Podcasts not playing on PC

[Cyril7]

Plan

Premium

Country

Australia

Device

Dell PC

Operating System

 Windows 10

My Question or Issue

When I go to select a podcast to listen to, for example, "Dyl and Friends episode 87", it simply does not play and skips 5 episodes ahead, landing on episode 92. However, that episode also doesn't play. No matter what episode I click on, it will just skip 5 ahead but not play anything at all. It happens to a lot of the podcasts that i have tried! If i tried to add the podcast to a queue, once it is ready to play, it simply does nothing and nothing will play at all. This was an issue in the past that I experienced with the same PC, however it disappeared for a few months! Now it has come back and stayed around for 7 months now so i can't listen to any podcasts. It does work perfectly fine on my mobile device. 

[Jeremy]

Hi there @Cyril7,

Thank you for reaching out to the Community. We're happy to help.

In this case we suggest that you start with performing a clean reinstall of the app, This will help you get rid of any possible old cache files that might be causing this.

If that doesn't do the trick, can you remove all lines from your hosts file by following the steps that's provided bellow:

1. Open Notepad as an administrator (right-click - Open as Administrator)
2. go to File - Open and navigate to C:\Windows\System32\drivers\etc
3. Choose "All Files" instead of "Text Documents" next to the File Name box. You'll see a handful of files. Pick hosts and click on Open
4. When the file is open, you will see a block of text with # in front of each line and might see entries like 0.0.0.0 website.com127.0.0.1 website2.com
5. Check for any entries with Spotify in the address. Examples may look like: 0.0.0.0 weblb-wg.gslb.spotify.com0.0.0.0
6. If you do find any lines with Spotify, please remove them
7. Save your changes and restart Spotify

Keep us posted 🙂

Take care!

[Cyril7]

Hi Jeremy,
Thanks for looking into this, however i have attempted both options and neither have fixed the problem.
I also tried listening on Chrome and Microsoft Edge to see if there was an issue with the browser, but both are presenting the issue. 
If you could please advise on any other solutions, that would be great. 

[Alex]

Hey @Cyril7,

Thanks for the reply.

Can you try creating a mobile hotspot from your phone, connecting your PC to it and trying to play some podcasts? Let us know if that works.

This way we can check whether the issue is network or device related.

Cheers.

[Cyril7]

Hey Alex,

Thanks for your response.

I have tried this and unfortunately it does not make a difference.

When i click on the episode, it still just skips through and doesn't play.

Hopefully there is another alternative solution.

Regards

[Jeremy]

Hi again @Cyril7,

Thank you for your reply and confirmation.

Can you let us know which version of the app you have?

It would also be great if you can confirm if this only occurs while you're playing podcast on the PC or if it happens on different devices?

We'll keep an eye out for your reply.

Take care!

[Cyril7]

Hi Jeremy,

The issue only occurs on the PC and i am just using the Spotify web player website browser. I have not installed the App on the PC. 

The issue doesn't occur on my mobile app, which is version 8.6.62

Regards,

[Alex]

Hey @Cyril7,

Thanks for the post.

It would be great if you intall the PC app and try playing podcasts with that as well. This way we'll see if the issue is related only to the Web player.

You can also try logging in with a different account. You can create a free account for rest purposes. This way we'll see if the issue is account related at all.

Cheers.

[26Peyton]

This is also happening to me with my chrome computer and has been happening for awhile my podcasts will simple not play on the web player. Please someone help me fix this issue, I would love to be able to listen to podcasts again.

[Vasil]

Hey @26Peyton,

Have you tried opening a podcast while using an incognito browser window :?
For troubleshooting purposes, we'd also appreciate it if you could test the desktop app as @Alex suggested as well.

We'll be on the lookout for your response!
Thanks 🙂

[26Peyton]

No not at alll I use regular google browser.

[26Peyton]

Also im not able to get the app for reasons. Why cant I just be able to listen to podcasts on web player?

[lacs92]

Hi! I have the same issue with the Desktop app, I uninstalled, then reinstalled the app and it's still not working.
This is the app version: 1.1.86.857.g3751ee08

I also checked the host file, but there was no spotify related entry.

[Dian]

Hey there,

Thanks for posting in the Community.

Regarding podcasts not playing on the web player, we need to find out if this is happening only with certain podcasts, that contain music or all podcasts. Podcasts containing music cannot be played via the web player, but if you have a Chromebook you can download the Android app and use it for playback. Or use the desktop app, if it is a regular laptop/PC.

@lacs92 We understand you've reinstalled the app, but could you try once more with the steps from this page? Does the same happen if you use a different account connected to a different network e.g. a hot spot from a mobile device?

Keep us posted,

Cheers!

[12176810260]

I am having this issue as well - trying to listen to any podcast episodes on regular Dell PC from Spotify web page and I get the message "Podcast not found". Music plays fine though. No issues with Spotify podcasts or music on my mobile app.

Spotify Help had me try the following: log out/in; cleared cache; incognito page; different login; different browser and none of these things helped.

They finally just gave me the weblink to this page and asked me to post on the thread.

K McCombs

[Eni]

Hey @12176810260, 

Thanks for getting in touch about this.

Just to confirm, is this only happening on the web player or on the desktop app as well?

On another note, could you try again using a different internet connection to check if that makes the difference? 

Lastly, we suggest that you disable any antivirus or ad-blocking software, and turn off VPN if in use.

Keep us posted on how it goes.

[kaylorisrealuwu]

THIS ALSO IS HAPPENING TO ME!! And to the moderator who's been reading the comments I have tried both web player and downloaded version and it doesn't work. I have only tried musical podcasts so I don't know about non music ones. This issue is real annoying though ☹️plz fix it 🙏

[Dian]

Hey @kaylorisrealuwu,

Thanks for the reply.

Could you share the brand/model and operating system of your device together with the version of the desktop app you're using?

Have you tried playing the podcast on a mobile device? If you share a link to the podcast, we can have a look at it and test if it works on the desktop app on our end.

Just keep in mind, that the podcasts not being playable on the web player is expected behavior.

Keep us posted,

Cheers!

[Rarba786]

PC: I did quite a bit of testing and concluded I need to use my VPN on my PC to listen to most of my USA podcasts.

MOBILE: To make things even weirder I do NOT need a VPN on my mobile device to listen to any content (go figure). 

By way of context, I am currently outside of the USA (with a non-USA account) trying to access USA content. 

So basically use a VPN 🙂

[itacud]

This seems to still be problem. I cannot play podcast from PC app, only from mobile device.

PC app version:

Spotify version 1.1.84.716.gc5f8b819, Copyright (c) 2022, Spotify Ltd

Using a VPN sounds more like a workaround than a solution