Web Player on Chrome causes lag/stutter...

[Kleiark]

Everytime I use open.spotify.com on Chrome it immediately lags my computer up and causes framerate issues in games/videos and even on the desktop, my cursor freezes every couple of seconds. It's not because of hardware acceleration, I tried without it and the same result happens.

Once I close the spotify tab the computer immediately returns to normal so there's definately something going on between Chrome and Spotify. I tested the web player on Firefox (with the same extensions and hardware acceleration) and there is no issue with Firefox.

[Jemi]

Hey @Kleiark, help's here.

First make sure that your Chrome is up-to-date. If it is, could you try using an incognito window and see if it helps? 

Let us know how it goes! 🙂

[Kleiark]

Chrome is up to date, same issue occurs in incognito. I even uninstalled any Chrome extentions and tried a fresh install of Chrome.

[Jemi]

Hey again @Kleiark,

Are you by chance using a Free account? If so, does this happen when you get ads?

If not, check for saved local files on the Spotify app. If you have any local files source under the app's settings, disable them and see if it helps. 

Also, do you have a lot of playlists created/being followed? If possible, could you try removing/un-following some of them and just to check if it helps?

Keep us posted 🙂

[Kleiark]

I'm using a free account. There is 1 static banner ad when the webpage loads, I doubt it is causing the issue.

I don't have any local files, I only use the web player which doesn't support that.

I removed some playlists and it seemed to help by reducing the time it takes to load the site but once I play a song it consistently stutters my whole PC every couple of seconds, and it keeps doing that even after I pause the music. And side note, the music plays back flawlessly while the rest of the PC stutters.

I tried using the webplayer and Chrome on another PC and it works fine so it might originally be a bad Chrome install. I can't be bothered to reinstall Chrome when Firefox is working fine so I'll just use that.

[Quickfixmedic]

I've got this same problem. Probably just gonna give up on Spotify altogether cause I need to be using Chrome.

[westonw]

Yep. Also happens here on a vey powerful desktop Win 10 machine - other web based music services/players do not display the same issue, and work smoothly as expected.

This happens with Chrome and Opera; and in Edge it doesn't cause the same kind of system stutters, but briefly freezes everything each time the song changes.

Unacceptable. I'm using other services unless Spotify addresses this.

[wdfsdf]

Same issure here on super powerful desktop machine for digital modelling.

Using Premium and forced to use web player at work, Impossible to work in photoshop or other cursor based creation tool because of a lag that occurs every 3 seconds continously and freezes the whole machine for a fraction of a second. most annoying thing ever.

[mirekdedina]

Same problems. It started two weeks ago. When I am listening spotify in Chrome, PC is lagging. When I am listen in Explorer PC freezes when the song is changed. 

[ljcaraway]

This is now happening to me within the last week or two and does not appear to be going away.

[c0q_jvl-xz3i7]

I'm seeing the same thing in a web application that I am creating that utilizes the Spotify Web Player SDK.

[wingy96]

Check if the same happens with netflix/youtube etc, I have the same issue.

 Check if hardware acceleration is properly turned on(Go to "chrome://gpu"), most graphics feature status options should be green(except maybe 4-5 of them, like surface control, skia, rasterization) 

Try turning hardware acceleration on in your advanced chrome settings if it isnt already enabled(or vice versa, turn off because why not try that?)

You can go to "chrome://flags" and turning on the very top option "Override software rendering list" and hit relaunch.

None of these solutions might work, some might. It decreased my stuttering issue but I haven't managed to remove it completely yet.

[Scarify]

+1 here. I'm experiencing the same issues when launching Spotify webplayer via Chrome. I see a black bar flickering about once a second in the Chrome browser (only the window where Spotify is open, tab doesn't matter). Directly after closing the tab with Spotify open everything is back to normal.

Tried the suggestions above, did not change anything.

