Issue with storage option switching from SD Card to internal

[haydnrb7]

Plan

Premium

Country

US 

Device

Moto X4

Operating System

Android Pie

My Question or Issue

 This happened with my last phone, Samsung S7 running Oreo (or whatever the most recent OS is) but it was fixed when I got the Moto X4. I like to keep a lot of songs downloaded offline because my service is terrible and I also spend a lot of time in the mountains. Before I I update my phone to the new Android Pie OS there was no problems. Now everytime I reset my phone I think spotify cannot see my SD card at first and tries to download all the music to its internal storage and I have to go back in and tell it to store it in the SD card. That is extremely annyoing but not the end of the world. What is really frustrating is that I think all of the downloaded songs are still on the SD card and just keep redownloading and taking up space. Eventually this will cause me to reformat the card which will be a major pain for me since I store a large amount of photos on there also. Is anyone else have this problem? I have already uninstalled and reinstalled the application so any other suggestions or help?

[Ian39]

Unfortunately this solution doesn't work for me (there is no option to use pin or else before restart, seems to me that it does already as default, so... nada)

Plan: Premium

Country: CA

Device: Samsung Galaxy A50

OS: Android 11

Spotify version in settings: 8.9.24.633

Wouldn't be possible to circumvent the issue with a forced command to "change and choose" storage folder only manually, and/or deny other folders? So that the app wouldn't virtualize its data on the internal memory every time it doesn't find the old path? or at least give a notification and an option: "Spotify hasn't find the xxx Storage, would you like to change the storage path to xxx? before we call 991, CIA, Blackwater, and a ballistic nuclear attack to your location?" because that would be nice when you are outside, in the rain, and the only comfort it's some music, THAT YOU PAID.

This would fix the problem regardless of the phone type or any external changes outside the app (phone updates/reboots, temporary change of SD card or occasional dismounting of the SD card, aka fall drops, etc)

The app should be a smart balance between automated and manual changes, manual for end user customization (settings) that should be unchangeable without direct user control.

Few more things maybe ca be helpful

1 before, several until several months ago I didn't had this issue, so it is a recent issue for me due to new updates of the app

2 no significant changes for the device, same phone with same app

3 all other apps have no issue with the SD card

4 Every possible standard solution has been done

 Clean reinstall (deleting all data and cache through a PC + rebooting of the phone and new installation of Spotify

 Using another SD card

To the most drastic as factory reset of the phone

[Ian39]

Unfortunately this solution doesn't work for me (there is no option to use pin or else before restart, seems to me that it does already as default, so... nada)

Plan: Premium

Country: CA

Device: Samsung Galaxy A50

OS: Android 11

Spotify version in settings: 8.9.24.633

Wouldn't be possible to circumvent the issue with a forced command to "change and choose" storage folder only manually, and/or deny other folders? So that the app wouldn't virtualize its data on the internal memory every time it doesn't find the old path? or at least give a notification and an option: "Spotify hasn't find the xxx Storage, would you like to change the storage path to xxx? before we call 991, CIA, Blackwater, and a ballistic nuclear attack to your location?" because that would be nice when you are outside, in the rain, and the only comfort it's some music, THAT YOU PAID.

This would fix the problem regardless of the phone type or any external changes outside the app (phone updates/reboots, temporary change of SD card or occasional dismounting of the SD card, aka fall drops, etc)

The app should be a smart balance between automated and manual changes, manual for end user customization (settings) that should be unchangeable without direct user control.

Few more things maybe ca be helpful

1 before, several until several months ago I didn't had this issue, so it is a recent issue for me due to new updates of the app

2 no significant changes for the device, same phone with same app

3 all other apps have no issue with the SD card

4 Every possible standard solution has been done

 Clean reinstall (deleting all data and cache through a PC + rebooting of the phone and new installation of Spotify

 Using another SD card

To the most drastic as factory reset of the phone

[Ian39]

Unfortunately this solution doesn't work for me (there is no option to use pin or else before restart, seems to me that it does already as default, so... nada)

Plan: Premium

Country: CA

Device: Samsung Galaxy A50

OS: Android 11

Spotify version in settings: 8.9.24.633

Wouldn't be possible to circumvent the issue with a forced command to "change and choose" storage folder only manually, and/or deny other folders? So that the app wouldn't virtualize its data on the internal memory every time it doesn't find the old path? or at least give a notification and an option: "Spotify hasn't find the xxx Storage, would you like to change the storage path to xxx? before we call 991, CIA, Blackwater, and a ballistic nuclear attack to your location?" because that would be nice when you are outside, in the rain, and the only comfort it's some music, THAT YOU PAID.

This would fix the problem regardless of the phone type or any external changes outside the app (phone updates/reboots, temporary change of SD card or occasional dismounting of the SD card, aka fall drops, etc)

The app should be a smart balance between automated and manual changes, manual for end user customization (settings) that should be unchangeable without direct user control.

Few more things maybe ca be helpful

1 before, several until several months ago I didn't had this issue, so it is a recent issue for me due to new updates of the app

2 no significant changes for the device, same phone with same app

3 all other apps have no issue with the SD card

4 Every possible standard solution has been done

 Clean reinstall (deleting all data and cache through a PC + rebooting of the phone and new installation of Spotify

 Using another SD card

To the most drastic as factory reset of the phone

[GiladC]

Why is it so surprising to you that Spotify can't solve this development problem?
Pray for a miracle in the next version. I can't believe they will be able to fix it.

[EarlPurple]

This is a major bug, how can it have a "Not right now" status?

I have been reporting this issue to them for a while. The files are there so no need to redownload them. Just check if they are already there and mark them as downloaded. Simple. But no, they want to put our premium up again to give us usefess features nobody wants and tons of bugs with the basics they refuse to fix.

[dgs2-q_s9hk3h]

They can't alter the programing because they would need access to the
android kernel. Android considers it a security issue to allow applications
to have access to the storage space before the full operating system and
its security is active. This is also the reason none of the mainstream
brand phones are putting external storage ports on their phones anymore.
The simplest way to get around the problem is to use developer
options>standby apps>set to restricted before you restart your phone. Then
wait until the external storage is available before opening the app and
setting it back to active....

[ziul123]

You don't need kernel access to set a config flag in your application that tells it that it has files stored in external storage, and to wait until it can ask the OS for access to those files... This is a quick possible solution thought up in a few moments, I am sure the many programmers at spotify could come up with an even better one (if spotify actually cared about problems like this)

[dgs2-q_s9hk3h]

How does this flag work? Sense it can't access the fstab or /dev directory
or even /var... The only thing they could do is tell it not to turn on at
startup which is what this work around does....

[ziul123]

The flag would tell the application to not try to download multiple gigs of music on startup, and instead wait until the OS lets the app access the SD card. Or it could tell the app to prompt the user with a question, if they would like to download their songs again (most users would say no, wait until you can access the SD card). Anyways, it doesn't matter if this is what the workaround does, because this should not be a workaround, it should be a feature. Since there is a feature of external storage, they should make it work completely, not rely on some workaround where you have to install the app itself in local storage. I download loads of things onto my SD card, images, videos, documents, but somehow spotify is the only app that has this problem.

[WillianWRM]

while (no_user_response && music_directory_not_exists)
sleep(100);

there, that should do the trick