Local Files not fully Syncing

[chenkos]

Plan

Premium

Country

Switzerland

Device

(iPhone 12 Pro, PC)

Operating System

(iOS 10, Windows 10)

My Question or Issue

I am unable to sync some of my local MP3s as per the instructions here.

Each time the same 10 songs (roughly) sync to my phone from a my playlist of local files, and the remaining songs do not. 

I have tried connecting both my phone and computer over the same WiFi network
I have tried using my phone as a wirless hotspot.
I have tried un-clicking download and re clicking this.
I have tried restarting all versions of Spotify and both computer and iphone.
I have gone through all the settings options listed and tried everything.

The process clearly works cause each time, some tracks sync, but some don't. I own the rights for all the songs.

Please let me know what I can do here.

Thanks,

[Jeremy]

Hey there @chenkos,

Thank you for your post and for sharing all of the troubleshooting steps you've taken so far here in the Community. We're happy to help.

Another useful step in is to change the source folder of the local files on the pc. The steps are: Uninstall Spotify on both devices > create a new folder somewhere else on the pc and move the local files there > install Spotify again > remove any potential source folders and add the new one > download the playlist again.

If that doesn't do the trick, we suggest that you perform a clean reinstall of the app. This is different from a quick reinstall and could be helpful to get rid of any cached files that might be causing trouble.

Let us know how everything goes so that we can continue to assist you if you need us to 🙂

Take care!

[user-removed]

I'm having the same problem as chunks. Your clean reinstall steps didn't work.

[Eni]

Hi @user-removed, 

Thanks for getting back in touch.

Could you go to the settings of the Spotify app on your iPhone, scroll down to Local Files and make sure Desktop Sync / Local audio files is enabled? 

Also, take a look at the steps and recommendations you'll find in this Spotify Answer about Local Files. If you've already checked those steps and the issue still persists, could you let us know what exactly you've tried from there?

Let us know how it goes 🙂

[user-removed]

We're closer now. Enabling the Settings > Local Files option on iPhone Spotify enabled *some* local files to sync. However, not all files are syncing, even though the Download button/icon has finished spinning. Files encoded the exact same way from the same album may or may not be playable on my iPhone now. It's not a storage problem; the files are only 1GB total and I have 100+GB free.

Feedback:

1. Users needs to be notified of the Local Files setting when attempting to download a playlist for offline listening. Just a spinning icon, or greyed out songs with no indication why isn't good enough. It could be as simple as "This playlist has local files. Do you want to enable local file sync for this device?" Don't make me go hunt for a setting I had no idea existed.

2. If a local file isn't playable, the user needs to be given a clue why. I have 20 tracks that I can't play on my iPhone even though they're just like other tracks, and I can't tell what's going on. If it's a caching problem, then Spotify for iPhone really needs to validate its own cache and fix itself. There should be no need for me to do an entire uninstall/clear/reinstall procedure. That's super frustrating for a product that costs me $200/yr.

[Eni]

Hey @user-removed, 

Thanks for getting back in touch and for letting us know that.

We suggest that you try the steps @Katerina sent in this thread and let us know if they make the difference. 

If they don't do the trick, we recommend taking a look at this article and making sure you've followed the steps and recommendations there.

Also, we really value your feedback as it helps us to improve, and we'll be sure to pass this on to the right folks here at Spotify.

Keep us posted 🙂