Songs occasionally won't start in mobile

[CallMeCal1987]

(Edits in bold)

Description

When listening to a playlist, every so often when a song finishes, the next song won't start. It happens regardless of what playlist I'm listening to, whether I am on or offline, and whether the file is streaming or local.* Pressing pause and play does nothing, skipping back and then forward does nothing. Strangely though, skipping forward and then backward fixes the problem, and the song plays just fine. This only happens on mobile, never on the computer.

*The problem occurs specifically when transitioning from a local file synced from my computer to a file in Spotify's library.

I have restarted the app, restarted the phone, and even completely deleted and reinstalled the app, to no avail.

Enabling crossfade in the "Playback" options drastically lowered the frequency of this problem, but it still happens on occasion

A more detailed description, using numbered steps

1. I am listening to a playlist.

2. One song A synced local file ends, the next song from Spotify's library loads, but does not play.

3. I wait several minutes, the song does not play.

4. I press pause and then play, nothing changes.

5. I skip backward and then forward, nothing changes.

6. I skip forward and then backward, and the song plays as normal.

What I expected to happen

I expected the song to play when it was loaded by the playlist.

What actually happened

The song froze at the beginning as though paused, but the app was in "play" mode, not "pause".

My iPad/iPhone model

iPhone 4S

Device’s Operating System

iOS 7.1.2

Is your device jailbroken?

No

Approximately how many playlists do you have?

>50

My mobile Spotify version

1.4.1.4

My provider and country

AT&T USA

My username

1240526758

[user-removed]

ohhh I see, I see. I am now experiencing the issue. Definitely looking like a bug now, and I can definitely see how annoying it could be. I'll try and report this bug internally!

[teamcooperuk]

Screen on or off makes no difference to me I'm afraid. It is on the playback of the track after the local one that the problem occurs every single time.

[Patthesplat]

"Screen on or off makes no difference to me I'm afraid. It is on the playback of the track after the local one that the problem occurs every single time."

OK well what you have seems to be different to me as for sure I tested this 4 times last night, and if the screen is on, it freezes, if the screen is off, it doesn't, so it appears that this bug might be affecting different users slightly differently.  It sounds like Victor was able to recreate it using exactly my process which is good.

When you say the problem occurs on the track after the local one every single time, are you saying it occurs on the first Spotify track.  So, if you set up a playlist with only 2 songs - one local track, followed by one spotify track, does it freeze then on the spotify track?  If so, again this is different to me because mine only freezes on the second spotify track which comes after a local track.  First spotify track played is ok, even if there were local tracks before it.  I also tried a playlist with 6 local tracks followed by 1 spotify track, and that worked fine too.  It only seemed to be when there is a second spotify track after further local tracks that it freezes, at least for me.  

Either way, if the exact process that I outlined yesterday works and freezes also for you, at least we have a repeatable bug that Spotify can work on.

One other thing I don't understand is whether by raising this here, we have raised a bug report, or whether we have to raise an official report somewhere.

[CallMeCal1987]

Plugged in or not, speakers or headphones, screen on or off, all make no difference on my end. It happens the same for me regardless.

[Patthesplat]

Cal - thanks - so to confirm, if you set up a very simple playlist with only 2 songs in it, one local track followed by one spotify track, it already freezes playback on track 2 of the playlist?

[jeremygoh]

I realised this problem too, I'll escalate this and will get someone to update back.

[meahtenoha]

Hey @Patthesplat just to confirm, have you already tried a clean reinstallation? 

Is this happening to you on 1.5.0? Please give that reinstall a try and let us know if this persists. 

[one11sgt]

Spotify just stops playing randomly when switching to a new song in a synced playlist. This happens on standard play and shuffle play on both my iphone 5s and ipad air  both with ios7.1.2. The pause/play icon shows it to be playing but it does not. pressing the foward arrow advaces to the next song. pressing the backward arrow does nothing. The only way to get the current song to play is to swipe the time slider back even though it is already at the start of the song. It is very annoying to not just be able to leav spofiy plaing without having to monitor it.. See attached picture. These is only happening on the 2 lastes versions of spotify.

[Didrikzo]

I am having the same problems and I've reinstalled three times without any luck.

