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?

[haydnrb7]

Please look at what I think could be the problem (and possibly the solution):

I noticed that the SD card only mounts AFTER I unlock the first time after the boot. You can see it by the SD card icon who apears quickly at status bar just after the unlock. For security reasons, it make sense, since someone who stole the phone could try to load malicious software via external storage. Spotify service probably loads BEFORE the SD card mount, and then, like a mother who call the police when his son is 30 seconds late to come back home, it switches to the internal memory and starts to download all again. If the PIN is typed before the system boot, the SD card mount and when Spotify service loads, it can find the external storage. Works like a charm. 

This solution did not let Spotify devs off the hook, since many other apps that use external storage didn't present this issue at all.

SOLUTION:

Make sure, if you have a PIN or password set, to Android ask BEFORE the system boot.

Further information here:

https://community.spotify.com/t5/Android/Storage-switched-back-to-internal-at-every-reboot-I-ve-found-the/m-p/4714532

[ppablospizzaservice]

Same issue here with a Samsung Galaxy A71 / Android 13. After a device restart, download location is switched to internal storage and the downloading begins...

[Disney33]

The storage location keeps switching from SD card to Device storage.  This issue has happened since at least summer 2021 almost daily.

[mwstandsfor]

Plan

Premium

Japan

Device

Sony Walkman NW-A306

Operating System

Android 12

My Question or Issue

On every reboot Spotify resets the location of the stored media. I know that this is an ongoing issue. However the extra issue is that, when you've waited for your SD card to mount before opening Spotify ( sometimes I wait even 2min). Spotify logs out and when you log back in again it resets your storage location. 
Then if you finally bypassed the device from restarting your music download progress (by turning it to offline mode asap), and after you've waited for the device to transfer to the SD card. The app ignores the music that's already been downloaded and that's on the SD card, so it starts downloading all the songs from the start again. My one playlist is 2600 songs and to download this every day (sometimes twice because my walkman turns off after 4hours of inactivity) 

[calamar-87]

What the **bleep** is wrong with you Spotify? Will you never fix this issue? 3 years and nothing changed. Try to replicate Spotify Lite storage function, that doesnt have this issue. We pay for your service for no solutions?

[marcellocaps]

the only thing that works properly is to install the app on the SD card, assuming your operating system allows it.

Spotify are simply waiting for the end of external SD cards in the next gen phones

[Jmatteis_ca]

@marcellocaps That is precisely what they need to do, and it should be possible...

If the app can't do it's auto thing because it has to wait for the phone to recognize the SD card that the app is on, that solves the issue of where music is stored.  It should be totally possible.  Hopefully someone is seeing this and looks into it.  One of my biggest complaints in the past was with the FACEBOOK app that was a space hog and couldn't be moved, but somehow they've made it possible now to move that app to SD, so until there are not more external SD's, why not make it possible.

[dgs2-q_s9hk3h]

don't encrypt your sd card. or put other things on your sd card and leave
your music on the phone its self. i mean even cheap phones have 20gb you
could use for music. at the top quality download you can fit like 15hours
of audio in 20gb. go down to high quality and you double that amount.

[mwstandsfor]

@dgs2-q_s9hk3h my device is a Walkman with only 22gb available after android iOS takes up 12. and I download audio at the highest quality (audiophile) which is why I need an sd card. But that’s pointless if I have to download 180gb every day. 

This is a whole system issue that’s been around for years and should be fixed by developers. 

[mwstandsfor]

Also on android 12 they’ve removed the option from settings to force the app to be on the SD card. 

[dgs2-q_s9hk3h]

again the reason this happens is that the Spotify app opens and looks for
its media library before the sd card is mounted by the phone. on Android
this is almost always do to the sd card being encrypted. because decrypting
it takes an extra moment or 2. the easiest way to fix this is 1) remove the
encryption from the sd card. 2) install the app onto the sd card and
disable auto updates for it(when it updates it will update back onto the
internal) . 3) before shutting your device off open the settings and
restrict the apps background access(so it can't look for its library until
you open it) 4)don't shut down your device....