Random song plays after a podcast episode ends

[elotrotomas]

I typically prefer podcasts over music, and on Spotify, I usually listen to the most recent episodes in order without any issues, aside from a few commercials in between, which don’t bother me. However, over the past few days, something has changed. Now, when an episode ends, it plays a random song that isn’t even in my playlists. I attempted to find a solution online, such as turning off autoplay, but that didn’t work. I understand that Spotify may be trying to annoy free users to encourage them to upgrade to a premium plan, but this is quite excessive. Do you know of any way to resolve this, or should I start looking for another app?    Thank you for your help! 
Plan Free/ Country Australia Device (iPhone 11 and MacBook Pro 2020)

[Joan]

Hi there @elotrotomas,

Thanks for reaching out. We'll be happy to help you enjoy your podcasts.

Firstly, let's clarify the following - how exactly are you playing these podcasts? You mentioned playlists, but does that mean you put your podcast episodes into playlists or do you play the episodes from the podcast pages themselves and then music is included in between? And this happens on both your iPhone and MacBook, correct? 

Let us know so we can look into this further.

[elotrotomas]

Hi Joan, thanks for your reply.

I usually go to the "New Episodes" tab and play the podcasts as they come. Sometimes, I choose a specific podcast and listen to all its episodes. However, now it's playing a random song instead of returning to the podcast. When this song plays, and I press "next," it just plays another song rather than returning to the podcast.

I'm not sure if this is clear, but it doesn't follow the sequence of: podcast episode -> random song appears -> return to the podcast.

Instead is: podcast episode -> random song appears -> another song and another and another and so on (and of course, an advertisement that I can’t skip, appears)

My user experience has worsened with this change.

[MihailY]

Hey @elotrotomas,

Thanks for your reply.

This issue has been investigated in this thread and was confirmed as fixed a few weeks ago. Can you try a clean reinstall of the app to make sure you're running the latest version of Spotify? 

If the issue persists, please post in the linked thread and let us know the models, OS versions and Spotify versions of the affected devices so we can re-open our investigation.

Cheers,

[chrishaynescoza]

I have this same issue in Spotify. I use podcasts to help me fall asleep and then suddenly I wake up with irritating music in my ear. And it's a whole queue of music in a genre I never listen to or liked in my account. It doesn't matter how often I X it, the same songs and genre keep haunting me after the last podcast episode.

Is there a way to make this stop short of changing music app?

[Ivelina]

Hey there @chrishaynescoza,

Thanks for posting in the thread!

Have you tried Sleep Timer on mobile? It's a feature that allows you to set a timer of 5, 10, 15, 30, 45 minutes, 1 hour, or at the end of the podcast episode you're currently listening to which stops the playback. In order to set it for podcasts, tap the "clock" button located next to the button on the Now Playing View and select the desired time. Once it runs, the podcast episode should stop playing.

However, if you're still experiencing any issues, let us know and we'll take a look together.

Hope this helps and we're here if you need help with anything else.

[chrishaynescoza]

Hi Ivelina

Thanks for your input. Yes, I do use the sleep timer, but it's still frustrating that if I don't, then Spotify chooses to queue and play hours of noisy, unrelated music. It's really making me frustrated with the genre and Spotify.

Why not just queue similar, related podcasts if I'm listening to podcasts?

[Ivelina]

Thank you for the response @chrishaynescoza and for sharing that you're using Sleep Timer.

As mentioned by @MihailY in this post, the behavior has been investigated in another thread here. It would be very helpful if you could take a look, join the thread and provide us the requested details in this post so we can take a look. The more details you share such as for example when this started, the troubleshooting steps you've already tried, what device(s) this occurs on and even a video recording, the better.

Appreciate the cooperation and we're here in the meantime if anything else comes up.

[Anke53]

This is still an issue even for premium users like me. 

Also, the filter doesn't get stored, it shows you all episodes when you come back even when it had been set to only show episodes that haven't been played yet. 

It seems podcasts need addressing a bit.

[Dessi]

Hey @Anke53,

Thanks for reaching out and welcome to the Spotify Community!

Since we haven't seen any reports about this in the other thread we mentioned in a while, we wanted to check if clearing the queue makes a difference in your case? Make sure that Autoplay is toggled off in the app's settings as well. Also, can you let us know where you're playing the episodes from - is it from Your Episodes, from the podcast page directly or from Home? 

When it comes to the filtering issue, we can confirm that it's currently under investigation by our tech folks and you can subscribe to this thread, where it was reported to keep an eye out on any updates on the topic.

Keep us posted.

[Martin01230]

Hi, I am having the exact same issue with random songs playing after my podcast ends and came upon this thread. I am also listening to podcast episodes through the "New Episodes" section, and instead of playing the next new episode, it plays random music unrelated to anything I've ever listened to. 

I tried to clear the queue but when I navigate to the queue on my mobile app as detailed in that link, I do not have an option to "clear" (the button does not exist in that top right hand corner). I am not a Spotify Premium subscriber. Autoplay is also toggled off. I am playing from "Your Library -> New Episodes".

Thanks!

[Yordan]

Hey @MartinMI5,

Thanks for your post.

Please note that editing the Play Queue on mobile device is reserved to Premium users at the moment. You mentioned that you're not a Premium subscriber, so that' why you're not seeing that option. It's also worth mentioning that if you only have podcasts in queue - you also won't be able to see the option "clear". 

As for the random songs that you're hearing, could you try to log out > restart your phone > log back in to see if that makes any difference for you?

Hope this helps. Take care!