Local Tracks Not Syncing to iPhone with IOS 10 from MacBook Mac OS Sierra

[kylewarner]

I am trying to sync my local tracks from my MacBook Pro running Mac OS Sierra to my iPhone 7 Plus running IOS 10.0.2. Spotify recognizs my iPhone under devices but my iPhone Spotify app just says Downloading... Waiting to download. I even tried turing off my antivirus software and my firewall on my MacBook but it still won't sync my local files. Please help

[randywelsch]

My issue is similar but simpler I think. Does 'downloading' mean syncing between devices or downloading from the internet.  

Example: I open Spotify on my Macbook. Files download from the internet- I would expect that. I open Spotify on new iphone7 on the same wifi network. Files start 'Downloading' to the iphone.  

However I want to just sync the phone to my macbook, not download my whole library from the internet and use up my data plan. So what does 'Downloading' mean in this situation: syncing to Macbook over the local network OR downloading from the internet?

[fffddderty]

I had the same problem as you, but I managed to get it solved! 🙂

MacOS Sierra ships with TWO firewalls, the standard one found in system settings, and one called PF (packet filter) which lives in the terminal.

For some reason, PF was enabled on my Mac. This seems to have blocked the file transfer between the Spotify clients. I found this by noticing that my mac didn't show up on IP scans from my iphone. Your first step should be to verify that PF is disabled on your system.

To check your system, open terminal and run 

sudo pfctl -s info

If it says something like "status: enabled", you can disbale it by running

sudo pfctl -d

Now I manage to sync all local files to my phone. I don't even need to disable the standard firewall!