Excluded in taste profile not working properly?

[Felix9191]

My Question or Issue

I have an issue where they announced the new taste profile option. I excluded a Lofi Playlist from my taste profile so I don't have to worry about having to switch on and off private sessions again. However, I am not sure why but after a week of using Spotify I'm now getting Lofi on of my daily mix and in my on repeat. This is when I only used that excluded playlist to listen to Lofi and nothing else. What would be the issue here? It is tiring if I have to go back to private session method.

Plan

Premium

Device

Windows Laptop, Samsung Galaxy A series

Operating System

Windows 10 and Android 12

[Lyubka · Accepted solution]

Hey @Felix9191,

Thank you for reaching out here in the Community.

We'd recommend logging out and then logging back in two times in a row on your phone. It sounds a bit odd, but it forces a sync between the account and your device.

If the issue still persists, we'd recommend performing a clean reinstall of the app. It'll get you the latest app version with all necessary updates and fixes and will remove any corrupted files from previous installations.

More info about Exclude a playlist from your Taste Profile can be found in our Steps by Stars blog here.

If you'd like to know more about how long does it take for excluding a playlist to take effect and how it differs from "Private session" - head here. 
 

Hope this helps. Take care 🙂 

[Felix9191]

Issue solved. Thank you! (Late reply but I managed to do the same steps here by contacting spotify chat back in March so I resolved it back then!)

[Lyubka]

Hey @Felix9191,

Thanks for getting back to us.

We're glad to hear that everything works as it should for you now.

If you ever have any other questions in the future, feel free to post in the Community again 🙂

Have a wonderful day! 

[tvc_15]

Hi, I have the same issue (non-stop white noise, rain, etc. in DW and RR due to listening to a chill playlist 30-45 minute night), but am logged in on many devices (desktop, iPhone, iPad, and Sonos speakers). Do I have to log in/out all of these devices twice to solve this? Or reinstall app on all devices? The "exclude..." option seemed to work initially, but after a few weeks, I am back to ~25 out of 30 suggestions being waterfalls, etc. on the DW and RR. I hide them all, but does not seem to affect my algorithm. Please advise. 

[Ivelina]

Hi there @tvc_15,

Thanks for posting in this thread! 

It can be annoying to have to log out and log back into all of the devices, but just so we're on the safe side and to know we've tried this step, you can log out of your account everywhere from the Account Page here. After that you can log in > log out > log back in again on one of the devices and use only it for some time to see if that changes anything. 

The same thing goes for the reinstall - you can start with only one of the devices.

Keep us posted and let us know if you have any questions 🙂

[tvc_15]

Thanks. I logged out of all devices and did the double log in. Not sure how long it would take to rest everything, but my Release Radar still had 18 of 30 tracks as rain/noise/waterfall/etc. Upon rereading your response - are you saying to only use one device and not multiple? I jump between phone / desktop / iPad regularly. Also, Sonos did not seem to ask for a log in again after logging out of all devices. Do I need to manually log out of that? I know I airplay to it, but I think it also directly accesses Spotify and I use that each night for the white noise, etc. for about 45 min as I have it as a saved playlist there.

[Susan_GP]

Hi there @tvc_15,

Thanks for your reply and for trying out our recommendations.

No worries, it's not necessary to use just one device. Just to confirm, do you only listen to one chill playlist? If it's more than one playlist, we'd recommend making sure the ones you listen to are all excluded from your taste profile. 

If it's only one, try going to the playlist and selecting the option to Include in your taste profile, log out and back in, and then exclude it again. Then restart the app and check if that makes a difference. 

On another note, for Sonos, you would need to remove Spotify directly from the Sonos app and then add it again. You can follow the steps in this article if you want to do it. 

Keep us posted!

[tvc_15]

Thank you. I have tried everything you mentioned and currently have just removed it from Sonos so only play through the Spotify app. How long will it take for changes to take place? My Discover Weekly this week was 100% white noise, waterfalls, etc. and just noticed my Release Radar is the same from tracks 13-30. I currently have only the one "Oceans" playlist (among over 100 I imagine) excluded from my taste profile. Everything else is quite the opposite of that. I play my other playlists almost all day and the Oceans playlist on a timer for 45 min. each night. It is odd that it dominates my taste profile when I play little compared to others. Also that it just recently started happening. The first time I noticed it happen last year, I excluded it, and it seemed problem solved for a few weeks, but now it is back with a vengeance. 