I've turned off my tracker/adblocker (duckduckgo), did not immediately change anything, but checking the console of Chrome, I do notice that the page loading process takes 12 seconds(!). Few times shift + R gives a loading times of 2-10 seconds, and the flickering seems to take the amount of time it costs to load the page.  (so sometimes quite long, sometimes only a second. Playing music makes to continously load/stream(?) so the flickering also appears continously.

The pixels that made the loading last up to 12 seconds was: https://pixel.spotify.com/v2/sync?ce=1, or the BlueKai one.

I can send you guys networklogs or smth if you need.

[Jemi]

Hey everyone, 

We've seen more reports on the Web Player when using Chrome slows down your PC. We'd like to ask you to do the following and let us know how it goes:

• Make sure your browser is up-to-date (this is very important).
• Restart your router.
• Try incognito window.
• Make sure that Spotify looks good on your firewall settings.
• Make sure most things such as ads, redirects etc. is enable in the site settings. 
• Check if disabling the browser's hardware acceleration makes any difference.
• Try a different internet connection (if possible).
• Try a different desktop (if possible) with the same account.

Then, let us know the following:

• Does this happen with other browsers? If so, which ones.
• Does this happen as soon as you start the Web Player, or when you've used it for some period of time/when you do something in particular?
• Is this happening at your workplace?
• Your device and OS.
• A screenshot of CPU usage. 
• A screen recording of the behaviour would be very helpful. 

Keep us posted!

[go64]

Om my work computer I start seeing these problems when I turn on my third monitor (3x 1920x1080), increasing the stuttering for every additional monitor I turn on (I have 5). 

Disabled Intel CPU graphics and Nvidia 1060. All updates installed.

No issues on 1 or 2 monitors (1920x1080)

[Jemi]

Hey @go64, 

Thanks for letting us know. Can you check out the status update and go through the steps and let us know the requested info? 

The same goes for the rest. The more info we get, the better.

Thanks! 🙂 

[alkku]

Hey @Jemi

I have had the same issue for as long as I can remember with my current setup. 

Some general notes:

• Playback doesn't need to be happening while it stutters, but playback is required for it to start stuttering. If it starts stuttering, I can just pause and it will continue stuttering. A simple refresh makes the stuttering stop.
• There is a certain randomness to this: If I refresh enough many times on Edge, it will start stuttering. If I refresh enough many times on Chrome, it does seem to cease stuttering.

More specific notes:

• Chrome is up-to-date and the issue persists in incognito.
• With Edge, when I get it to start stuttering, the stutter occurs more often
• Disabling Hardware Acceleration on Chrome doesn't help
• Changing connection from 1Gbps to mobile doesn't help
• The issue doesn't occur on my other PC with the same version of Chrome. Some key differences in configuration:
• The other PC has an AMD APU, while this PC runs off of an Intel i7-6700k and GTX 1060 6gb
• The other PC only has an SSD, while this PC in addition to running off of an NVMe SSD has many mechanical hard drives, but I'm not sure if Chrome even touches the other hard drives for caching purposes or anything, just considering I/O issues.
• The other PC is running Windows 7 Pro 64bit while this PC is running Windows 10 Pro 64bit
• Screenshot of CPU usage: https://i.imgur.com/JNnur76.png The stuttering isn't noticeable from this
• Video of the stutter: https://youtu.be/wvj02EZWUgE & https://youtu.be/ox5v5v3oTPU
• Seems to happen every ~1,06 seconds
• Shown as these gaps in runtime performance tab in Chrome https://i.imgur.com/mDEUUZe.png

I hope this gets fixed.

[Peter]

Hey @alkku,

Thanks for providing such detailed information about your issue - we appreciate it 🙂

We will make sure to pass all of this on as a feedback to the relevant internal team.

Thanks again!

[Eisen-Uchiha]

The Widevine Content Decryption Module is causing the spikes. If you end the process, the lags go away, but Spotify won't play anymore. 

[Eisen-Uchiha]

@alkku said the solution here worked for their setup. It seems to have worked for mine as well. Don't know why I can't see their posts here.