Can't listen to new music unless i'm on wifi...

[Spaceman_Spiff_]

Plan

Premium

Country

USA

Device

iPhone 8

Operating System

13.7

My Question or Issue

Been using the app for years and never ran into this until recently. Now it happens more often than not if i'm not connected to good Wifi.

I think of an album I want to listen to, search for it, and click on the song I want to play. No response from Spotify at all. Completely ignores my request no matter how many times I click. It will play songs I've liked in the past but nothing new.

When the app was slow before (I have Sprint so I understand that my internet is garbage), it would at least load the track in the bottom banner, but stay on 0:00 seconds until the connection caught up. This wasn't bad--you could just wait in silence and the song would eventually play. Now the banner doesn't even come up, so my only choice is to constantly try again and again (to no avail even after 15 minutes) or cave in and listen to old stuff. I've tried updating my phone and re-installing the app to no avail. It happens almost every time I try to discover new music outside of my house.

I hate how the updates on this app always seem to be a downgrade from the previous version. If I didn't have so much invested in Spotify (8.3k liked songs and dozens of eclectic playlists) I'd have long abandoned it for Apple or Tidal.

If nobody knows the fix for this, please at least explain why they took away the ability to pre-load tracks while the connection is catching up...