Feedback Request: iOS Offline Issues

[Rorey]

Hello everyone! Spotify here.

We are looking into customer reports about issues with offlined playlists on iOS devices (music which is downloaded to your phone so you can play without an internet connection). Our investigation shows that some folks might have experienced some issues with this so we were hoping you could answer some questions to help us diagnose the problem.

1. Have you made a playlist available offline which you could not play without any internet connection?

2. Have you made a playlist available offline which constantly downloads when you start Spotify?

Thanks,

Team Spotify

[Niceinuk]

Tx! I'm having the same issue and they keep emailing me to join "family package" !!!! I'm so angry that I pay £12.99 a month to stream music - if I can't download there is no point I'mpaying anymore! I am also cancelling today!

[piper123]

Do we have any sort of solution in the works for this issue? Being able to listen to my music when I dont have an internet connection available was the biggest feature I wanted from Spotify. It was great to be able to have access to as much music as I wanted, vs. having to purchase an album and get sick of it in a few months.

The only response I have gotten as a long time paying subcriber is others who have the same frustrations, and people who think that I should keep paying for the app even when it doesnt work.

If my playlists arent available offline then that means I cannot listen to any music due to poor cell service and limited Wi-Fi availability.

Please update us on the resolution progress of this issue!

[seirn0]

My Spotify has started to do this lately and it's very, VERY irritating.  I sync'd a playlist of local files yesterday morning before I left for work.  By the time I got to work (35 minutes) the whole playlist was unsync'd and told me to resync the list.  I also get random songs in another playlist saying they're unsync'd, but if I search for the song it'll play just fine.  

When is this going to be fixed?  Never?  This issue has been around for a year and a half now it looks like.

[Govis]

The only thing that I've found works reliably for me when the offline sync issues raises its head is to delete Spotify on the iPhone.  Then I make sure I have lots of memory available, and I sync the playlist with the most local only songs (non-Spotify) that I want.  I make sure that playlist syncs, then I start syncing other playlists until I get to where I want.

I have all my Spotify music organized as folders and playlists, many of them playlists that were brought over from iTunes when I switched to Spotify, and I have completely ignored the saving albums or artists functionality that they added several versions ago (I organize artists or albums as playlists under a folder), FWIW.

[mendomaid]

It is not just limited to disappearing playlists and downloads for me, I can't even save new songs or albums to my offline saved music and playlists, I have to look them up manually every time I open the app!  This is BS.  It seems that my stay in this community will be a short one.  The only reason I finally caved in and joined Spotify was because they added the ability to save albums.  I am rarely where I have a reliable internet signal and the ability to save music for offline listening is very important to me.  If 22GB of music evaporates from my iPod touch, it is also insanely expensive to download it again.  I also find their 10,000 song limit ridiculous considering what they charge for their service.

I am an addict.  Some people are addicted to drugs, I am a music junkie.  I refuse to live without it.  It is my opinion and my warning to other music junkies, that Spotify is an unreliable, shady dealer overcharging for a schwag product... They can't be relied on to supply your fix.  Their free offering is beyond Schwag, it is straight up bunk.  For this reason I have asked Spotify to remove my account entirely because I have absolutely no use for the "service" they "provide", and I don't even want to be associated with a company that is ripping off its massive customer base and costing them additional money on misplaced data.

https://community.spotify.com/t5/Help-iOS-iPhone-iPad/Disappearing-saved-music-and-downloads/td-p/10...

[3Ni]

I re synced everything exactly 1 week ago. Things were great. Even
listened to some of my local files just this morning. Then 40 minutes
ago I opened the app on my phone again and most of my local files were
grayed out again.

In the past I've gotten help from Spotify if I go on Twitter and threaten
to cancel my subscription (sad, no?) so hopefully they respond this time
with something useful and maybe permanent. I'll reply again if I get a fix.

In the meantime, I guess I'll start looking for a Spotify premium
replacement...Google Play, anyone?

[mendomaid]

Amazon prime does not have the biggest library, but it also includes movies, Amazon free shipping with no minimums, etc.  Also I believe your cloud is unlimited for Amazon content (at least it is if you own any type of Amazon device (tablet, phone, tv).  Their apps are easier to navigate and are much more practical and reliable than most of the music apps I have tried. If you have a problem you can call customer service and speak to a representative or use the live chat feature, the newer Amazon devices even have face to face "May day" service.  Most physical music purchased from Amazon has an auto-rip feature that automatically adds a digital copy to your cloud immediately upon purchase...  I have also seen the most steady rate of improvement and development from Amazon when it comes to meeting consumer demands.  Their apps rarely have problems, when they do they are quickly fixed.  They do thorough beta tests of their apps and don't use their paying customers like guinea pigs.  Amazon Prime... $100 a year, lots of perks.

