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?

[RichW001]

I have a Motog6 and it has this issue.  Does not happen for Netflix or Linked in Learning. Not sure what others are doing to overcome the issue.  Seems interesting that Spotify has this issue for awhile now.

[MsterSandman]

Nope.

The app has all permissions needed. The SD card is perfectly fine, it is formatted, and I've cleared the cache probably 100 times by now.

Your app is not properly checking for a mounted SD card before accessing the storage data. So it thinks there is no card and reverts to internal storage constantly.

Fix it please. 

[Julian]

Hi @MsterSandman,

Thank you for keeping us in the loop.

Just to make sure, have you tried testing the app with a different SD card? If not, please give it a go.

Also, it's always a good idea performing a clean reinstall of the app. This is often an overlooked step, but it’s more thorough than a regular one and can be helpful to get rid of any cache that might be causing trouble. 

If this still doesn't do the trick, please contact our folks from the support team. They will be able to take a better look at your account. 

Cheers!

[Rubyv76]

I've done all of the above and it still happens. Happened again yesterday, in fact. 

[Julian]

Hi @Rubyv76,

Thank you for adding your posts to this thread.

To begin, we want to make sure you already followed all the steps shared by @Ver and @Julian. 

If the SD is still not recognized by the app, we suggest you contact the support team. The folks over there will be able to look directly into your account. 

We'll be on the lookout. 

[akiyoshidoug]

As premium subscribers we demand a premium service! But with this critical issue being around for years, it feels cheap. 😒

Plan

Premium

Country

Brazil

Device

Samsung Galaxy A20

Operating System

Android 11

My Question or Issue

I'm going through the same issue as everyone else here, I change the settings to save my songs on Micro SD card, but after a restart my songs are being downloaded again on my phone's internal storage.

*Clearing cache and data, logging out of all my devices (through the web option), and reinstalling the app doesn't work at all.

[Djltoronto]

same issue with my galaxy s20 FE

[rr17]

Having the same issue with s20 fe. 

[akiyoshidoug]

[I'm editing my workaround comment I posted here a few weeks ago because it didn't last long. Today I restarted my phone and it started downloading over 1,500 songs all over again on my phone's internal storage 😭 ]

[MythicSuns]

One of the issues that Spotify for Android has had for years but has never been fixed is the way it handles downloads; if the Spotify app doesn't detect a chosen storage method (such as a Micro SD card) it will automatically move all items in your library that have been marked for downloading to the next available storage. On paper this sounds ideal but there's one variable it doesn't take into consideration which is the length of time it takes for the Android system to detect any kind of external storage during startup.

Because of this lack of consideration a lot of Spotify users have often found themselves with low storage on their devices because Spotify has quietly decided to move everything to internal storage because it mistakenly thought that the SD card was no longer in the phone.

This is why I'm proposing 4 alternative download related solutions that I reckon could solve the problem:

The first is one where the app has to wait 30 seconds before initiating a download, this should give most Android devices the amount of time they need to detect the SD card for use with other apps.

The second is a setting that gives the user the option to only have the download process initiate when Spotify is launched in the foreground. A solution like this wouldn't be ideal for users who only use internal storage which is why I'm suggesting it to be an opt-in option that shows up on the settings page rather than something that's just always on. 

The third is a manual download option in the settings which will give users the option to opt-out of having Spotify initiate downloads at launch and instead giving them access to a button that will automatically tell the app to search for new downloads and save any new items to the user's preferred storage.

And the 4th is probably the most simple solution: set the app to not initiate downloading until the preferred storage solution is detected.