Random music plays when I open the app

[Marleighh]

When I open my Spotify app it sometimes plays random songs from new artists that I have never heard of and I’m thinking it’s a promotion thing but it’s very annoying and I tried turning off auto play to make it stop but that did nothing, how do I make this stop happening?

[Ivelina]

Hello @Marleighh and welcome to the Community!

It sounds odd that Spotify plays random music when you open it and we'd like to investigate further. 

• Can you let us know if this happens automatically immediately when you open the app without you starting playback manually via the Play-button?
• Are you listening to an external device when this happens, for example headphones or a speaker? Is this happening across devices or only with a particular one?
• Make sure Smart Shuffle is disabled.
• In case there's corrupted cache causing this, perform a clean reinstall with the steps here. 

We'll be on the lookout for your response 🙂

[cccloudsss]

Plan

Premium

Country

USA

Device

iPhone 11 Pro

Operating System

iOS 18.5

My Question or Issue

For the past few weeks, half the time when I open Spotify or the app refreshes a completely random album that I don’t listen to automatically pops up and starts playing. For example yesterday it was HMM by Le Sifvar, and another day it was the Lemonade album by Beyonce. It’s beyond frustrating because it clears the song I was previously listening to and plays the new album, so I have to rebuild my queue or search for the song I was already listening to before being interrupted. If this is an advertising campaign please stop! It’s seriously making me consider leaving the app because of how frustrating it is.

[cccloudsss]

It’s nice to know I’m not the only one!! This has been happening to me too and my account isn’t compromised, I’m not entirely sure on why it happens either, I hope that we’re able to figure it out! The content automatically plays for me instead of just showing it, and it’s really confusing and frustrating.

[steinbeckology]

I have the same issue. This sucks, I thought we paid for premium to not be drowning in promotions and sponsored stuff. 

 

[kaorrei]

My theory is that it's artists paying for plays and Spotify is useless to stop it or are part of the problem. This is getting ridiculous on my end, at least once a day this happens. 

[DamnDanila]

oh i’ve got the same problem and spotify also redirected me to this artist too. what.. that’s definitely a paid promotion 

[Megan419]

This happens to me too. I open the app, don't click anything, and it brings me to a random album/playlist. I followed the security steps, changed my password, logged out everywhere and it KEEPS happening every day. Today it was Let Go by Avril Lavigne, who I haven't listened to in years. Other times its random artists who I've never heard of. This seems like a widespread enough problem that someone at Spotify should've fixed something by now, considering its been happening for months if not longer.

[Ivelina]

Hey @steinbeckology and @DamnDanila,

Welcome to the thread!

To help with the investigation of this behavior, could you make sure to check my previous post and the details there?

Additionally, let us know in case you're using any third party apps on your devices which may be causing the automatic playback. If you've got such an app installed, make sure to disable it/uninstall it and try again.

Any additional info would be helpful.

Keep us posted.

[rocketlistens]

I am also having a similar issue. I've changed password, cleared cache, updated the app, and reinstalled the app, but the random music all from albums that came out this month keeps starting whenever I open the app. 

[Dessi]

Hey @rocketlistens,

Thanks for reaching out and kudos for the troubleshooting you've done!

It'd be great if you can answer some of the questions @Ivelina asked so we can have a closer look and investigate further. Can you confirm if this happens immediately after opening the app without manually playing something first? Some of the other users mentioned this happening with a specific artist, is it the same on your end? Do you have an external device connected, such as a speaker or headphones? Can you also make sure Smart Shuffle is disabled?

We'd also recommend logging out of all devices and web pages at once to see if the behavior persists afterwards:

1. Go to your account page.
2. Under Security and privacy, select Sign out everywhere.
3. Click Sign out everywhere.

Note: This doesn’t include partner devices (ex. speakers, games consoles, and TVs), so for those go to your apps page and choose Remove Access or log out of them manually.

Keep us posted.

