Spotify is extremely slow to sync offline playlists on iOS

[fr8d]

Hi,

I'm running the latest Spotify for iOS 5.0.1 version + did a complete restore on 2 iPhones 4S yesterday. I have the same problem on both my iPhones: Spotify is unbearably slow to sync offline playlists.

I have 1200 songs that I want to sync for offline listening. The mobile Spotify app is extremely slow to sync songs and usually stops after 20-25 songs. This has been happening for weeks if not months.

I have a blazing fast cable connection: 100Mb download speed + backup 8Mb download DSL. I've tried on these 2 connections + a 20Mb DSL connection at work and I have the same issue. Wifi signal is 5/5 on both iPhones and bandwidth tests are good.

Friends of mine living where I live (Strasbourg, France) don't seem to have the same problem. I can only think that it might be related to my account.

In addition, I've had to re-download all my playlists something like every 2 weeks for the last 4 or 5 month. I'm only using Spotify for offline listening on 2 devices so it has nothing to do with the 3 device limit.

I usually turn offline mode off every 5 days to make sure my offline playlists will stay on my 2 iPhones but I still have to re-download everything very frequently.

Spotify has become unbearably painful to use because of all this...

Please help!

Thank you,

Fred

[Tintent]

I had the problem a few weeks ago. I've got pretty fast wifi at home (40+mb) and I just couldn't get it to sync with my new iPhone5. It worked over 3G, but at a cost. I read that using a slower wifi connection helped, so I tried it on slower wifi and (at work) it synced quickly at about one second per track. Since then, for no reason I can see, it also syncs quickly at home! So I suggest trying a slower wifi. It might not work, but worth a go.

[andybrk]

I'm seeing this issue trying to sync my iPhone 5 as well.  I've been a Spotify Premium subscriber for a long time.  I even have some of my own music on Spotify.  I've never considered the other services, but this thread has definitely encouraged me to start looking.

It really shouldn't take this long to sync playlists over WiFi.  I'm also a programmer, and I really doubt a bug like this would exist for 10 months if it were a high priority.

I would not be surprised if this isn't a bug.  I wonder if Spotify is throttling to help keep their bandwidth costs down.  Spotify, if you're doing that, you should consider Amazon's CloudFront.  Looking at their pricing (http://aws.amazon.com/cloudfront/pricing/) it should cost you something like $0.001 for me to sync a couple thousand songs.  Seems like it would be a good use of my premium subscription dollars.

So, if this is a bug, here's another vote to raise the priority.  If it isn't a bug, here's a vote for upping your bandwidth.

Now I'm off to check out Rdio, etc.

[skennedy789]

This problem has been bugging premium users for the better part of a year, and Spotify support STILL can't give us a fix to this wildly prevalent issue? Even better, why not just let us sync via USB? The iPod Touch does this jsut fine. 

We know that us paying subscribers are the only customers keeping Spotify afloat (even though it looks like the company's earnings are in a ditch currently).

I don't know if this incompetence is on the part of the staff being lazy or on the part of management not hiring enough staff. 

I'm switching to another paid service in a month if Spotify doesn't fix this for all iPhone users, 4, 5 and 3GS. 

[rbg214]

I don't see a whole lot of participation/acknowledgement from the Spoitfy staff on this forum string.  I don't often post on forums, but I though this might be worth it:

Dear Spotify staff:

I am going to cancel my Premium subscription.  Until you can get the iPhone 5 to sync at a someone reasonable rate, the Premium subscrition has no value to me.  I look forward to any forthcoming improvement, but until then, I am very disappointed.

Thank you.

[eeiciap]

Because of the lack of communication on this matter for an extended period of time, and without any indication of a fix coming up, I have went ahead and cancelled my subscription. I will be using an alternative service instead.

[StRyDeRxX]

I suggest you guys try the new IOS update (6.0.2). It specifically addresses issues with WIFI on the iPhone 5 and iPad Mini.

[crainger]

Seems to have fixed the issue for me on iPhone5. Will continue to test. Still not working on iPad 3 though. 6.0.2 not out for it yet though.

[skennedy789]

It still doesn't work for me on the iphone 3GS. Spotify support never e-mailed me back about the issue, so I'm trying premium support (I didn't know it existed until I went to the cancellation page!)

[ALTRON]

Nope. latest ios wifi fix update didnt work. STILL slooooow

[user-removed]

I have also been experiencing this issue. A couple of months ago, it was off-and-on. Sometimes, tracks/albums would sync in a timely fashion, at other times, it would take hours to sync a couple of tracks. Please fix this, this is meant to be one of the premium features for paid subscribers.

[mgmoya]

I have the same problem here in Chile with the SLOOOOOOOW offline playlist syncing process on iPhone 5 with iOS 6.0.2

Months ago take about 30-20 seconds to sync 1 song, today take about 1 HOUR! to sync 1 SONG, this is INSANE!!!

Even my iPhone 5 are EXTREMELY heat because I trying to sync one of my 500 songs offline playlist since 2 days ago without stop, and only completes the 30% of the process at this time.

I'm suscriptor of the Spotify Premium anual plan and my speed of International Internet Connection is 80mbps, really all this thing is RIDICULOUS!!!

[erfenix]

Solution... at least for me worked. Simply restart your router

Anyway I have no problem witth 3G sync, yes with wifi... restart router solves it.

Ios 6.01. Iphone 5.

Hope it helps.

[Converge]

It's still really slow but I read that small fix a few pages back from this about going into the wireless settings on the iPhone and turning the http proxy to "Auto" which seemed to have sped the thing up but not drastically.

I was syncing like 3-4 songs every 10/20 mins or so, now it seems a bit reasonable at around maybe 10-20 songs every 5 mins or so, maybe not 5 minutes but there was a good enough change to warrant me posting on here 🙂 after following this thread as a guest for the past 2/3 months >_>

Maybe one day Spotify can improve the iOS app and actually make it sync as fast as itunes can with the phone 😐

[Sanderz · Accepted solution]

i just checked prxy to auto in my wifi settings on my iPhone 3GS and it flies again like a bird!

[redcarpet26]

The issue is iPhone 5. I just checked the proxy settings. No dice. Even tried turning off wpa on my router and reset my network settings on the phone. I even restored my phone in iTunes

[mgmoya · Accepted solution]

On iPhone 5 I set Proxy to Auto and finally works extremely fast.

[StRyDeRxX]

Works for me as well.

[redcarpet26]

Oops. Restart your phone after you enable proxy. It seems better now. Still could be faster though but it's doing a song every two minutes now.

[redcarpet26]

It's still lightning fast on LTE. Spotify needs to fix it. Not me. Or at least give me an official answer how to fix it.

[ALTRON]

The only thing that sped up transfers to something a little more tolerable on my iphone 5 was switching my router to b only.