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Web player stops after playing a song for 9 seconds

Spotify web player had worked fine for me for a long while (years), but a couple days ago started pausing playback at 9-second position very consistently. Switching to the next song (pressing the "Next" button) sometimes solves the issue for the next song playback (though, not always), then it happens again. Basically, it completely breaks the user experience, as I can't listen to songs which get stuck at 9 seconds, and have to manually press "Next" every 5-10 minutes.

 

I cannot see any errors in Chrome's JavaScript console nor any issues with the network requests. Everything is fine with my local network. The issue is only with Spotify's web player, and as far as I can tell, it is something that started happening just recently.

 

Any advice / help would be much appreciated.

 

Plan: Free

Country: USA

Device: MacBook Pro 2017

Operating System: macOS Big Sur 11.0.1

Web browser: Chrome 89.0.4389.90

Hello everyone,

 

due to recent developments, we're again marking this as Fixed.

 

We've made several backend improvements and from the previous comments those seem to have done the trick for a majority.

 

For anyone still experiencing this, it looks like the cause is a DNS issue via Chrome - something that's not under our control. All network communication for Spotify goes through the same domain name, so if metadata and playback commands are being sent, the domain is already resolved.

 

As such, if you're still having issues, please ensure to take the following steps to resolve this:

  • Change your default DNS in your network settings - It seems CloudFlare (1.1.1.1) is not an ideal pick, so if you have that one, change it to another DNS provider. Based on reports, Google's (8.8.8.8) is working fine.
  • Disable VPN, proxies or ad-blockers - they're not supported and are known to cause playback trouble.
  • Switch to a different browser for the Web Player - We've received reports that Firefox and Edge do not experience interruptions. As Edge and Safari are pre-installed on Windows and Mac those are good alternatives to use. If you don't want to make it your default browser, you can just create a custom shortcut for the Spotify Web Player to open in that browser. A good guide on how to do so can be found here.

 

Shoutout to @danth45 for helping find a solution!

 

Take care!

Comments
Simkaa
Very sad but I'm also thinking that I'm going to have to cancel my
subscription... Currently Spotify just isn't usable!!👎
nov2
Same
Simkaa

It's on my work computer using latest version of Chrome (Version 89.0.4389.114) and has been working perfectly for over a year until last week. The only change was me upgrading to Premium Duo and nothing else.

From reading ALL others encounters with same 9 second issue, they have done everything suggested without success... this makes me think it has to be a glitch from the Spotify side that needs your engineers to track down and fix??

Novy

Hey, 

 

Thanks for your replies. 

 

@nov2, can you confirm if this is only happening in the web player?

 

@Simkaa, thanks for this info. Could you give it a try using a different account to see if the issue persists?

 

Keep us posted.

Simkaa
Sadly I've already tried both accounts and it occurs in both... and makes
no difference if from a mix I've created or simply added to my Library. And
a track that didn't work 2 minutes ago will then work fine when going back
to it... so it's not the tracks or the internet or the same account? And
the issue appears to have been around since 2017 for other users and no one
appears to have found the actual cause each time??
Novy

Hi @Simkaa

 

Thanks for getting back to us with this info. 

 

We'd like to try a few more things to cover all the basics. We'd recommend clearing your browser's cache and cookies to see if it makes a difference. 

 

You could also give it a try with another browser. 

 

Let us know how it goes. 

alefranzoni

I'm facing exactly the same issue here using the web player only.

 

Plan

Premium

Country

Argentina

Device

Desktop PC

Operating System

Windows 10

Browser

MS Edge

 

Really it's very annoying to have to skip or play/pause a song every a few minutes. I've tried all the workarounds and nothing seems to fix the problem.

Simkaa

Hello again... cleared the cache + cookies. For over an hour it was working fine... but just started sticking again... Dammit!

And sorry but Chrome is the only browser I use, so trying another browser will not be usable as an ongoing solution... even if it worked.

mlH8NLBw5elorTp

Just changed my password and hit logout everywhere, since then problem passed (at least with latest Tool) and I can enjoy music without interruptions for >2 hours now!

I also noticed that when it stucks you can swap between your devices (I got two: laptop with webplayer and android) and it will resume playing with no need to push back/forward. Hope it will help someone.

mlH8NLBw5elorTp
oh piece of **bleep**, it started again! 3 hours of flawless playing and here it goes
I think I'm going to switch back to yt.music too cause this is unusable!