[mateus_so]

I'm having so many problems since I've bought a premium account on Spotify that darn I'm sad to admit I'm pretty sure I'm goingo to change my stream service. Every update of Spotify brings a new problem!

Right now, I'm trying to sync local files that I've already synced before (probably 4 times), and suddenly disappeared from my iPhone. I say trying because, for some reason it's happening a lot lately, Spotify connects to my wi-fi connection, I uncheck the playlist I want to sync (that was supposed to be synced, but it freezes on Pending), check it again (so it tries to sync some more files - that's the only way I found that kind of works), it syncs some musics, and then, Spotify goes offline, and simply can't connect again to my wi-fi for a long while (hours - once it happens, I know I gotta turn off my computer and go to sleep, and I'll have to continue trying just on the other day). All my other apps on the iPhone are still connected and working, and if I turn off the wi-fi, it connects via my iPhone internet - it just can't work on my wi-fi.

I'm considering to open another thread, since my case has some specific details, but it's sadly disappointing to think how much more time will it take to be solved...

[Fjordhulder]

The local files I have synced keep unsyncing. They'll have the green arrow indicating they're synced but they'll be greyed out. It keeps happening at random but I do notice it's often the same songs "unsyncing"

[MattSuda]

@Fjordhulder 

This is a bug in the app.

The developers are aware of it. Hopefuly it will be fixed in a future update.

[Freffa22]

HI! 

Currently i experience these 2 problems with Spotify: 

1 - Every update trough App Store delete Local Tracks and unsync them from offline. 

2 - Spotify for Mac will NOT let me "Manually choose playlists to sync"! Every time i need to sync music i i have to choose "Sync all music to this device" though i do not need all music for offline use! 

This 2 problems, especially problem nr 2 is really annoying! 

HELP!!?? 

Freffa22. :-S 

[Adhean]

Same

[sfag01]

Again I have syncing problems. Local songs that I have sysced from my computer will not play on my iphone. They were playing two weeks ago but have become unsynced and not through anything that I ahve done.  It is not happening to all my songs. Syncing problems devil the iphone app. no amount of attempts at resyncing them will work.  Spotify just will not spend the money on fixing syncing issues. It is going to cost them my membership. 

[mendomaid]

I dropped my subscription a couple days ago, however I am very curious how long it will take Sotify to remedy this problem.  I want to know how long I would have had to pay for broken service had I not cancelled my subscription, so I'm still dropping by the boards and checking the status.  Has anyone received any reply as to when these issues might be fixed,  or received a fix tip that actually worked?

[MattSuda]

@Freffa22 

1: The app developers are aware of this bug. Hopefully it will be fixed in a future update. Unfortunately this won't be fixed in the next 2.6 update.

[mendomaid]

For those who haven't had Spotify long enough to know, on average how how often does Spotify update?  When can people expect a solution?  Spotify charges people for this crap, so real answers would be nice.  What they are doing to their paying customers is just bad business.   

[user-removed]

Im sorry, but this post is actually a spot on reflection of Spotify's
customer services. It says: 'we know you are having issues, but screw you;
we have enough monthly subscribers to ignore you and your petty little
problems. Just pay your 12 dollars a month and who knows? Maybe by the end
of this year your little problem is fixed.' This is what we call ARROGANCE.

[3Ni]

there have been at least 2 updates in the past 2 months (which might be why
i've had to re-sync my songs at least twice in the past 2 months). i'd
like to think that they are truly working on this and will have a fix soon.
i don't know what it takes to create and maintain an app like
this, but maybe they started finalizing the 2.6 update before they realized
how much of an issue people were having with local files and as such can't
go back and fix that right now.

now that we've been told multiple times that they're aware (and not just on
this thread; they responded to me directly on Twitter after i mentioned it
again), i don't think it's fair to say they're arrogant and don't give a
crap about their subscribers who are having problems. i guess we'll see
about that though.

in the meantime, i've resynced all my songs, and i've turned off automatic
app updates on my phone to see if that will help until a real fix comes
along. i talked a big game a few replies ago about looking for another
music service in the meantime, but i'm really too lazy to go through and
rebuild all my playlists from scratch on Amazon Prime or Google Play...so
here i still am.

[wellred]

I've tried disabling my firewall and still can't see my iphone listed in devices. Not only are my laptop and phone connected to the same network via wifi but my phone is also connected to the laptop via USB. 

[Carl2DCommunity]

Whenever i try to go in to the app on my iPhone it wont work. I have reinstalled it a couple of times and it still wont work. I'we tried anything!! Help me!!