[daave98]

I’m having the same exact problem,, down the exact Avril Lavigne song randomly playing. Ive also noticed a lot of the songs that start playing are new releases too. I hope they fix it soon because it’s pretty irritating 😭

[Ivelina]

Hey there folks and welcome to the thread @daave98.

We've seen similar reports in the forum before, but as we're not quite sure what could be causing this, we'd like to gather some additional info, so we can get a better understanding of the behavior. 

It would be very helpful if you could share with us as many details as possible and provide us with the following (if you've not already done so):

• Make sure that you've signed out everywhere and secured your account as suggested by @Novy here. 
• Remove access to any third party apps. 
• Disable Smart Shuffle and Autoplay. 
• If the behavior is happening only on a particular device, follow the steps here for a clean reinstall. 
• Does this happen in the Web Player as well? 
• Are you using an external device to stream music on to (such as a speaker for example)?

We really appreciate the cooperation and will be on the lookout.

[mylengrave]

**bleep** this happens to me all the time and I am getting crazy and super frustrated. I am listening to my playlist (only metal music) and when I open the app (iPhone 12 mini), it goes to a random playlist and starts playing music that has nothing to do with my account. For example Deutschland top music (I am Polish! In Poland), rap music (I hate rap, never listened to it), this is extremely annoying. I cannot even express how. Sometimes it only takes me to a random playlist or album, sometimes it would start playing it. Drama. 

sometimes AirPods, sometimes speaker, sometimes nothing, happens only on my iPhone, not on the pc/laptop/tv;

account has not been hacked, all secure, not shared 

[mylengrave]

 Screen 1, I opened Spotify, previously I would listen to my own playlist, it showed for a second a moved me to this 

And here is my playlist 

 

[fdshfg]

Plan

Premium Family

Country

US

Device

iPhone SE

Operating System

iOS 18.5

My Question or Issue

Recently, upon opening Spotify on my iPhone, I am either redirected to a random artist's page or a random song automatically starts playing. I don't recognize any of the artists or songs that are played. The issue only occurs on my iPhone when I open the app (it doesn't interrupt my listening, just occurs once when I open the app), not on my laptop or iPad. I haven't seen any notifications about logins to my Spotify account recently and I can't think of anything that could have caused this.

[Sefs]

Same thing happens to me. But only in the mornings. When I open the app in the morning, it immediately plays a random song, usually of an artist I’ve never heard of. I can’t help but think it’s a marketing ploy. I would have a playlist I was listening to the night before for or a queue I painstakingly created but by morning it’s all gone because Spotify thinks I have to listen to one random artist first thing in the morning. Super annoying. 

[Maria]

Hey folks,

Thanks for reaching out about this!

So we can look into this behavior further and to help narrow down the cause, it would be great if you could send us the details requested earlier in the thread by @Ivelina (if you haven't already).

Should you notice this with a specific device only, feel free to also include the following in your reply:

• Make and model of your device.
• Its OS version.
• Current Spotify version.

We'll keep an eye out!

@Sefs @fdshfg

[Aure1101]

Plan

Premium

Country

Mexico

Device

iPhone 13

Operating System

iOS 18.5

My Question or Issue

When I open the Spotify app a random song starts playing, overriding whatever I was listening to beforehand, the app even automatically opens the song page. Las time it happened I was listening to one song, quit the app on accident and opened it immediately, upon launching the now playing changed and I was taken from my playlist to the song page.

[Hubius]

I have had the same problem for about a year now. I thought someone had hacked my account but I changed my facebook password (I log in through facebook), logged out of facebook on all devices, logged out of spotify on all devices and yet here it is again. I don’t understand what the problem might be.

Sometimes when I open the app there will be some random song playing. Usually the type of music a teenager here in Poland would listen to but I don’t listen to any of that. Once, Spotify actually started playing some artist we’d never heard of on my phone speakers at 5 am and woke me and my girlfriend up.
Please help, it’s really annoying.