge to reconvert without losing quality. My suspicion is that all of the files affected were downloaded (and converted to mp3 format) with yt-dlp from YouTube, maybe there is a connection?

I never use any local file on phone, only PC. Instead I uploaded one of the affected files, maybe it can help your engineers look at what is wrong. Here is the google drive link (4,4MB .mp3 file): https://drive.google.com/file/d/1wlA5kHpJxI24O9QTwI4jLBnAKTTRwA2X/view?usp=sharing

If you add this song to the local folder and into a playlist you can see for yourself. To reproduce just start the playlist and queue this song next.

[Eni]

Hi again @Szaszkee, 

Thanks for your quick reply. 

We tried to replicate this behavior and the file caused issues indeed, however when we removed it, it started working again. We appreciate you bringing this to our attention, and as a workaround we suggest trying with other versions of the songs in the meantime. 

We'll keep an eye on other possible reports about this, and we recommend keeping the app up to date so you don't miss out on any improvements or fixes. 

If you need a hand with anything else, the Community is here for you. 

[zondaa]

Plan

Premium

Country

Device

PC

Operating System

Windows 10

My Question or Issue

I have an issue with playing music in the Spotify app on my PC (Windows).
Some of the upcoming tracks in the queue get stuck at 0:00 and don’t play automatically. They only start playing if I manually move the progress bar or skip to the next track and then return to the previous one.

Here’s what I’ve already tried without success:
Reinstalled Spotify multiple times.
Toggled "Volume Normalization" on and off.
Downloaded the entire playlist for offline playback.
Cleared hosts file
Tried many setting in app
None of these steps resolved the issue. How can i fix this?

[Yordan]

Hi there, @zondaa,

Welcome to the Spotify Community!

Have you tried connecting to another network, if possible? You can create mobile hotspot from your phone and connect your router to it to see if that does the trick.

It's also worth flushing your DNS cache by following the steps below:

1. In Windows’ search bar, type “Command Prompt” and run it as an administrator.
2. Enter the following command: ipconfig /flushdns.

Lastly, make sure Spotify is allowed through your Firewall/antivirus software. If you're using a VPN, I'd suggest disabling it as well.

Hope this helps! Let us know how it goes 👍

[Deuseph]

Since almost a week, when listening to a playlist that has Spotify songs and local file songs (all are .mp3), when any song ends and a local file song has to begin, it instead pauses and never play, the play button shows like it is playing but when pausing and clicking the play button to play again it doesn't respond all the times this happens and I have to click to skip and return to the song or to click to the beginning of the song on the length bar that's below the play buttons.

[zondaa]

No, that didn’t help. The issue might be with local files. I have a playlist with nearly 300 songs from my PC, and the 0:00 error only happens when I play this playlist. Problem might be with some mp3 files, but they all play fine in Windows Media Player or similar player, i don't know how to fix this.

[Deuseph]

(Commenting because the original post didn't gave me enough text space)

I have tried doing a clean reinstall, trying the Microsoft Store version, log out from all devices, sync off and sync again all of the local files, disable hardware acceleration, disable many connections from my account that could affect like Discord but anything has worked. 

Sometimes this doesn't happen, sometimes doesn't happen that often, and sometimes it happens with every local file song. I have been using local files since 2023 and until now this problem started to happen, so I don't know what I have done because from what I have searched this probblem happens since many years, to many people and the solutions that I have found are not an ultimate solution in any way (changing from pc to mobile and viceversa or queueing the songs instead of the normal and automatic random mode that I use). 

I'm sending a video from when it happens. 

2025-06-03 09-43-10 - Trim.mp4 ‏1710 KB

[ziljon]

I have a similar problem, when i have 2 tracks in a row on a playlist that are local files some of them wont play and get stuck at 0:00. This has never been a problem before. If I place a regular track between the 2 local ones it works as normal for some absurd reason so it's not something wrong with my files.. The only thing that has happened lately is that I tried to fix spotify by reinstalling it etc when you had the big technical problem back in April. Spotify has worked a bit iffy since in some small ways. Even tho I've made multiple clean installs and done the other workarounds you suggested above.  

Either way, none of the above solutions works for me (windows 10) and the problem doesn't happen on my phone (Android), the difference there is that all the playlists on my phone is downloaded and offline. As I said this was never a problem before... I don't exactly have faith in that Spotify hasn't rolled out some sneaky update that **bleep** up local files.. 

[AlejaR]

Hey there @Deuseph,

Thanks for posting in the Community and welcome.

Kudos for the troubleshooting steps you've tried so far! As the next step, you can try:

• Running the app in Safe Mode with Networking to rule out any issues with your default Windows settings and basic device drivers.
• Changing the location of the local files by moving them to a different folder on your computer.

If the above doesn't do the trick, we'd like to gather some additional info. Please send us:

• The exact Spotify and Windows versions you're running.
• Did you notice if this started to happen after a specific event such as an OS update?
• 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 from a phone and connect your computer to it, to see if you notice any difference.

Keep us in the loop!

[Vasil]

Hey @zondaa & @ziljon,

Thank you for the feedback!

If this only happens with local files, it's likely that the error lies there. Even if the files can be played via a regular player there's no guarantee that Spotify is going to support them.

With this being said, we can do some additional troubleshooting here to see if anything would make a difference:

• Try adding a different local file to the playlist. Does the same error occur?
• Try moving the local files to a different location (folder) on the device.
• Move a few of the songs to a separate smaller playlist and see if you can reproduce the issue with it as well.

In case you're using an external speaker via Connect, note that local files are not compatible with Connect speakers.

Hope this helps! Keep us posted 🙌🏼