Only playing first song of an album on Discography View

[Twebb23]

Plan

Premium

Country

United Kingdom

Device

Windows PC - Desktop App

Operating System

Windows 10

My Question or Issue

Ongoing issue with specifically Discography View. When viewing in this method, the app will only play the first song on each album. Any other songs following it on the same album/ep will not play, and instead display the generic "Spotify can't play this right now. If you have the file on your computer you can import it" message. If I go into the album itself, it plays all of the songs. However by doing this I then start at the top of the discography and have to go all the way back down to play individual songs.

I've tried to find this on the Forum, but can't find any threads with the same issue.

1) Cache Cleared. No difference.

2) Clean install completed. No difference.

3) Hardware Acceleration Activated/Deactivated. No difference.

4) Autoplay Activated/Deactivated. No difference.

[Dahnert]

Plan

Spotify Family

Country

Denmark

Device

Desktop

Operating System

Windows 10

My Question or Issue

Whenever I want to play a song, I get the "Spotify can't play this right now. If you have the file on your computer you can import it" error message. What's odd is, that the first song works on EVERY album. But as soon as I move on to the next, it doesn't work. I've tried about 10 artists, so it isn't localized to one artist or album either. The first one ALWAYS works. The rest don't.

Things I've tried:
Logging out

Restarting PC

Clear Cache

Clean reinstall

Disabling hardware acceleration

Lowering playback quality

Disabled crossfading

Deleted local files

Checked host files

Tried both the "original" Spotify, and the one from the Microsoft store

Changed speaker options

Updated all drivers

[alaenya]

Plan

Premium

Country

Czechia

Device

HP Omen 15

Operating System

Windows 11

My Question or Issue

I've got a rather weird problem. When playing songs from the desktop app, I sometimes get the error "Spotify can't play this right now. If you have the file on your computer you can import it."

At first, I thought it can't play songs that aren't downloaded but I've tested it since and found it's even more complicated. Playlists and popular songs on artist's page all play without a problem. When I go into a discography, the first (newest) album plays fine but starting from the second one, every album can only play the first song. BUT if I click on the first song and then press next, the next songs play fine as well. And if I go into the album itself, all songs play fine.

While it's good that there's a workaround like this, it leaves me baffled and I wonder if anyone else has the same problem? I tried performing a clean reinstall, using both Microsoft Store and website version but that made no difference.

[arjeidi]

I am having this exact same issue. It's incredibly annoying but thank you for sharing that "skip" is at least a workaround (for now). Hopefully Spotify fixes this issue with albums as it makes it much more tedious to find new music.

[CFOPeter]

When I open up an artist's discography and try to play songs, I can only play the first song on every album. All other songs will show the "Spotify can't play this right now. If you have the file on your computer you can import it" message. However, the later songs in the album are still playable through skipping. So if I want to listen to the 6th song of the album from the discography, I currently have to click play the first song and click skip 5 times. 

This only happens in discography. If I open the album by itself, every song is playable. All playlists are normal as well. I like to scroll through discography for songs so this is very annoying.

Plan

Premium

Country

USA

Device

Windows Desktop

Operating System

Windows 11

[CFOPeter]

I have tried to clean reinstall and logout-restart-login. Neither worked for me.

[Eni]

Hey there @CFOPeter, 

Thanks for getting back in touch about this here in the Community. 

Could you check if this happens on other PCs as well (if possible) or only on a specific one? Also, does the same happen on the web player? 

On another note, could you give a different internet connection a go to see if the same happens?

Lastly, we'd like to know if this started happening after a specific event such as an update. 

Keep us posted. 

[Emnos]

I started getting this too today. Performed a clean reinstall with restart but no change. 

Windows 10 Pro 22H2 19045.3930

It works if I navigate to the album/EP directly from the discography carousel or if I search for it, but on the discography view I can only play the first track. It says 'Spotify can't play this right now'.

It works fine on the web player in Firefox and on the Android app on my phone.

Update: I decided to double check again just before finishing this post and now suddenly it works.
Nothing has changed on my PC in the short time I've been writing this text and it didn't work when I started.

[Emnos]

Broken again this afternoon, was working this morning.

[Elena]

Hello there @CFOPeter, @Emnos,

Thank you for bringing this to us, We`re sorry to hear this issue has appeared for you guys. 

@CFOPeter You`ve mentioned that this occurs on your computer, does this happen on the web app or the downloaded app? If its happening on the app we would suggest performing a clean uninstall. And then trying again. 

@Emnos Thank you for trying on the web app. Is Firefox your default browser? If not and it only works there then you should go into the settings and clear the cache and cookies. That should fix things for the web player. If this appears on the downloaded app you should also perform a clean uninstall. 

Keep us in the loop on how things go and if anything doesn't work as planned, could you attach a screenshot or a recording with your response.

