Only play searched song

[bcvanasperen]

Plan

Premium

Country

Netherlands

Device

MacBook Air  2020

Operating System

macOS Big Sur 11.2.3

My Question or Issue:

When I search a song in a playlist the Mac app and play it, it only plays that song on repeat even when I press the x in the search bar. Wouldn't it be more logical to play the entire playlist after finishing that particular song?

[Novy]

Hey there @bcvanasperen, 

Thanks for reaching out about this in the Community, and welcome 🙂

Could you let us know if this happens with all songs/playlists or just a specific one? 

We'd also recommend making sure that Repeat mode is off. 

We'll keep an eye out for your reply. 

[bcvanasperen]

Hello there @Novy,

Thank you for replying so quickly.

For me, this happens in all playlists. Also, if I have repeat mode off, then the song will not repeat but just play once and then nothing plays (even if I press the x in the search bar).

Thank you in advance for your reply.

Christiaan

[Alex]

Hey folks,

You should enable Autoplay from the app Settings. This way music will play automatically after a playlist or a specific track is finished.

In order to get a playlist to repeat you need to press the Repeat button once.

If you want to play a song on repeat, press it twice.

Hope this clears things up. Don't hesitate to reach out again if you have questions.

[bcvanasperen]

Hey there,

Thank you for the reply. Unfortunately, this doesn't solve my problem. The idea is as follows:

I would like to listen to a playlist but start at a specific song. Hence, I search for the song and play it, and would like the rest of the playlist to play afterwards. However, this is not what happens: only the searched results will play (on repeat if repeat mode is on) and if autoplay is on, some other songs that are not in the playlist will play after. Even if I press the x in the search bar after the song starts playing this happens. 

I hope this clarifies the problem. I look forward to any help 🙂

Christiaan

[Alex]

Hi @bcvanasperen,

Thanks for the clarification.

In this case you'd have to search for the Playlist itself and then select the song from within the playlist.

Because when you search for a song via the search bar you access the specific song, which may or may not belong to an Album, but can be found in thousands of personal playlists.

This is how the app works at the moment.

Hope this makes sense. 

[bcvanasperen]

Hi there, 

Thank you for the help. However, when I mean I search in the search bar I already mean I am doing it in the playlist and not in the 'master' search bar.

I could just select the song in the playlist but often my playlists are long enough that this is an ineffective way to find it. 

Unfortunately, that still doesn't solve the problem. 

Thanks in advance for any help!

[Jeremy]

Hi there @bcvanasperen,

Thank you for your reply and confirmation.

In this case we suggest that you perform a clean reinstall of the app. This will make sure there's no old cache files causing this.

If that doesn't do the trick, can you log in with your account on another PC to see if the issue persist?

We'll keep an eye out for your reply.

Take care!

[bcvanasperen]

Hey there!

I was able to clean reinstall and try it on a different pc, and the problem persists. 

I suspect, actually already did from the beginning, that this is a design issue rather than a bug. I would be interested if the readers of my post (who work on Mac?) have the same problem. If this is indeed so, then I would be interested to know if there is a place where I can post the change of feature as a suggestion or whether anyone reading this has any ability of doing so.

I think the change of feature would be justified: very few people go to Spotify to play only a single song (on repeat), while wanting to start playing a playlist with a particular song seems a more common thing to do (and I do it a lot).

Looking forward to any help and reply.

[Jeremy]

Hi again @bcvanasperen,

Thank you for your reply and confirmation.

Can you log in with another account - such as a friend's or a family member's to see if the issue persist? This will help us understand if it's account related or not.

Keep us posted 🙂

Cheers!

[bcvanasperen]

Hey there,

I just tried with a friend's account. We found the same result.

Thank you for all the help.

[Alex]

Hi @bcvanasperen,

Thanks for the reply.

Apologies if we've misunderstood what you mean. 

If what you're trying to do is - click the little magnifying glass "Search in Playlist" and then search for a song. This acts as filtering content in the playlist. So, when you use that Search in playlist option you actually filter out all the song which don't match the criteria you've entered ( could be a word, the whole song name, artist name etc.). Once the playlist if filtered this way, other songs won't be playable, since they don't meet the criteria in the search field. To reveal all the other songs in the playlist simply delete the word you searched for.

Let us know if we've understood you correctly.

[bcvanasperen]

Hello there,

Yes I understand that searching for a song filters out all the other songs.

My question however is this: I want to play an entire playlist but start at a specific song. What I feel would be a reasonable way to do this is search for the song in the playlist, then start playing that song, and then afterwards the rest of the playlist starts playing. That is not what happens. After the specific song is finished, either nothing plays or the specific song is played on repeat (depending on whether repeat mode is on). 

Isn't it reasonable to assume that one does not go to Spotify to play only a single song, and that it would make more sense if the entire playlist would start to play after?

I hope the point is clear. If not, please let me know. 

[Mihail · Accepted solution]

Hey @bcvanasperen,

Thanks for getting back to us and apologies for the confusion.

We've heard back from the teams looking into this who have confirmed that filtering a playlist will now only play the songs from the filtered result and not the entire playlist, even after the text has been removed.

Since this is expected behavior, we would recommend to post an Idea on our Exchange, if you would like this feature to be changed. The Idea Exchange is a great way for us to see what our users are interested in and how many people like a certain idea. You can read more about it here.

Keep in mind also that we're always working on improving the app. Make sure to enable automatic updates so you don't miss the latest improvements and fixes coming your way! 

Hope this is helpful but don't hesitate to give us a shout if there's anything else - we'll be happy to take a look.

Have a lovely day!

[bcvanasperen]

Hey there,

Thank you. The problem is now solved in the sense that after 5+ messages we got clear what my original problem was. Thank you for helping of course. I will try to look into my own explanation skills though I would also offer a suggestion.

I feel we could have cut the number of back and forths with about 80% if someone in your camp would have actually tried to check if they had the problem on their own desktop app. Maybe some internal communication could have located at least one person who works on macOS to narrow down possible problems. 

Nevertheless, I am certainly happy that you all took the time to reply. Thank you for that and have a lovely week.

[ginnle]

I very much agreed with your points. It is super annoying especially for users with hundreds of liked songs. However, what I do is choose the "add to queue" option on your searched song, the playlist will then continue to play other tracks after searched song is finished. I'd like to note that this will only works if you already have a song playing, and after the searched song is finished, you cannot go backward on it as it will be removed from the queue. To Spotify, if you're reading this, again, this "feature" is very annoying, if anyone want to listen to the same song, wouldn't they just choose repeat for one? I don't enjoy having to scroll endlessly, looking and missing my preferred song to start a listening session. Please find a way to fix this, it's been around forever and honestly the feature that I genuinely hate the most on your app. 

[glider2]

Spotify, why is this a feature? Just make it like mobile please. This is extremely annoying and I don't understand why or who wants it like this.

[Geet281]

Hey there ! 

I was facing the same problem as you ,

It used to play other songs based on the song you searched for but it stopped working like that after i once logged out , so i was looking for the solution ....

I tried to check some settings -

Go to settings >playback

Then on & off autoplay (both options ) 

Make sure both autoplay options  are turned on,

 you can try that too , my problem is fixed , now other songs based on ky searched songs play furthur like they used to ....

Hope it helps

[tisa]

I AGREE THANK YOU!! I chose that song within the playlist  because I wanted to hear that song AS WELL as the other songs. If I wanted to listen to only that song I’d have searched it in the general all Spotify search bar rather than the playlist search bar