Device keeps disappearing from the list of available devices

[astora]

Plan

Premium

Device

iPhone 13

Operating System

iOS 16

This must be a known issue as it's been happening for years - devices keep disappearing from the list of available devices on the same wifi and the only way to fix it is to restart Spotify on the device that disappeared.

This bug needs to be fixed already!

[MihailY]

Hey @astora,

Thanks for reaching out.

As a first step, can you please let us know the models, OS versions and Spotify versions of the affected devices and whether you've tried any troubleshooting steps like clean reinstalling the app or connecting them to a hotspot on your phone?

Keep us posted.

[astora]

Happens on every device we have - iPhone 13 (as noted in the original post), iPod 7, iPad.

Latest version of Spotify available to these devices.

Tried re-installing/connecting to hotspot and pretty much anything else you can think of, it's been like that for years on a variety of devices/models.

The connection between devices on wifi is simply not stable enough, the app doesn't seem to attempt to re-connect to the network or gives up on the attempt too quickly, and then just switches to "solo" mode.

[Alex]

Hi there @astora,

Thanks for the reply and the info.

Since this issue is happening for such a long time and on different devices, it's most likely caused by the internet connection itself. 

If you live in a bigger house or apartment, the WiFi signal from a single router might not be enough or there might be other disturbances to the signal.

You can try the following to better your home connection:

•  Switch from 2.4 Ghz to 5Ghz or vice versa. The 2.4 GHz frequency offers better range, but the 5GHz band offers better speed for things like streaming.
• Change your wireless channel - routers can spread signal through a number of different channels. Sometimes using the default channel might cause interferences in the signal, much like what you're experiencing in your case, because another nearby router might be using the same channel. You can google your router model and how to change the channel online. Try using channels 1,6 or 11.
• Check if there are any firmware updates available for your router and install those. You can find this info on the manufacturer's website usually.

Hope this helps.

[astora]

I have a super fast and reliable connection across the house, not to mention I moved between different houses + the car, always the same issue.

The app doesn't properly reconnect, and it's nothing but the app.

Randomly stops playing (with connection intact) because of who knows what, if it's not playing more than X minutes, it drops from the list of devices etc.

My friends are reporting the same issues in their configurations.

Fix the app, it's a paid app with 500M users that behave like a free indie project.

[astora]

Any other response from support or is the best I can expect?

Maybe a hint would be how the app behaves after disconnecting from the internet for 5 mins and then reconnecting (doesn't work, device is gone from the network).

Sounds easy to reproduce.

[astora]

Bump

[Darrylboio]

Bump. still happening to this day

[tsiarardak]

Same issue here. I understand it's a challenging problem to solve, especially since it seems to occur across all devices and app versions. However, it would be fantastic if users could receive a more specific response instead of a generic one.

I'm certain that a significant number of people experience this issue without realizing it—Spotify simply stops playing intermittently. However, more tech-savvy users have likely noticed this problem.

And let's not forget, we're not free users relying on an ad-supported service; we're paying customers who spend money on this every month.