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

[arvel]

I'm having the same problem on my iPod Touch. Right after a local track in my playlist has finished, the next track just won't start.

[hdub]

I'd just like to chime in to say I'm having the exact same issue as the others:

I have an iPhone 5 and Spotify Premium account. whne I play songs from a mixed playlist of local tracks that have been synced to my phone and Spotify tracks, the playlist stops once it switches (eg from local to Spotify or vice versa). To get it to play again, I need to skip forward or back to select a different song, then go back to the previous song. 

iPhone version: 7.1.1

Spotify version: 1.5.0.2728

Carrier: Verizon

[paddymcweb]

Same issue, Iphone 4S, Spotify premium, Verizon, ios 7.1.2, Spotify app version 1.5.0.2728

[m287ike]

Yeah I have an iPhone 4S as well. I have the same issue where when I am listening to a playlist, it won't play continuously after a few songs. It looks like it is playing but there is no sound. In order to make the song actually play, I have to skip ahead to the next song and then back to the one I was on. Hoping this gets fixed soon...

[arvel]

Could we get an update on this issue by any chance? This **bleep**ing sucks. Are you able to replicate the issue at all?

[05mcfadd]

Just gonne add on that im having the same problem, plus I'm also having songs randomly stop playing in the middle of them for no apparent reason. IPhone 5, Spotify version 1.5.0.2728 IOS 7.1.1

[ColtonDRG]

It's happening in Android too.

I am running an HTC One M8 (Unlocked on T-Mobile) with Android 4.4.2 (HTC Sense 6.0). It also happens on my Nexus 7 (2012) with Android 4.4.4 (CyanogenMod 11 M9).

When loading any local track it always loads, but when loading Spotify tracks, it only loads about 40% of the time, even if switching from another Spotify track. This is really starting to tick me off. I tried enable crossfade, no effect. I can post more observations a bit later when I am sitting in front of a PC.

[chrisjweis]

Just adding myself to the list of people having issues with this. I have Spotify Premium, IOS 8, iPhone 5s & iPad 2. Hopefully this gets fixed soon...

[Patthesplat]

I wouldn't count on it as there have been about 3 new versions since this issue was raised and it still isn't working.

Does anyone know how to report an actual bug direclty to spotify support?  I don't think posting here is helping.

[leonardoroberto]

It's ridiculous this isn't fixed yet, but for what it's worth: I noticed today that if the local tracks are at the end of the playlist (and it's not on shuffle) it will (at least for me) play the non-local track normally on restarting the playlist from the beginning. So now I'm just grouping local tracks at the end of playlists. Sucks for those of us that like shuttle, but it's better than having spotify stop every few songs.

I haven't tried it with shuffle on though I imagine the problem would resume since, except for once in a while, the local song isnt actually the end of the playlist, regardless of where it is listed.

[meahtenoha]

Hey folks! If you're still experiencing this issue on the latest app update for iOS (1.8.0) please let us know here. 

Be sure to include your device and OS for us too. Thank you!

[leonardoroberto]

so it appears to be doing so less frequently now, and certain songs that consistently caused the problem on the old version are no longer doing so. but, after about only about 45 minutes of testing, i've found at least one local song that is still causing the problem

iphone 6, ios 8.0.2, spotify 1.8

[KennyH]

I'm still haveing the same issues with the latest app update.

Ipod 5s

iOS 8.0.2

Thanks

[leonardoroberto]

still having the same problem with today's spotify update (1.8.1) on iphone 6, ios 8.0.2. i don't suppose it's likely to change with today's ios 8.1 update?

[Patthesplat]

Still same issue - Iphone 5S upgraded to latest IOS and latest version.  I did quite a bit of testing on this back in July, and I am copying in here my findings of how to repeat this:

Create a playlist with:

Track 1 = A spotify only track

Track 2 = A local track (doesn't matter whether it's matched or not).

Track 3 = A spotify track.

It seems actually to be on the second played spotify track and after a local track that the freeze occurs.  First spotify track in the list plays fine.

If I remember correctly, someone called Victor who said he was from Spotify support was able to duplicate my test above.

NOTE:

- You must have the list switched to "available offline" for this issue to occur.

- You must play the list above without shuffle being on for this test to consistently show up the issue as it's the second spotify track after intervening local tracks that causes the issue.  If you have a long playlist with a combination of many local and spotify tracks in it, and you use shuffle, this will seem like random freezes.

- You must let the device play through the tracks skipping forward to the 3rd track you will NOT see the issue.

- Once this issue occurs, on the screen you will most likely see the track ticking forward through the seconds as if it's actually playing, but no sound will come out.  If you use your finger to slide the play slider back to the beginning, it will then start playing normally.

