[Mac Desktop] Can't Play Current Song Error Message

[helpme37]

Plan: Premium for Students

I have a MacBook Pro with macOS Catalina Version 10.15.6. For about the past month I have been getting an error message when trying to play Spotify on my laptop. I will play a song and it will play the entire song except for the last two seconds. At that point it'll stop and I get an error message saying "Can't play current song." It will not progress to the next song until I hit the next button and then the whole thing will repeat. If I hit pause/play, nothing happens. The Spotify app on my phone is working totally fine.

I have tried restarting the application, logging out, restarting my computer, uninstalling and reinstalling. Also, off of other suggestions, I have tried turning off autoplay and crossfading songs. I have tried looking for the Spotify cache history and haven't been able to find any (but that also might just be above my computer skills). 

[Xenia]

Hey there folks,

We really appreciate you sharing your details as requested! Rest assured that our teams are still looking into this.

If you're also having trouble playing any track in the desktop app, first try the steps here and if that doesn’t do the trick, make sure to add your +VOTE and a comment with the following info:

• The device(s) (make, model & OS) this is happening on
• The exact Spotify version
• Do you have headphones or external speakers connected (Bluetooth/wired)?
• Is the behavior always the same?
• Can you recreate it with ease, or is it random?
• What troubleshooting steps have you tried (eg. changing networks, turning off Proxy or VPN, restarting your device, setting the app Offline, checked the firewall, etc)?
• Any screenshots or screen recording of what's happening would be very helpful - just make sure that there's no private/sensitive info displayed.

We'll be keeping you updated here on any info we have to pass on so we'd suggest ensuring you've subscribed to this thread to stay up to speed. 

[mljenkins]

Been a premium customer for a couple years now.  I think this is my last straw with the Spotify app.  I have had this happen before, and a restart of the app resolves.  Now the app won't play at all to any output.  I already restarted my Mac with no resolution.  Everything else on the system plays audio fine.  This app just keeps getting worse and worse on the Mac.  The only thing honestly that has kept me from going back to iTunes is moving my playlists back, so congrats all you music empires for making that a real PITA.  That and the rest of my family uses Spotify, but they all have Apple devices, so I'm thinking of just putting them on my Apple family plan and saying screw it.  So **bleep** right now, listening to music shouldn't be such a fight every time.

• The device(s) (make, model & OS) this is happening on - MacBook Pro M1 13-in 2020 8 GB/256
• The exact Spotify version - 1.1.59.712.g54f36e5d-a
• Do you have headphones or external speakers connected (Bluetooth/wired)? - Output to SoundBlaster Play 3, also tried headphones and my Samsung Thunderbolt monitor speaker output
• Is the behavior always the same? Now it is, no sound at all when playing, but tracks look like they are playing
• Can you recreate it with ease, or is it random? - Restart, doesn't work.  It just stopped playing in the middle of a track and won't start playing again.  I cannot get it to start again so I cannot recreate.
• What troubleshooting steps have you tried (eg. changing networks, turning off Proxy or VPN, restarting your device, setting the app Offline, checked the firewall, etc)? - Tried different sound output.  Tried restarting.  Network is irrelevant, it acts like the tracks are playing and can load all other data like playlists and such from my account.
• Any screenshots or screen recording of what's happening would be very helpful - just make sure that there's no private/sensitive info displayed. - Pretty self explanatory.  Click play, it does everything but put sound out the speakers.

[mljenkins]

Not sure what happened, but I quit the Spotify app again, switched to all my sound devices, tried switching all the audio quality settings, etc. and then realized the volume in Spotify was turned all the way down.  So for whatever reason, the volume fader in Spotify was the culprit.  It just jumped all the way to the bottom.  I don't know if restarting my Mac, restarting the app, or switching the output devices helped at all.  But after messing around for 15 minutes straight now, the freaking volume slider is at the bottom.  I have seen the volume slider move in the past by itself to a lower setting, but never all the way off.  I seldom use the spotify volume control as I primarily use my devices controls so I never thought to check there earlier.

I have a suspicion what is causing this is some app sync between the desktop app, the iPhone app (which I am not using at the moment, but use whenever I am aware from my desktop), and/or my Apple watch app.  At some point something that ties these together is going "oh this devices is at this level" and suddenly switches the volume on the desktop app.  More than likely that is my gut feeling here.

[blvckvv]

I thought I had mostly rid myself of any issues with crashing and songs not playing just by disabling hardware acceleration in the app but the issues have crept back up again. Crash upon crash. 

Spotify is terrible and the moderators are forever useless lol. The best advice these geniuses are able to offer is "restart the app and your computer." Wow! I didn't think of that! 

[Petrichor2887]

I don't use headphones but I still have this error (even though I've uninstalled Spotify before reinstalling/logging out and then logging back in). Haven't been able to listen since yesterday or two days ago.

Edit: It's working completely fine now

[ajefferiss]

This is happening for me as well, I've tried a clean reinstall of Spotify which hasn't made any difference. It randomly starts happening and when it does it's consistently until a close and restart, when it starts happening again. It's making listening to anything impossible so I'll be cancelling my subscription.

* MacOS (Catalina 10.15.7) desktop

* Spotify 1.1.58.820.g2ae50076-a

* Internal speakers

* Hardware acceleration (on and off)

* Crossfade disabled and enabled

* Cache cleared numerous times

[thomnowuk]

Been plagued with this issue for a while now and nearly cancelled my Spotify sub.. but I've changed my DNS from 1.1.1.1 to 8.8.8.8 and now it all just magically works - When in doubt, try DNS. 

Hope this helps anyone else here plagued with this issue.

[nthnwlsh]

Also found that switching DNS from 1.1.1.1 (Cloudflare) to 8.8.8.8 (Google) and restarting the app resolves the constant "Can't play the current song" problem. Songs would play for ~10 seconds and then stop for another ~10-20 seconds, almost like a constantly-buffering behaviour.

MacOS Sierra (10.12.6 (16G2136)) and Spotify desktop app version 1.1.59.712.g54f36e5d-a

Would be good to not have this issue so I can return to Cloudflare for DNS.

[megs88]

iMac OS Big Sur 13.3.1 and Spotify desktop app version 1.1.59.712.g54f36e5d-a

Brand-spanking new iMac, just opened today.  I downloaded Spotify and every song stops playing after 7 seconds.  Obviously, I'm not reinstalling this software because it's been on my system less than 2 hours.  I found no solution in any of the FAQ pages, nor in any of the communities with the same problem.

[Alex_Clare]

I have this same issue but on Windows, recently. Most of the time It happened when I'm listening to Weekly, Daily, Genre playlist. I have tried reinstall the app both from Spotify website and Windows Store version, It still happen.
- OS: Windows 10
- Spotify version: 1.1.60.672.g6ad9c215-a