Local Files not downloading on iPhone

[sbamberger81]

Plan

Premium

Country

US

Device

iPhone 12 Pro, Windows 10 laptop

Operating System

iOS 14.4.2, Windows 10

My Question or Issue

I have a new iPhone and a new laptop. I have sync'd my local files to my Spotify account on the desktop app and have added them to a playlist. On my iPhone, when showing unplayable files, the songs (approx. 5,000) show up in that playlist, but they won't download, so I can't play them.

I've tried many different things described in the troubleshooting guides here, e.g., making sure that both devices are on the same WiFi connection, turning on the Local Files sync on the phone, connecting the two devices (I've tried it both when the devices are connected and when they aren't), making sure the apps are on the latest version, "sign out everywhere" and sign back in again, deleting the apps on both devices and reinstalling them, etc., but none of this worked. What's interesting is that it did work with my old devices, so not sure what's changed.

Any additional tips or thoughts on what I might not have tried yet would be highly welcome. Thank you very much in advance!

[Alex]

Hey @sbamberger81,

Thanks for reaching out about this in the Community!

This is most likely a network related issue. To test this can you try creating mobile hotspot from your phone and connecting both the laptop and the phone to that network. 

After that, try re-uploading the local files on the PC and downloading them on your phone. We'd recommend making a folder with a smaller selection of songs first, to test if it's working.

If that works, you can try connecting to a different network to download all your songs.

Hope this helps. Don't hesitate to reach out again if you have questions.

[sbamberger81]

Thank you very much Alex, appreciate it!

Unfortunately, this didn't solve the problem either. I had tried to set up a local hotspot together with the person on the chat, but that didn't make the songs download either. I now got another tip to make the network "Private". I did that now, but that didn't work either. If this is network-related: I will be back at work in a couple of weeks and will then try to connect the laptop and phone to that network to see if it works there. Although I'm not sure that'll be the solution, since it didn't work with the personal hotspot either.

Thank you very much for the response.

[CarlosE]

Hi again @sbamberger81,

Thanks for getting back in touch.

We suggest checking your phone's settings and making sure that Spotify has all permissions enabled. Also, check that there aren't any cache clearing settings enabled.

If everything is ok, then try it with the different network as soon as you have the chance and keep us posted on how that goes.

We'll be looking out for your reply.

[sbamberger81]

Dear Carlos / Spotify team -

Thank you for the additional response. In the meantime, I have tried to download the local files from my laptop to my phone on several other networks, unfortunately always with the same result that the download doesn't work. 😞 

I also think that all permissions in my phone settings are enabled for Spotify. But just to check: which ones would those be, specifically? Also, where can I check whether the cache clearing settings are enabled or not?

Any other thoughts highly welcome. 🙂

Thank you!

Simon

[MafeG]

Hi @sbamberger81,

Thank you for your reply and keeping us in the loop.

You can do a test by enabling all the available permissions for the app and try downloading the local files again. 

About the cache clearing settings, there are apps that free up storage space and they may affect Spotify. If you have such apps, please make sure Spotify is an exception.

If this doesn't work, keep in mind that files or downloads from illegal sources are not supported. However, if your music comes from a legal source, make sure that the files aren't DRM (Digital Rights Management) protected.

If you have iTunes, you can check for DRM protected tracks by following these steps.

We'll be on the lookout.