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[iOS] Playback pausing randomly in background

Plan

Free

Country

United Kingdom

Device

iPhone 11 

Operating System

iOS 14.3

 

My Question or Issue

This problem has been ongoing for a while so I’m not listening to much music anymore because of this.

 

Basically, whenever I’m trying to listen to the songs in my playlists, Spotify will randomly stop the music, and it will not show in the control centre or on the locked screen. The only way to resume listening it to open the app and press play. However it doesn’t continue where it left off, it will play the song from the beginning, which is really annoying. 

I’ve tried clearing cache, restarting the app, reinstalled the app, restarting my phone, etc. But nothing has seemed to fix this. It happens with my phone only, not on any of my other devices. I’m at a loss on what I can do to fix this, any solution would be appreciated.

Hey everyone,

Thank you for reporting this issue to us.

The right folks have been looking into this continuously and regrettably weren't able to reproduce this behavior. Even for the long duration this issue was open, the total number of reports include a variety of devices and app versions, but have not been as substantial in the grand scheme of things.

This points to a sporadic nature of the issue and makes it difficult to find a direct cause. Based on the data gathered so far, the root cause of such experiences can range from network issues, to other apps taking over audio priority and the OS itself stopping the app when it might try to save battery.

So without being able to identify a specific cause, we'll need to set this to NRN. We recommend excluding Spotify from any battery saving toggles as a first troubleshooting step.

Besides that we'll continue to optimize the app to hopefully reduce the instances of this occurring. We'll also continue monitoring this thread for anything that might help us identify a specific cause and correlation between the cases.

Take care!

Comments
Alex

Hey @monicax2,

 

Thanks for the info.


Can you let us know if this is happening only when you're connect to some speakers/ other Bluetooth device, or when you're playing music straight from the phone?

 

Also, tell us if you've noticed this happening when you're listening to music in Offline mode (Downloaded playlists) and Podcasts.

 

Cheers.

Emgbu
Yup, I followed all those steps. It still stops.
Jeremy

Hey there @Emgbu,

 

Thank you for your reply and confirmation.

 

Can you try the following:

 

1 - Low Power Mode (Settings -> Battery -> Low Power Mode) needs to be off 

2 - Background App Refresh (Settings -> General-> Background App Refresh needs to be ON for Spotify

 

If that doesn't do the trick, can you do the following:

  • Soft reset of the device
  • Ensure the operating system is up-to-date

Keep us posted.

 

Take care!

Emgbu
Low power mode is off and background refresh is on for Spotify, still having the issue. Ive soft reset my phone multiple times and updated it a few days ago, the issue hasn’t stopped
Eni

Hi @Emgbu

 

Thanks for getting back in touch and for letting us know that. 

 

Could you confirm you have enabled Permissions for Spotify by going to Settings>Apps>Spotify>Permissions? 

 

If they're all enabled, would you mind letting us know the exact make/model, operating system and Spotify version of your device?

 

We'll be on the lookout for your reply 🙂

Emgbu
They’re all enabled. I have an iPhone 11 on iOS 14.4.1 and my Spotify version is 8.6.8.1211.
Xenia
Status changed to: Under investigation

Hey everyone,

 

Thanks for reaching out in the Community about this!

 

We've merged a few threads together to keep you all in the loop and will pass on all the information gathered here to the right folks so this can be investigated.

 

We can see you've tried a few things already, but just to double-check you haven't missed out a step that might fix the issue, could you make sure that you have:

  • the latest app version installed
  • Spotify enabled for background activity
  • battery saver and optimizer turned off
  • all permissions for Spotify enabled in your phone's apps settings
  • tried reinstalling the app and cleared cache as described here

If all of the above checks out but the issue still persists, it'd be great if you could share with us the following information, if you haven't already:

  • Your device + OS
  • The exact Spotify version
  • Are you able to reproduce this with another device or account?
  • The troubleshooting steps you've tried (eg. changing WiFi/3G/4G networks, restarting your device, setting the app Offline, disabled any battery saving or cache clearing app restrictions for Spotify 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. Also, don't forget to add your +VOTE.

 

Thanks!

monicax2

@Alex 

yep the problem still happens when connected to speakers or Bluetooth stuff. I don’t have anything downloaded for offline listening.

My spotify continues to pause in the background even after deleting and reinstalling, clearing caches, quitting and restarting, switching wifi networks, being at full battery, and years of spotify working fine previously.  I have the 1.1.55.498.gf9a83c60 on a Mac running Cataline 10.15.7.  My phone spotify works fine it is only my computer that pauses randomly.

Darbro

Hi I have been having this same issue for over a year and I'm kind of at my breaking point. I have tried every solution you have suggested multiple times and nothing works. While music doesn't randomly stop while playing on my laptop that I have noticed, I really only use my iPhone for Spotify, so this isn't really a solution. I have tried different accounts with different email addresses and the issue persists. If this helps sometimes when I play a playlist the song will say it has started playing (the time starts going up), but there isn't any music playing and I have to completely close out of the app and press play again to start the music again. This happens on top of the music stopping randomly.

I have an iPhone 6s plus that's on IOS 14.4.2

My Spotify app is on version 8.6.12.1032

I have the free plan and am in the USA