[AlejaR]

Hey @tvc_15,

Thanks for your reply.

Since you mentioned you use your Sonos to hear white noises at night, would you mind stopping using your speaker to listen to the playlist mentioned for the next few weeks to see if you notice any changes in this behavior? Give it a try and let us know how it goes.

Make sure to wait at least a couple of weeks to use your Sonos to play that specific playlist, to see if you notice any changes in your Discover Weekly and Release Radar.

If this behavior persists after that, and just to confirm, was your account created with Facebook? In other words, did you sign up for Spotify through Facebook? If yes, please let us know.

Keep us in the loop!

[tvc_15]

Thank you. I did not set up my account through Facebook.

And I will try. I have not been listening to the playlist accessing through Sonos and it may be helping. My RR and DW this week were less than 1/3 white noise, etc. but there are definitely tracks still present. I noticed with the DW when they allow you to preview in the "story" mode, it shows the genres (or tags?) it is pulling from which included #soothing #profound #unwinding #healing #reiki #chakra #drone #relaxing #spa #relaxing soothing #hypnosis. If only the user could adjust those settings manually, that would be amazing! How can I delete these tags assigned to my playlists? I just liked the sound of the ocean. I did not need (or like) all the other stuff. Or do I just have to wait weeks now for playlists to slowly "heal"?

[Eni]

Hey @tvc_15, 

Thanks for your reply. 

We're afraid it's not possible to remove those tags at the moment. In this case, we recommend that you give the suggestions @AlejaR sent above a go to see if they make the difference. 

Additionally, if you'd like to have this option in the future, you can have a look in our Idea Exchange to see if someone else has already made a similar suggestion. If there isn't one, you can give these steps a go and submit your idea so that other users can also support it. The higher the number of votes an idea gets, the more likely it is for it to be implemented. You can read more about how your feedback reaches Spotify here.

Keep us posted.

[tvc_15]

Thanks. Have been giving the steps a try. I thought I saw improvement last week, but that seems to have been hope based on today's Discover Weekly where 22 of 30 tracks were white noise, nature sounds, meditation chants, etc. It's a bummer. This plus the loss of the heart has been frustration with Spotify as of late. Maybe I need to listen to these calming tracks...if they didn't aggravate me so much, ha. Thanks for trying to help. 

[Susan_GP]

Hey there @tvc_15,

Thanks for keeping in touch and for your patience.

We understand there's an area for improvement for this feature, and we will make sure to let the right team know. We really appreciate your feedback as it helps inform our decisions going forward, but just as a heads up, we’re not able to confirm when this specific issue will be resolved. 

In the meantime, you could try listening to your Chill playlist on Private Sessions. We understand this is not ideal, but it might help improve your Discover weekly.

If you have any questions or need anything else, the Community is here for you.

[tvc_15]

Update: Discover Weekly seems back on path, but Release Radar still not yet clean. It has been a few weeks. I did all the steps above which I will have to assume helped, but then after nothing changed, I reviewed all my saved playlists and found a few hidden deep in folders that were "meditation, chill, etc" that were listed made by specifically by Spotify that I saved and I unliked (unfollowed, etc.) all of those lists. I also found any playlist that slightly leaned chill and excluded from my profile. Within a week Discover Weekly went back to a good mix of music matching my taste without including white noise, oceans, etc. Release Radar still continues to incorporate meditation tracks for about a third of the list. Again I can see the #'s attributed to the list which still have chill, zen, mediation, etc. Hopefully those go away over time, but I wish I could delete them! Anyway, thanks again for help.

[MarshallCowley]

Plan

Premium

Country

Australia

Device

2024 HP Laptop

Operating System

Windows  11 Home

My Question or Issue

I have for some time been trying to use the exclude system to modify my recommendations (i,e Discover Weekly, Daily Mix etc). I have read several examples in the community of people using 'sleep; playlists and wanting to limit the impact of these on recommendations. I use both sleep playlists and work/study/concentration playlists (all ambient and classical) extensively, however I have excluded all of these playlists from my taste profile and have none of these genres in my liked songs. There is no overlap in my other playlists ie they are all very different genres. My Discover Weekly is always exclusively 100% ambient and classical and currently have six Daily Mixes, four of which are ambient or classical. This problem has persisted for many months i.e. it has updated many times and I'm still getting poor recommendations. Help!