Can't play an artist's discography on the desktop app

[Nostalgia85]

Plan

Premium

Device

PC / Android

My Question or Issue

This happened a few days ago. Normally when i clicked an Artist > Discography > Show All > And play a song, the next song was from the next album of the artist.

Now, the next song is a random one from random artists. I have tried all the solutions in the settings page.

[Paula_Vi]

Hi there, @Nostalgia85 

Thanks for reaching out and letting us know about this!

Could you check if maybe you have other items in your Play queue (besides the songs from the album/artist you want to listen to) that you haven't noted before? Here you'll see how to do that.  

Just to confirm, is this happening only on the mobile app or is it happening on the desktop app too? Does it make a difference if you use the web player? Also, it would be worth trying with a different account on your devices. You can ask a relative or a friend to open their account temporarily on your mobile/computer to see if it changes anything.

Lastly, did you notice if this started to happen after a specific event such as an OS/app update?
 

Keep us in the loop!

[Nostalgia85]

Hello,

Yes, this is happening on mobile app and desktop app.

The queue is generated automatically.

If i delete all the songs from the queue list, when i repeat the same steps:

• Select an artist
• Click on "show all" on the discography section
• Click play on an album/single
• Next song is a random and the queue list is auto generated again with a lot of songs

[Yordan]

Hey, @Nostalgia85,

Thanks for the reply.

Sounds like you have Autoplay toggled on. You can turn it off by following the steps here. I'd also recommend checking out this article for more info on how the play queue works & how to play an artist's discography on desktop.

Hope you found this useful. Cheers 🤘

[Nostalgia85]

If i disable "auto play" then when i press the next song button, nothing happens and its stops playing music (it is normal to stop after the current song if auto play is off). I haven't changed any settings and this happens by itself. Maybe a bug? I don't know.

[Yordan]

Hi again, @Nostalgia85,

I think what's happening is that you might be loading only one song in the queue and that's why the playback stops when you press "skip next" - there aren't any other songs added in the queue to be played.

Here's an excerpt from the aforementioned FAQ article on how to play an artist's discography on desktop:

While on the discography page of an artist, select your preferred view from the button on the right:

Then, depending on the view you've selected:

• List view: Click on either the white Play button of the album at the top or double-click on the first song - this will add the rest of the artist's discography to the queue.
• Grid view: Hover over the album that's at the top and press the big green Play button - the remaining albums will be queued as well.

💡 Tip: you can also reverse the order in which the albums are displayed by selecting the same sort order again.

That should do the trick. If you're still having trouble, feel free to share a short screen recording which captures the exact behavior on your end so we can take a closer look.

[Nostalgia85]

Check the screen record.

Before the problem

• Artist page
• Discography > Show all
• Play a song from a discography
• If the album is finished, the next song was the next album of the same artist

After the problem

• Artist page
• Discography > Show all
• Play a song from a discography
• If the album is finished, a random generated queue list created and plays random songs from random artists

[Yordan]

Thanks for the screen recording, @Nostalgia85.

Interesting. Does the same behavior occur when you're in List view in the discography too? If so, I'd suggest performing a clean reinstall of the app to ensure you're running the latest version of Spotify available. Just note that you'll need to re-download any downloaded music and podcasts afterwards.

Something else that comes to mind is installing Spotify from a different source: if you downloaded the app from the Microsoft Store, try the version directly from our website and vice versa.

Lastly, it's a good idea to test if the Web Player exhibits the same behavior.

Keep us posted on this!

[Nostalgia85]

Changing view doesn't resolve the problem.

I don't think reinstalling will work because i have the same issue on the mobile app.

The pc app is downloaded from the official website and not from a store.

[Yordan]

The mobile app does not currently offer the ability to play an artist's discography like the desktop app usually does, so that's expected at this time. However, your desktop app doesn't seem to be queueing the rest of the albums by an artist as it normally should do, so reinstalling it could potentially resolve the issue.

If you don't want to reinstall and re-download your downloaded music and podcasts afterwards that's okay. Instead, could you share the exact version of Spotify you're running? Also, how did it go in the Web Player? Are the rest of the albums queued there?

@Nostalgia85 

[Nostalgia85]

I paste below the pc version:

Spotify for Windows (64 bit)
1.2.90.451.gb094aab0

[Yordan]

Thanks for the details, @Nostalgia85.

The relevant team will investigate further. In the meantime, it's worth checking if the Web Player works as an alternative for you.

Cheers!

[Nostalgia85]

Thank you

[Kerpal1]

Spotify Desktop version: 1.2.90.451.gb094aab0

Operating system: Windows 11

Spotify plan: Premium

Hey,

I encountered a problem when trying to play artist’s whole discography on Spotify desktop app.

Previously I’ve searched the artist I want to listen to and then navigated to their discography view where their albums are listed in chronological order from latest to oldest by release date. From there I’ve just selected the song from a particular album where I want to start listening and after that album ends the Spotify automatically moves to the next album in the discography. And this had worked perfectly up to this point.

Vut now Spotify doesn’t automatically move to the next album in the discography. Instead of moving to the next album in the discography once the album I have started listening to ends, Spotify starts playing songs from similar artists. This is the case when Autoplay is turned on. If I toggle Autoplay off, then Spotify just starts the album from the beginning when it ends and doesn’t move to the next album in the discography.

This only happens on the Desktop app, the web player works just fine and moves to the next album in the discography when the previous one ends.

Any ideas on why this happens and how to fix it?

And please do not suggest creating separate playlists for each artist and then adding their songs into them or manually adding songs into queue, these aren’t proper solutions for this issue.

[Aidan2501]

This is really annoying that you can't do it on the phone, and now it doesn't work on PC. Just how there's no "Play All" button in the music player app, even with Premium.

[b411313]

I have the same problem. Seems to have started recently. I have tried your ideas but nothing works. It either starts playing other artist after the album or single, or nothing at all just like Nostalgia85 describes.

For me its the same on mobile and PC. web player seem ok

Mobile only has grid view for some reason...

[b411313]

Just now i got an ad. I have premium!

You have some issues you need to fix regarding accounts, this is very likely why we get random songs

[Wewantkrunchy]

I'm also having this problem. It's been going on for a couple of days. I just want to listen to an artist's discography continuosly, however, once one album ends Spotify starts playing similar songs instead of the next album but said artist. 

Please fix!

[buak]

I've been having the same problem for a week or so. It's super annoying. I have it on my work computer.  The "now playing" queue only populates with the one release I start playing in the "Show All" -view. I tried reinstalling, but the same problem persists. I don't have this problem on my home computer. Both are running windows 11, and both have the spotify player installed with the downloadable installer from spotify's web page.

I just tried the web player. It works correctly, and adds the next releases to the now playing queue.

[ReedyWindy]

I'm getting the same problem on Mac. It's been a week or so now. Very frustrating, especially when a lot of artists I listen to will release singles. It's worked properly for years. I'm a premium sub as well. I hope this is not some kind of new marketing or way to drive up listens for Spotify. This kind of stuff would make me leave.