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

[Jo_Jo]

How can I prevent Voice Control from coming on?  I'll be in Offline Mode and the Voice Control keeps coming on unpredictably, interrupting the music. Listening to Spotify has become virtually impossible because of the constant interruption. The only reason I can think of that the Voice Control is being activated is that I'm working out at a gym that has loud techno music playing. This just started happening when I updated my iOS and Spotify app.  The older version worked perfectly.

[MiguelLuis]

Hi Jo_Jo,

I'm guessing you have that problem because you updated to iOS 7.. I had a similar problem when I updated, I solved it by going to General > Siri and turning off Raise to Speak... If that doesn't help, turn off Siri completely and see if it works better..

My guess is that siri doesn't handle very well certain headphone, specially if they have built in mics...

[THoff]

Why can't spotify iPhone application work in landscape mode ? Given wide screens, it makes snde

[Jo_Jo]

Thanks for the reply. I have iOS 7 and your explanation makes sense, but I went to General and Siri is not listed. Could it be buried somewhere else?

Thanks for your help!

[HonoraCampbell]

Hi guys! Yesterday I opened my app on my iPhone 4S, I pay for premium and went to play my usual songs on my playlists (which are available offline minus a few songs here and there) and all of a sudden the user interface had changed without me updated the app and I couldn't click on any song to play, it said I needed to get premium and a box popped up with a green button saying "got it", which I clicked to continue but then couldn't play ANY songs and the only option was to "shuffle play" and only gives me 6 "next"s in an hour! I pay for premium why has this happened I want my old spotify back!

[Joe]

Hi. Are you sure you logged in using the correct credentials? What does your account overview show under subscription status and does it show a user name or a bunch of digits under "Username"?

[doize]

I have not been able to sync my purchased from my desktop to my iPhone.  I've made a playlist with the purchased songs and made them "available offline", but they won't sync to my phone.  The songs are on my phone but are gray and unplayable.  Both my desktop and phone are on the same wifi.  I've tried uninstalling and reinstalling on both.  I've tried almost everything but throwing my computer across the room to get it to work.  My phone never appears under the devices when the app is running either.  Will someone PLEASE help me!

[Joe]

Hi @doize Does your iphone show under "Devices" in the desktop client?

[doize]

nope and i've tired turning on and off the wifi and both apps on my phone and desktop and completely shutting down the apps but nothing works

[Peter__ · Accepted solution]

Can you try disabling all firewalls on your computer? Spotify can't sync unless the desktop application can see your device under "Devices" in the desktop client.

[Joe · Accepted solution]

As Peter said, turn off any firewalls plus any antivirus and other security apps temporarily. Also, check to see that UPnP is enabled on your router. 

[doize]

yup. i've done that. left it off for about an hour and turnned my wifi on and off on both phone and computer and still nothing

[doize]

Wow I feel stupid! I turned off AVG not the firewall. Thanks for the help!! 😃

[Joe]

Too much protection can be bad for you 🙂 Enjoy your music!

[syntheticzero]

Hi --- I think I've found a very subtle, but significant bug in offline playback. I just got some high-quality headphones and a USB DAC for my iPad. For those in the know, this is a device that converts the digital audio output of a laptop, iPad or iPhone into audiophile-quality sound, much better than the headphone jack output. I decided to resync all my offline tracks to "Extreme" quality on the iPad because in my experience, with audiophile equipment the difference between standard 96kbps and 320kbps streams is very noticeable.

So I finished resyncing all my offline tracks, but, somewhat to my disappointment, the quality of the sound just wasn't up to what I was expecting, or at the level of 320kbps AAC files played off my laptop. For a moment I thought I was imagining it, or my headphones weren't as good as I thought, or something. Nothing had the same "pop" and impact I was expecting.

Then I tried something --- I had left the "streaming" audio quality at "Normal" even though the "Sync" quality was at "Extreme". I decided to switch streaming quality to "Extreme" as well, I killed Spotify and restarted it. Voila --- sound quality was just what I expected, broad, beautiful, with excellent soundstage and detail.

I have no idea how this is happening, but it feels like there's a bug in which even if the file is synced to Extreme quality, if the streaming quality is set to something lower, the program does something strange with it --- downsamples it? Uses different sound processing? Whatever it is, I've tried it with many tracks and I am pretty sure I am not imagining it.

it is difficult to notice with just the regular iPad headphone jack --- but if you use a digital audio interface, the difference is far more noticeable.

I can't believe that the app is literally recompressing a 320kbps signal to 96kbps and then decoding it (though it sounds like it is doing that). Note I did this test while putting my iPad in airplane mode so it wasn't as though it was playing the file via streaming instead of via the offline version. It sounds, however, much less detailed, as though it were filtering it or outputting it at a lower sample rate or something. Whatever it is doing, it seems to be a bug. A 320kbps offline file should play full quality even if the streaming settings are set to lower quality.

[Tontone]

Hello all music lovers!

I have - what is to me - a big problem! My offline playlists on my iPad suddenly wasn't offline anymore requiring me to be connected to an internet if I want to enjoy my music. I could not make the playlists offline again and tried reinstalling spotify on my iPad. No success... I'm traveling around and have no phone or computer, only my iPad and it's my only source of music... Please help me as soon as possible, my internet connection is limited and tomorrow night I'll be traveling for over 20h straight, perhaps with no music... 😞

[Adam]

@Tontone -- not sure when you'll see this, but might you have been offline (no connection or the app in Offline Mode) for 30 days? If so, that'll cause tracks to be de-synced as we require all users with offline playlists to go online at least once a month.

If that's the case, just checking in online to stream 10 seconds of a track will be enough -- hopefully you'll be able to do that while you're travelling, although I know from experience it's not always possible!

[NICHOLGIRLS]

OFFLINE ISSUES WITH IPHONE/IPAD

I have spotify on my iphone, ipad and my daughters iphone.

Can create playlists and make then available offline.

Then the next time I go to my phone or ipad they are all only available online again and I have to go through the whole process again for every playlist. 

What am I doing wrong.

[CEaton]

I have scenario 2, it's killing me, and it seems that the space used by spotify cache is going up each time.

iPhone 5S 32gb, iOS 7.1, latest spotify version.

[Schacar]

I have exactly the same problem. Can't sync any song...