Random music plays when I open the app

[Marleighh]

When I open my Spotify app it sometimes plays random songs from new artists that I have never heard of and I’m thinking it’s a promotion thing but it’s very annoying and I tried turning off auto play to make it stop but that did nothing, how do I make this stop happening?

[nicktchiprout]

Plan

Premium Family

Country

USA

Device

iPhone 12 Mini

Operating System

iOS 18.5

Spotify Version

9.0.58.558

My Question or Issue

I was having the exact problem discussed on this thread almost on a daily basis, sometimes multiple times a day, and it was very frustrating. I completed every troubleshooting option I could find and for the past two weeks or so I have not had the problem arise again.

The significant changes I made was following the guide for a clean reinstall, as well as turning off bluetooth and local network access in my iPhone settings (Settings>Apps>Spotify>toggle off "Bluetooth" and "Local Network"). The clean reinstall also updated my Spotify version. I'm not sure what step did the trick or if Spotify fixed something on their end but I hope users in this thread can solve this issue for themselves also.

[kimbbbee]

i've been having "**bleep** in disguise" by marino play every time i re-open the app out of the blue and i genuinely do not know who this is and have never heard his songs and have had this happen to me 3-4 times in the past month, the latest literally just now. i finally blocked the artist cause honestly it's been giving me the heebie geebies this whole time 😭

[kyleendaphne]

Hi this is also happening to me… did you ever find a solution. it’s super annoying and strange 

[carlosjreynaq]

Been facing the same issue for months.

I’ve noticed before that it shows some uprising artists. They are often tied to the same label.

Assumed this has to be related to some third party app that I had linked Spotify with.

erased all third party apps and the issues ceased. 
now I’m back here again with the same problem.

[sophieippolito]

this is happening to me too! every day at least once a day when i open the app it plays a random song. it’s always an artist / album / song i’ve never ever listened to be before. completely unprompted. it’s so annoying & inconvenient 

[2272whmomuqprg3bh4cl]

This also happens to me. It’s as fast as I open the app without touching anything else. This only happens in my iPhone. It starts playing random music from local artists or even unknown ones.

[pbrela2]

This happens to me, too. I don’t appreciate them gaslighting us about it. Maybe it’s a bug, but I’m more inclined to believe that it is deliberately steering me to artists that Spotify wants me to listen to. I’ve been using this service for 8 years, and now I have to seriously consider switching. So tired of this. Definitely paid to NOT have to deal with this sort of thing. Fortunately, another major music service recently added the ability to transfer in your Spotify library, so that is an option. 

[Qwertyqbert]

This issue has also been quite maddening for me as well. 

I cannot stand that Spotify is jamming this music into my ears. It is laughable that people say they cannot reproduce it. It happens constantly and it is always the top hits playlist.

It should be a trivial matter to allow users to select a default playlist.

This has nothing to do with music Discovery as was suggested. Discovering new music that is similar to what I am listening to is fine. This is always the top hits music. Every time. 

[Maciej13]

I'm experiencing the same issue. It doesn't happen every single time, but it does happen regularly. I think that it happens when:
a) app is terminated by the operating system due to lack of activity in order to reclaim memory
b) app is opened by tapping on a widget.

[Leonkn24]

I'm having a simliar issue. Everytime I open spotify on any device it is currently playing a random song from some artist I've never heard of or know, and it floods my que with the same song over and over again like 10+ times. I tried logging out everywhere but it didn't work. It's really annoying.

[Yordan]

Hey everyone,

The somewhat sporadic nature of this issue makes it difficult to look into, but we'd still like to report this to our tech team. In order to investigate further, could you please share the following info:

• Your device's make, model and OS;
• The version of Spotify you're running;
• Have you secured your account recently to rule out it being compromised?
• Have you disconnected all apps linked to your Spotify account?
• Do you have the Spotify Widget on your Home screen?
• Is there a pattern to when the issue occurs? For example, after using the Spotify widget or a specific button of the Widget; after restarting your phone; upon disconnecting from an external device (like a smart speaker); etc. Are you able to consistently reproduce it that way?

A short screen recording which shows the behavior in action would be greatly appreciated, should you manage to capture it on video. Just make sure to cover up any personal info, like your username/email.

We'll be on the lookout for your replies 👍

[pbrela2]

The solution for me was to cancel my Spotify Premium, uninstall the app from all of my devices, and to switch to a different music service. Considering I stuck with this service for over 8 years, and I don't like having to switch services, it will probably be as long before I give Spotify a chance again. Hopefully they rethink things like making "Private Session" a temporary setting while they are fixing this.

[FireHeat7]

Just a screen recording of what’s happening to me, I have premium, all devices that are connected are known and turned off, no 3rd party apps, updated and legit

[FireHeat7]

Let me know if there’s something else you might need

[MihailY]

Hey folks,

@pbrela2, we're sorry to hear about your experience. @FireHeat7, thank you for providing a video of the issue.

Before anything else, we'd like to assure everyone that this definitely isn't expected behavior and that Spotify doesn't promote artists by playing them automatically on your device.

@FireHeat7, we've recently seen reports of a third-party service called Spotify Premium Plan/Spotify Premium Access that causes a similar behavior to what you're seeing and users are hesitant to remove it thinking it would cancel their subscription. We see you've mentioned that there are no 3rd party apps, but can you please confirm you've removed them here and not just on your device? Also, make sure to update your password and sign out everywhere if you haven't already.

Keep us posted.

[SbeatRamos]

Please let Premium users disable the auto-play of new album releases when opening the app. It feels like unwanted advertising and makes the app frustrating to use.

[Fishcake15]

My Spotify has started randomly playing house music when I open the app. This isn’t a genre I listen to at all. It’s very frustrating. I have signed out etc. But it’s still doing it

[llvsbxx]

not sure if anyone's answered these questions but this has happened to me multiple times while listening to music then opening tiktok seeing a sponsored ad for someones music then later when i return to spotify it will automatically pull up the song and play it without me ever having pressed a link. this has happened seeing ads on other apps as well not just tiktok. it happened to me the other day while listening to music aloud with no headphones and bbno$'s song nsfw which i didnt even remember seeing and ad for and frustrated me badly because it interrupted the actual song i had been listening to when i opened the app and idk if you've ever heard that song but it's trash. it has also happened many times while using headphones. this isn't just an occasional issue its constant and it affects listening history and reccomendations. i never use smart shuffle but ive tapped through it when listening to playlists this issue is not that. uninstalling and reinstalling has not helped me. i hope spotify fixes this because it has been ongoing for a while.

[Dessi · Accepted solution]

Hi folks,

Thanks for posting in the thread!

There seem to be some factors, which might cause this behavior so we recommend checking the following:

• You don't have any third-party services connected, especially such called Spotify Premium Plan/Spotify Premium Access.
•  Make sure Smart Shuffle is disabled.
• Sometimes external devices might affect the playback so try disconnecting from them temporarily.

It's also a good idea to update your password and sign out everywhere to make sure your account is secured. You can find some more useful suggestions in this article.

Hope this helps.

[Prolougey]

I’d also like to add to this to say I get the same behaviour and have done for sometime now (I did actually raise an issue a while back but just never got a moment to follow up).

I usually start a playlist and queue a/some podcasts/songs to listen to - ensuring when they are finished while I’m driving Spotify will just continue playing my driving playlist rather than an old podcast etc.

This has been happening for me on iOS 17 & 18 & 26 on iPhone 15 pro max, 16 pro max and now 17 pro max.

I get into the car and see whatever was queued briefly (even if it’s playing while getting in the car) and then immediately shuffling and playing something completely random.