Spotify Autoplaying When Opened/Changing Playlists

[amyfogmeister]

Plan

Premium

Country

United States

Device

iPhone 14

Operating System

iOS 18.1.1

My Question or Issue

within the last month there have been a TON of bugs & idk why or what change caused this. to start, abt 1-2 months ago, my spotify app (mobile, web browser, & desktop version) started having issues with playing/pausing content. for example, any time that i open the spotify app it’ll just start automatically playing whatever track i left off on whenever i attempt to open it. i touch 0 buttons, it doesn’t matter if i’m connected to bluetooth or listening thru my phone speaker - nothing changes it, every single time i open the app, it just starts playing. 

the other new issue is that regardless of what i was previously listening to and/or what buttons i did/didn’t press, when i open the spotify app, it stops whatever i was currently listening to, and either shuffles the entire playlist or just starts playing a random playlist that i was not at all listening to.

it completely messes up my place in the playlist, the shuffle order of the playlist i was on, the part in the previous song i was listening to - and it just picks a random playlist to start playing out of nowhere.

i talked to customer support & looked thru the community tab - nothing helped. i’ve deleted/redownloaded the app several times, & it only fixed the issue long enough for me to end my chat w customer support (ofc) before going back to the same issues. my app is up to date, i’ve tried redownloading it, i’ve looked through settings, i’ve done everything. it’s making the app really hard to use, any answers/ideas are appreciated pls & ty

[Billy-J]

Hey @tessamar and @nathan_dunn, 

Thanks for your posts. Can you let me know if this happens when your device is in Offline Mode? You can also try this with another network connection while streaming to see if that makes a difference. 

Another thing that can be tried is to open the app via the Spotify widget on iPhone to see if playback would start automatically from there as well.

Keep me posted.

[tessamar]

Hello,

This does also happen in offline mode. 

I have just discovered that this issue occurs when I use the Spotify widget rather than opening the app itself. I almost exclusively use the widget on my home screen rather than the app icon. My guess is that this is a widget issue? I’m not sure if this is the same for other users. 

[nathan_dunn]

Just tested what @tessamar said and yes, it seems to be a bug with the widget, opening the app with the regular icon works fine. As soon as you tap the widget the music starts playing automatically.

[1117945177]

I have the same problem as issue1 with my iphone(s). When I'm plugged in to car play and I press on widget to open spotify in phone nothing happens on phone but on car it opens spotify app. Before it worked so nothing changes on carplay view and all changes could be done with phone. 

And it doesnt matter of iphone (tested xr, 11, 14 and 16) or carplay (tested volvo, mazda, honda motorbike) all of those have same problem. If im plugged to carplay only way to open spotify on phone is with app icon. I loved to use widget to launch spotify on phone because it was easier. I never tought that I'd need faster way to access spotify within carplay.

Is there any way to go back to old way?

[delamike]

Billy, that does not solve the problem. Great that you wanted to help, though.

[delamike]

Spotify tech team has left the building.

[flashfive12]

This is 100% the widget. Whenever I tap the widget while connected to CarPlay the widget plays whichever song, album, playlist, podcast, etc I directly click on. But what I noticed is Spotify will open on my car’s media display, but not on the phone. I was able to get the widget to open Spotify on my phone when I long pressed it(long enough for the edit window to popup) then quickly tapped the Spotify logo. I’m using the 2 x 4 size widget. My device is an iPhone 15 Pro Max & I’m on iOS 18.2 with an up to date Spotify app. This has been going on for about a few weeks now.

[flashfive12]

I forgot to mention the Spotify app works as normally just like others have mentioned above. I also failed to mention this was tested in a 10th gen Accord. I will test my XS if need be as well, but someone above has already tested several phones in several vehicles. 

[delamike]

With me it‘s the widget on the iPhone Pro Max 12, iOS: 18.3.2, latest version of Spotify

[Kjsinkowski]

Plenty of posts on this - any update on a fix? 

[Ivelina]

Hey there folks,

Thanks to everyone that has taken the time to post in this thread.

We've reported the following behavior to the relevant team, however, we can't give you an exact timeline for when or if this will be fixed.

In the meantime, make sure that you're using the newest Spotify-version and we're here if you need help with anything else.

Take care!

[skyhighrandom]

I've actually been having a similar problem. It's to the point I only have Spotify downloaded at the moment to write them down and add them to my YouTube playlist for music...

I've turned off every setting in my phone, the app, and my car that I can think off. I've uninstalled the app and reinstalled it. I force close everything by default cuz I can't stand things running in the background. I've even uninstalled and reinstalled the app.

Nothing. Still automatically connects. Still opens and starts playing a random song. I could be SLEEPING and there's a song paused in the "Now Playing" boxes even though the app is apparently closed. It'll start auto playing in the car even though auto play is off if I don't have my stereo off when I turn the car on. And if I have to take/make a car, but was listening to something on literally any other app? Well, not Spotify is playing the last song it played- usually from the middle of the song. It's beyond frustrating.

[Gabrieltoomey8]

To whom it may concern,

My name is Gabriel and for the last few weeks, after a few days of listening to one of my playlists through shuffle play, the shuffle play restarts at the beginning. I have tried deleting the app and reinstalling and the same issue happened. If there’s any way to fix this problem,**bleep**