Songs not downloading to Apple Watch at all (stuck at “Downloading…” screen)

[empeimaj2]

Plan

Premium

Country

USA

Device

iPhone 13 Pro; Apple Watch Series 7 (GPS only, not cellular) 

Operating System

iOS 15.1; watchOS 8.1

My Question or Issue

I got a new watch, which is running the latest version of watchOS, and it will not start downloading songs to the Spotify app on the watch. It’s not the same as the ongoing issue (songs get stuck at the first download) — the downloads section in the watch app just says "Loading..." forever. For reference, the old watch is removed from all my Apple accounts, erased, and sold. 

Things I've tried:

- rebooting both Watch and phone. 

- leaving watch and phone on chargers next to each other with the Spotify app open on both (and periodically waking watch up so that it registers as active). 
- force quitting the app on both watch and phone. 
- uninstalling and reinstalling the app on the watch. 
- logging out of and logging back into the app on the phone. 
- logging out and uninstalling the app on the phone and then reinstalling the app and logging back in on the phone. 

- unpairing and repairing the watch (and choosing to set up watch as new, not restore from backup).
- trying from a different wifi connection. 
- trying from a cellular data connection (on phone). 

- updating to Spotify app 8.6.78 (issue continues).

Before I got my new watch, my old watch (series 4) was updated to watchOS 8.1 and had downloaded songs in that section of the watch app. However, these downloads were initially done prior to watchOS 8.1. I don't recall manually initiating a download to my old watch after it was on 8.1. 

I'm assuming it's a bug in iOS 15.1, watchOS 8.1, or the Spotify app. 

[llibshutz23]

Having the same issue. Have Series 7 with GPS+Cellular and I'm getting stuck at the exact same screen. Everything worked fine on my Series 4 watch without a problem, but all of a sudden my new watch can't download anything at all.

[Abaddon41414]

Same here as well new series 7 watch that was working with an iPhone 7 last week, upgraded to the 13 Pro Max yesterday and now the downloads to the watch just get stuck on loading. 

[llibshutz23]

Also upgraded my phone along with it. I remember that with my Series 4 and 13 Pro everything (I think) was working fine, but as soon as I switched watches everything went haywire

[empeimaj2]

In messing around, I was able to get it to work again.

I logged out, uninstalled from my phone, rebooted both phone and watch, re-downloaded on phone (reinstall on the watch occured automatically), and then logged back into the app on phone.

I went to the watch app and noted that the "Downloading..." message was still there. After a little while, I got the notification on the watch that streaming was available. Based on one of the suggestions in the main watch download/playback thread, I actually tried to get it to stream from the watch itself to my airpods. It had a hard time connecting to the airpods but eventually did so after I force quit the app on my phone. At that point, I noticed that the "Downloading..." message on the watch was gone -- it said something about adding music via the main app. I was able to download normally via the phone app after that.

So I guess the issue might be that the watch app has to stream directly once before it will permit downloads? That is definitely not how it worked on my old watch/pre-watchos 8.1, so I'm still going to assume there's an unexpected bug.

[Zackvs]

@empeimaj2 I have tried that and when I click the watch logo in the spotify app on the watch, it just sits on loading and never actually connects. Did yours take a while? Or did it connect pretty quickly?

[Zackvs]

Mine was having all the same issues. I contacted Spotify and they said I had a corrupt device somewhere. They removed all devices and I reinstalled the app on my phone and it worked. It then asked if I wanted the app to track with other apps and I put "do not allow" and it stopped working again. So I redownloaded it and allowed the app to track and its working again. So I think that notification makes a difference on if it will download or not.

[Eni]

Hey there folks!

Thanks for reaching out and welcome to the Community.

The folks at our tech team are currently looking into this, so make sure to vote for the Ongoing Issue here, if you haven't already.  Make sure to follow the steps provided in the Status update.

It'll also be useful to Subscribe via the three-dots menu in the top right corner next to the title. We'll be sure to keep you updated with any news on the matter there.

Hope you find this useful. Keep us posted if you have any questions.

[Jsanz28]

Had the same issue,
1.Uninstalled Spotify from Apple watch
2.Uninstalled Spotify from iPhone
3. Reinstalled Spotify on iPhone
Then Spotify automatically showed up on my Apple watch and I tried it out and it finally works for me.

[agostonbarna]

Still not fixed. I cannot download new songs for my runs which makes the watch app pointless for me! Come on Spotify, this is broken for at least 3 months now, with upgrading spotify several times, currently running the latest version. Thinking about switching to Apple Music...

[MafeG]

Hi @agostonbarna,

Thank you for reaching out on this thread.

Could you please confirm which troubleshooting steps you've tried so far? 

If you haven't tried any, then we suggest you head to this thread which is currently handling this issue. There you'll find some troubleshooting options and if the issue persists, you can add your +Vote and device info so we can pass it onto the relevant team.

We'll be on the lookout.

[ryszardstein]

Actually problem is an option which can be resolved also by reinstalling the app. If you don’t want to reinstall then In your IPhone there is an option 

“Settings>Spotify>Allow Tracking”

as usually I keep it off but it doesn’t allow Apple Watch to download so as you turn it on it will start working.

[Jeremy]

Hi there @ryszardstein,

Thank you for your reply in this thread. 

It's really nice of you to share with the rest of the users here what worked for you 🙂

Let us know if we can help you with anything else.

Take care!

[YouYou90]

The trick is to disconnect the phone's bluetooth and close the apple watch spotify app. Then click the "download on apple watch" on the spotify iphone app. Then start the apple watch spotify app while the watch is connected to Wi-Fi but bluetooth not connected to the phone. The playlist download should start

[Becky93]

This worked for me!!! Thank you so much.  🙂

[Kiril]

Hi folks,

Thanks for the posts and info on this topic!

We're happy to see you were able to find solution for the situation and share it with us in the Community 🙂

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

Stay safe!

[M4hmoud]

I tried both solutions presented here (allow tracking, disconnecting the bluetooth), yet the problem still persists for me. The song/episode is stuck at "downloading".

I have Watch 6 with iPhone 11 Pro.

[Alex]

Hey there @M4hmoud,

Thanks for the post.

The folks at our tech team are currently looking into this issue, so make sure to vote for the Ongoing Issue here, if you haven't already.  Make sure to follow the steps provided in the Status update, as that's been reported to fix the issue for some community members.

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

[e__y23]

i have the watch 7, running os 8.6, iPhone 13 pro running the latest ios 15 - I've gone through all the troubleshooting and cannot get my songs to redownload - this is after the watch app crashed on me during a run. 

[merciless1]

finally got it to work. you don’t need to enable app tracking.

steps:

1. select songs for download to your watch 

2. close spotify app on watch

3. close spotify app on phone

4. reopen spotify app on phone which should automatically reopen it on your watch as well.

5. check downloads on watch to see the progress of your downloads update.

hope this helps