Local files appear downloaded and playable, but are unplayable.

[elsbells_]

Plan

Premium

Country

United States

Device

iPhone 8 and Acer Aspire

Operating System

iOS 15.2 and Windows 11 Home

My Question or Issue

All of my local files are playable on my computer, but when I sync them to my phone they do appear, but are unplayable. They are not greyed out, like I've seen happen to other people. The files show up as if you could click on them, but will not play when clicked. They pop up on the bottom mini player for a split second but then disappear. I've noticed that this only happens to newer files. Files that I've had for months still work, but ones after a certain date do not. I've tried redownloading the mp3's from different sources entirely but no luck. Removing and readding them to playlists does not work, neither does removing the source folder from local file settings and readding it. I even have the files physically downloaded on my phone via Dropbox, but still no luck.

If there's any more important information that should be added, please let me know.

(Side note: it's not a problem with Windows 11, as the problem has been occurring since before I upgraded. It could be related to iOS 15, but I haven't seen anyone with similar issues.)

In the screenshot attached (not the video), there are more songs in the playlist after the ones at the bottom, but they do not show up on mobile. Un-downloading and redownloading will only get some of the songs added after August 6 to appear.

[donkeylarry]

Having the EXACT same problem! I typically download a handful of songs every other day or so and late last week everything worked the way it should and has for years and this week it works and looks the way it always has  but can't play the file/song from the phone (only computer). 

Good luck finding and help on here or whatever you can to make work! I've searched to the bottom of the Internet and still haven't found a fix. 

PLEASE POST OR LET ME KNOW IF YOU DO STUMBLE UPON ANYTHING THAT WORKS!

Much thanks in advance!

[Alex]

Hey folks,

Thanks for reaching out about this in the Community!

If you're having troubles seeing and streaming local files from your mobile device, I'd first recommend making sure of the following:

• Log out and back in your Spotify account on each device.

• You're logged in to the same account on both your desktop and your mobile or tablet.

• The Spotify app is not set to Offine on either device.

• Both your desktop and mobile devices are connected on the same network connection.

• The file types of your local files are supported by Spotify. You can find more info here.

• In order to download local files to your mobile device, you'll need to have a Premium subscription. Find out how to check your subscription status.

• There’s enough free space on the device’s memory (we recommend at least 1GB).

• You have the latest version of the Spotify app installed (on both devices).

• Your devices' firmware is up-to-date. 

• You can only download music and podcasts to a maximum of 5 separate devices for a maximum of 10,000 songs per device.

• In your router settings, check that UPnP (Universal Plug and Play) is enabled.

• Windows shows your network as private and not public.

• Spotify is set as an exception in any firewall or internet security program. 

If none of these do the trick, you can create a mobile hotspot on your mobile and connect your PC to this hotspot via wifi. 

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

[elsbells_]

Hi, I've tried all of these solutions but none of them seem to work. It only happens to certain local files, all downloaded after a certain date.

[Alex]

Hey @elsbells_,

Thanks for the reply.

Spotify support only songs obtained from legal sources, and we can't guarantee that songs downloaded from converters would work as expected.

What you can try is tweaking the format and metadata of the files, so that the song Artist and Name doesn't contain any special characters or symbols outside of the standard Latin alphabet.

Hope this helps.