Inconsistent IDs

[_brown]

Plan

Premium

Country

Canada

Device

Desktop

Operating System

Windows 10

My Question or Issue

When using the Web API, specifically the https://api.spotify.com/v1/tracks/{id} endpoint, searching for some IDs will return results containing a completely different ID or URI. Why is this the case?

For example, when searching for the ID "1g0seAtP0XDAsFZIoItwid", the results state the ID is "4kjvZ1uizpvwjjJZIu2gnK". The name of the track and artist are basically the same (there's one capitalization difference in the track name), and the songs are pretty much the same, but the IDs are different.

[LambertSpot]

This might be due to track relinking, you can read more about it here.

[_brown]

Thank you for the link and response! I am aware of track relinking but I was under the assumption that if a song is in my library and is not greyed out, it's available in my region. Does this mean that even if a song appears in my library/playlist with a certain ID/URI, it might not necessarily be available in my region, and is there as a placeholder? So when that song is played, it's using track relinking to play the version of the song that is available in my region?

[LambertSpot · Accepted solution]

You can have a URI saved in your library where that version is not available in your region, but relinking is applied and it appears available (by providing a relink).

Eg. ABC123 is available in your region, DEF456 is not available. Both are different versions of the same track, and linked. You saved DEF456 to your library, it is displayed as available because it is actually getting availability from ABC123. On the other hand, if GHI789 is not available in your region, and has no link to a version that is. Saving that to your library would display it as greyed out.

[_brown]

Hi @LambertSpot, when I originally searched for the track (using https://developer.spotify.com/documentation/web-api/reference/get-track) I don't believe that track relinking was being applied as the "linked_from" field was not part of the response (as it should be included when relinking is applied according to the documentation). However, now when I search the ID I mentioned in the original post, the issue is no longer happening. Although I believe something else other than track relinking was happening, I can no longer reproduce the issue, so I'll accept your response as an answer. Thank you for responding.