Spotify-curated playlists changing unexpectedly

[mg13]

Plan

Premium

Country

UK

Device

(iPhone XR, MacBook Air, iPad mini)

Operating System

(iOS/iPad OS 17, MacOS Sonoma)

My Question or Issue

I have noticed recently that a number of playlists curated by Spotify change their contents from day to day (or even from hour to hour). I noticed this first with a Glastonbury 2024 playlist that I listened to over a few days before the festival. I expected the playlist to remain static, but some tracks were added in or deleted after I started playing is, and others were moved around the list. (I made no changes to the track order in the playlist).

After this experience, I started to watch out for this behaviour, and saw it really clearly in my Release Radar playlist this week. When I started playing it on Friday it was shown as being about 2hrs 47 minutes long. When I picked it up again on Saturday (I hadn't finished listening to it on Friday), the next track I expected (having made a note of it when I stopped) was completely missing from the playlist, and the duration was down to just over 2hrs 30 mins. This morning, the missing track (or at least one by the same artist) has returned, but the playlist duration is down to 2hrs 8 minutes. 

I appreciate that the weekly playlists will change weekly (in fact I enjoy that they are refreshed), but it is truly irritating that I can't rely on a long playlist to stay unchanged for a day or less. Is there any way of changing this behaviour, or is it just Spotify messing with the algorithm for their own benefit?

Thanks,

Mark.

[Yordan]

Hi there @mg13,

Thanks for reaching out!

We’re constantly looking for opportunities to enhance the user experience for everyone and your feedback on this is greatly appreciated.

In the meantime, make sure you're always running the latest version of Spotify so you don't miss out on any updates.

The Community is here if there's anything else you need assistance with.

Take care

[mg13]

I am always running the latest version of Spotify, but in any case this is independent of the platform I am using. Also, it is absolutely not an enhancement to the user experience.

[tenkeiwlfrye]

I've also noticed this problem, especially with my release radar playlist. I've had the playlist change as I was listening to it, removing/adding songs and changing the order all around. Not sure if this is a glitch or bug, or if Spotify thinks this a good thing like @Yordan mentioned in their ridiculous non-answer. This is extremely frustrating, and is a huge negative to the listening experience.

[mangopit]

This just happened to me! I was listening to my Release Radar in the late morning on Friday (PST) when I realized the song I was listening to was no longer visibly listed in the playlist. It was clear the playlist was refreshed or updated or something -- no big deal, sometimes that happens, albeit not usually in the middle of the day. However, when I try to play this new version of the Release Radar playlist, it's still plays the songs from the old version!

To give an idea of what I observed: The playlist originally had songs A B C D E F G, then while I was listening to E, the playlist suddenly showed songs 1 2 D 3 4 A 5 B 6. When I tried to listen to the playlist from song 1, song 1 wouldn't play and would instead skip to A. Then I realized I was only able to hear A-G, and if I selected and played A in this new playlist, I could use the forward button to listen through the original A-G playlist, completely unaffected by any of the 1-6 songs. I'm still able to interact with the 1-6 songs in the playlist in terms of liking them, adding them to other playlists, etc, but I just can't select them to listen in this weird new version of the playlist. Bizarre!

I'm on Spotify web, with Firefox 129.0.1 (64-bit). Clearing my cache did not help. Here's the link to the playlist: No idea how reproducible this is.

[mangopit]

Additionally: I was able to play song 1 by selecting it on the mobile app then switching back to my web desktop, but when I pressed the forward button it went back to the A-G playlist. So so weird.

[herr_schaft]

Same issue here. The Release Radar has been thoroughly broken for the past couple of weeks. It plays songs out of order. And songs that do not appear in the (visible) playlist at all. This happens regardless of the device/app used and (smart) shuffle being on or off. And it's certainly not 'enhancing the user experience' @Yordan.

[herr_schaft]

I don’t know about the original ‚playlists keep changing‘ issue, but Release Radar seems fixed and is playing songs it lists and in order again. Thanks for the fix to whoever did.

[Ivelina]

Hey there folks,

Thanks for taking the time to post!

I'd like to point out that we're currently investigating the issue of Release Radar playlist and queue not being synced in this Community thread. If you haven't already, you can take a look there, as well as post any details that you think may be helpful for the investigation.

As soon as we have any updates on the matter, we'll be posting them there.

We really appreciate your cooperation and don't hesitate to let us know if you need help with anything else in the meantime.