[Lanciano007]

Plan

Premium

Country

Device

Laptop 

Operating System

(Windows 10)

My Question or Issue

I can't play songs in Albums and Ep's separately/individualy anymore on my desktop app when using my cursor (arrow)... I can reach the songs in the middle or end of the albums/EP's only by using the skip button skipping songs from te beginning in the Albums and EP's. It seems to be happening only when I select songs individualy with my arrow corsor in Albums and EP's that are in a Discography list. It seems that if a Album is the one on top of the Discography list it doesn't have this specific problem. When selecting an album in de Album list it seems to be alright when I play a song separately/individualy. But it doesn't work when albums and EP's are part of the Discography list. 

I look at and listen to whole Discographies of artists to explore their albums.

I can't find any solution for this bug. While using my Cursor (arrow) and touch a song separately/individualy I'll get a message: "Spotify can't play this right now. If you have the file on your computer you can import it." 

All the songs are written in white, and NOT greyed out.

I'm also experiencing that it takes much more time, around a second now, to get a next song play in the Popular, Recommended etc. song lists visiting an artist and Self Made Playlists using a cursor arrow in the Spotify Desktop App..

I think this problem already started with the update when Spotify took the like button hearts away. I thought this was a bug too, but it was an unclear an unlogical sad decision to do so. In the meanwhile I had the problem with my playlists on my Android phone after a new update, that all my playlists had a random song from the playlist at the beginning of my Self Made Playlists. Seems this is fixed now.

Seems the browser version doesn't have this Discography problem described above.

[Susan_GP]

Hi there @Twebb23,

Thanks for posting in the Community and welcome.

First up, thanks for the detailed description of the issue and for letting us know about the troubleshooting steps you've tried so far. 

Now, you mention this only happens from the Discography View. Could you send over a screenshot or recording of the exact path you take on the app to recreate the issue? You can attach it in your next reply in mp4 format, or you can also upload it to YouTube or Google Drive and make it public, so we can visualize it.

Other than that, we'd recommend editing your Hosts file. Just follow the steps here, and let us know how that goes.

Lastly, does this happen from any device? Or just from the Desktop app?

We'll keep an eye out for your reply.

[Montug]

This issue continues after updating all drivers, etc and uninstalling/reinstalling. No solution as of 2/12/24

All Cache on everything (browser and spotify) cleared too.

This is occurring on multiple PCs, works fine through web browser, but the app is broken across all pcs.

When searching for music under "discover" and looking at "discography" the first song of an album will play, but then all others give the error : "Spotify can't play this right now. If you have the file on your computer you can import it."

[CFOPeter]

I do not have access to another PC, but from other people's replies, it seems like I am not the only one with this issue.

Web player functions normally, this only happens on the Windows app. 

A different internet connection did not resolve the issue.

I do not have any specific event that I can relate this issue to. It started roughly a month ago I would say.

[estres]

hihi,

I have the same problem.

I also tried 1),2),3) and 4), but nothing changed.

For me this problem only affects my PC. Mobile is working fine.

Weird is that the PC just won't play them directly. Only the first song of every album plays.

However when I skip through the album, starting from the first song, all songs play. They just refuse to play when I click them.

Also the PC is playing the songs when I start them from my mobile app, but they won't play when I start them at the PC directly.

[Edwin71]

I have the same issue sometimes, as is the case right now when I'm typing this (Windows desktop app).

I'm in a specific album and double-clicking a track or pressing the play button in front of a track gives the "Spotify can't play this right now. ..." message. But when I press the Album-level play button, the first track starts playing and I can easily skip to all following tracks that all play just fine using the next and previous buttons at the bottom.

So this is not a connectivity issue, nor a problem with the soundcard, or with Windows or whatever. It is a problem with Spotify. Again. And I don't want to open the app again or login again, or install again, or restart the OS, or .... to make it work. 

I use many different software applications on a daily basis and I don't know of a single one that frustrates me so much as Spotify (desktop app AND mobile app). Bugs, unreliable, inconsistent, bad UX, ...

[Joan]

Hi folks,

Thanks for the replies. Could you please provide us the following:

• When did this start happening?
• The exact Spotify Versions you use.
• A video of the behaviour. If the files are too large to attach here in the Community, you can send them to us via Google Drive or as unlisted YouTube videos.

With this information, we’d be happy to investigate.

Keep us posted.

[Vasil]

Hey @estres,

Thanks for joining the thread and for going over the steps, mentioned by @Twebb23!
 

We tried to reproduce the issue on our end, sadly to no avail, which is why we'd like to take a look at what's going on on your end if that's alright.
Could you send us a link to a video recording (or upload one in a .mp4 format) as @Susan_GP has asked for in her last post? 🙂

Much appreciated! We'll be on the lookout for your reply 🙌🏼

[estres]

Ok,

I was able to narrow the problem down a little further:

It only happens in Discography overview, but the top most Album is not affected at all.

Also the first track of every Album is not affected. Therefore entries with just a single track are not affected and it only applies to multi-track entries of the Discography overview.

I can play every track by starting the first one of an Album and then skipping to the desired track. If I click the desired track directly it won't play. But if I switch to the Album overview all tracks can be started directly.

I hope that the video can help you.

[MihailY]

Hey folks,

We'd like to forward this to our tech team, so please share your exact Spotify version and your OS version (if you haven't already).

Cheers,