Recently played API endpoint does not show latest played tracks

[internettum]

https://developer.spotify.com/console/get-recently-played/ is not giving me the latest played tracks anymore. Seems like it stopped updating a few hours ago.

I've tried listening both in the desktop client and on mobile. I'm playing normal tracks (not podcast episodes) and I'm not in private mode.

Happening both in an app I've registered and also when testing on https://developer.spotify.com/console/get-recently-played/

Is it just me?

[internettum]

Edit 9 Nov 2021: It stopped working everywhere now..

I'm under the suspicion it's IP address/network related. All devices on home wifi/network do not update. My mobile phone on 5G does update (but not when it's on the home wifi/network). Is this something you folks could check? I made a more extensive reply over here: https://community.spotify.com/t5/Ongoing-Issues/Mobile-Recently-Played-not-updating/idc-p/5290094/highlight/true#M119960

And it's purely the recently played endpoint. All the others seem to work fine.

[markgs21]

Yeah - it's not just you (and thankfully, not just me!) No updates to played tracks via the API since 8:30am this morning - even on their dev console, nothing new since then despite me streaming all morning. 

[markgs21]

Just tested again, seems to be resolved now 😁

[internettum]

Started working again here also. Nice!

[DaFudgeWizzad]

Mine has been out since Friday at 4PM. 2 whole days now

[charlieegan3]

My last update was at 2021-10-27 18:54:28.803 +0000 UTC and still isn't back.

[Efremych]

I have the same issue. I described the situation here

https://community.spotify.com/t5/Your-Library/Recently-played-not-updating/m-p/5281747

[charlieegan3]

I'll continue to keep an eye on that thread instead. thanks.

[adadad123]

Same issue here. Status page never updates either and this seems to be a monthly occurence now of it going for for a few hours to a few days.

[walternyc]

Not working for me neither for two days now. I had this problem before but it usually resolves in less than 24 hours. Taking longer this time

[markgs21]

This is a really intermittent issue - I find in the mornings, I get nothing on my recently played feed, despite always playing music as I get ready for the day. Then it'll appear later. 

It's not really ideal when the end point should give up to date tracks, not knowing when they'll actually appear on the api is a bit of a pain. 

[charlieegan3]

My understanding is that the clients aren't pushing the play data as soon as they play. I find the contents of the endpoint is often out of order for example. I also find that it contains plays from offline listening.

What I think is causing this is an issue in how plays are tracked from playlists in the iOS app and these not being pushed as events, which eventually appear in the recent plays endpoint.

[internettum]

I agree with you charlieegan3. There seems to be a bug deeper down in the system that does not register the latest played tracks from the clients for some users somewhere in time. Seems to affect more than the iOS app. I've experienced it both when playing from the android app and desktop app.

The bug with not getting the latest tracks from the API endpoint is probably just a consequence of a bug somewhere else in the system. So the issue Efremych linked to is probably related.

[charlieegan3]

Interesting, I don't have more than an iPad and Macbook to test on, the iOS 8.6.74 client is the only way I can replicate this.

[DaFudgeWizzad]

Update: still not showing anything since this started 6 days ago... I contacted Spotify support and they said it's a known issue, but provided 0 other information.

And just so you all know, this isn't an issue with the client itself. Last.fm can see everything I've listened to because they have access to spotify's private API. The issue is just the public API not updating for us...

At this point, I may as well be using Apple music because they also have no API lol

[charlieegan3]

Apple music has a similar endpoint here: https://developer.apple.com/documentation/applemusicapi/get_recently_played_tracks

[charlieegan3]

> Last.fm can see everything I've listened to because they have access to spotify's private API

I don't think that's quite accurate. Spotify clients have native support for last.fm and send the data directly to them.

[DaFudgeWizzad]

Spotify's private API has been revealed due to apps like Discord. Even if the client directly communicates with last.fm though, that'd mean the client is sending data as intended. Spotify's servers receiving and processing it though... not so much

[charlieegan3]

> that'd mean the client is sending data as intended
... to Last.fm

> Spotify's servers receiving and processing it though... not so much

We don't know if this is a client issue or how the spotify backend processes data from certain clients. But the result is the same, that the data from some clients isn't appearing at the recent plays endpoint.

We don't know, because Spotify haven't explained what the issue is yet 😞

[DaFudgeWizzad]

Yeah, it's all speculation, of course. One thing for sure, though is Discord's private API is still working.