- On my iphone 5S, I have found that this test only works when the screen is on.  If the sceen is off (blank) all tracks will play correctly.  However, I have seen the freeze occur later on in large playlists even with the screen off, so I think it's more repeatable in a short playlist with the screen on.  Other users on the thread challenged this and said that for them having screen on or off made no difference.  I tested this again yesterday and for me it was still the same and the screen on or off affected the test, at least if you are only using 3 tracks as described above.

The next effect of all this is that if you like to have playlists with lots of spotify and local tracks in them, you will experience "random" freezing.

I have already asked this question several times in this thread, but is posting on here sufficient to report a bug, or is there some other way to raise the issue?  I ask because several updates to the client have been rolled out since this issue was first reported and it is still not fixed.

Regards

Patrick Warner

[kroyster]

I would like to gleefully report that the latest update appears to have fixed this problem for me! I did also delete 2 "local songs" from my system, although honestly I don't think they were a factor as they were not part of any of my playlists.  

I had actually given up hope that this would be fixed, and the problem had become so bad (streaming music, whether radio or playlist based, whether "available offline" or not, would hang every few songs) that I canceled my premium subscription and spent a week actively trying to migrate to a popular competitor.  But their feature set was so far behind Spotify's that I was equally frustrated there and was about to give up all hope, until I found this thread.

My premium subscription has been renewed!  Thank you, Spotify support!

[KennyH]

I wish i could say the same but i'm still haveing the ame issues with the latest Spotify update.

[Boemski]

Thanks so much to RobertRtanmail for identifying the root of the problem and pointing us to the solution / workaround! After editing the songs' info through iTunes and selecting the "stop" option, voila! problem solved! 😄

iTunes Solution Recap:

1. Right-Click Song
2. Select Get Info
3. Select Options
4. Check the stop checkbox, which does in fact display a song's duration that does not match the rounded off duration you see in other applications, including Spotify.
   
   Example: 3:44.888 in screenshot attached shows rounded off to 3:45 when you check the file info in your OS and Spotify. Apparently this triggers a bug in Spotify that stops your Playlist's continuous playback when the song is done playing.
   
   
5. Make sure to re-sync the mobile device to get the latest song info from your computer.

[leonardoroberto]

i've edited too many tracks to wnt to do it manually/individually, and the stop checkbox disappears when selecitng multiple files. plus, i dont know which ones are problematic and would rather just take care of all of it at once than have to do it each time i find a track with the issue. 

i dont really understand why the issue is triggered by editing track info, since the edited tracks' stop box remain unchecked just as unedited tracks' do, so, does anyone who better understands why exactly the editing triggers the bug have any sense as to whether this would take care of it to do it en masse - http://dougscripts.com/itunes/scripts/download.php?sc=resettracksstartstop

i'm about to try it but it will take a while and would rather not try it if it's guaranteed to fail. 

[Patthesplat]

Hi,

It could be that you are right that the "Stop" field in Itunes is marked to 3 decimal places on tracks where this freeze is occuring, and that this is triggering the bug, so kudos to you guys for noticing this.

However this solution doesn't work for me for at least 3 reasons:

For me, in Itunes, If I go in to try to edit the "Stop time", I cannot round it up to the next second up, I can only round it down.  If I do this, if there is a track that is (for example) 3.06.999, can can't make it 3.07 in the Itunes library.  I can only make it 3.06.  This then means that playback will potentially stop before the end of the track if I want to play it in Itunes and there is less than 1 second gap at the end.

Secondly, even if this solution did work, it would involve manually editing all the tracks which doesn't seem to me to be a good solution.  I think the real solution is for Spotify to fix their app so that it doesn't have this bug.

Thirdly, even if I do round down the time to the next second down, the solution still doesn't work for me I'm afraid - I still get the problem happening, especially if the track duration is rounded up from the track stop time.

Edit: The particular track I am looking at which is having the pause issue on the following track has the following

- Itunes Library shows the "Stop" time as 1:23.586 (editable but can only round down not up)

- Itunes library shows the duration as 1:24 (not editable)

- Properties in Windows 7 file explorer show sthe duration as 1:23

- Spotify Windows UI shows the duration as 1:23

- Spotify duration slider shows 1:24 in both windows and IOS.

Also as a reminder from previous discussions on this, for me this bug also only seems to kick in on the when at least one spotify (non local) tracks was played ina playlist, followed by at least 1 local track, and then the next track is a spotify (non local) track.  To test this make a playlist as follows

1. Spotify track

2. Local track

3. Spotify track.

If the issue is occuring, track 3 will appear to play in your screen, but no sound will come out.

Hopefully this will give spotify a further clue as to the problem.