[one11sgt]

Having the same problem and posted a thread about it on 8/7/14. Its really annoying. Heres the link:

http://community.spotify.com/t5/Help-iOS-iPhone-iPad-iPod-Touch/Playing-freezes-when-switching-songs...

[jeremygoh]

@one11sgt


Pertaining your issue, that seems like it shouldn't happen given what you’ve described (I've tried on my end and it works perfectly fine), I guess your music cache is corrupted, kindly do a clean reinstallation following the steps below:

Click into your Spotify App -> Logout from Spotify (Spotify app Settings -> Logout) -> [If you are on premium and have songs that are on available offline, click here: https://www.spotify.com/sg-en/account/offline-devices/ and remove all devices -> Go to iPhone Settings, General, Usage and Delete the app -> Go to App Store and download the Spotify app again.

[one11sgt]

I have done all of that twice. It still didn't fix the issue. This issue has only surfaced in the last 2 or so spotify updates.

[jeremygoh]

I've reescalated this - They are looking into it..

[jeremygoh]

That's weird because I dont face this issue on my iPad - are your other devices facing this problem?

[one11sgt]

Yes on both my iPhone 5s and iPad Air both with the latest iOS and spotify versions

[one11sgt]

Thanks!!

[Patthesplat]

Sorry for the late reply, I have been on vacation.

Yes this is still happening on 1.5.0.  Yes I have tried a clean install (though not a clean install since 1.5.0 was installed - it was on the previous version).

Also, there is another thread about this which highlights the issue more clearly.  The issue happens in mixed playlists where you have local tracks and spotify tracks combined, and happens on both of my devices.  I spent nearly a whole day figuring it out a few weeks back.

It seems to freeze on the second spotify track played.  If you create a playlist with:

Track 1 = Spotify Track

Track 2 = Local track

Track 3 = Spotify track.

The playback will freeze on the second spotify track.  In fact, you can put any number of local tracks in between the two spotify tracks but it will freeze on the second Spotify track.

I also found that this only happens when you have the playlist available for offline play (though it doesn't matter whether you have the whole app in offline mode or not).

I also found that this only happens when the screen is powered on.  For me, if the screen is blank/dark, the issue does not occur.  However one other user said that on his phone the issue occurs regardless whether the screen is on or not.  However at least one other user said they have exactly the same as me.

So to summarise, this happens when:

- You play the second spotify track in a mixed playlist where at least one spotify track, and any number of local tracks, were already played.

- You have the playlist selected for offline play

- Screen is powered up (at least on my phone).

Other observations:

- If you are actually watching the screen when the issue occurs, the track appears to start playing by counting the seconds on the screen, even though no sound actually comes out - after about 15 seconds or so, it jumps back to zero seconds.

- If you manually move the slider of the song by a couple of seconds forward, then back, the playback starts again, so the track itself is not corrupt.

- Local tracks on my device seem to be having different icons on them - some have the green arrow that they are downloaded, but some tracks to not have this arrow, even though they will still play in offline mode.  Anyway, this doesn't seem to make any difference to the issue described.

- Not specific to IOS7 as I am having the same issue on an old Iphone 3GS on previous IOS version.

I will try to locate the other thread on this.

thanks

Patrick.

[Patthesplat]

The other thread with more troubleshooting info on this is here:

http://community.spotify.com/t5/Help-iOS-iPhone-iPad-iPod-Touch/Songs-occasionally-won-t-start-in-mo...

Someone called vyxl Victor Liu said they would also try to escalate this "internally".

[KennyH]

Has there been any progress on fixing this issue? I'm having the same problem. Frustrating!

[Patthesplat]

I have not heard anything back about this, and for me also the issue is still there.

I did notice over the last week that on my old iphone 3GS running IOS6, the songs do indeed still freeze even when the screen is off, so the report I made that this only happens when the screen is on may only be partly true and may be device dependent somehow.  However on my newer 5S, I have been able to wander around for hours with a mixed playlist and the phone in my pocket (screen off) without any freeze up, but on the same phone, if I play that test list described above with the screen on, it freezes every time.

Either way, there are many people now who seem to have the same issue and there is a documented way to reproduce it, so hopefully Spotify will (or are?) looking into this.

One thing I asked on here which was never answered was whether I should report this in any other way than just reporting on these forums.  At the moment I have only been posting here about this issue.