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

[a4suited · Accepted solution]

updated it last night still the same issues. i let it run overnight after the update and restart. turned off lock screen and staed playing a song with spotify app open. 200 songs synced in 7 hours? Extreme quality. That's not very good. Again its not my network as my android tablet an sync the entire list in half that time.

[jase484]

Hi, no update had appeared? Left running all night to sync, both iPhone and iPad, very very slow still

[onetvs]

Got the same problem 1 track/1 minute. 

[bradich]

Same for me.  Extremely slow.  Takes hours to sync ~an albums worth of songs.

[Salomonb]

Solution. Turn OFF back up of Spotify in ICloud settings. That resolved the problem

[Salomonb]

Solution. Turn OFF back up of Spotify in ICloud settings. That resolved the problem

[jase484]

The iCloud thing doesn't work. It's not available in the settings for me. Come on spotify, sort this out, this is the main reason I pay a subscription and still my songs are not synced. Wondering what I am paying for here. This used to work just fine.

[bradich]

Turning off iCloud backup didn't help me either. Time of day doesn't really seem to effect it at all.

[a4suited]

Still the same problem. This is quite frustrating. It's been an hour and 3 songs synced. What is going on???? iOS 5.1.1 extreme and it's so slow!! Again I sync just fine with my android tablet but I want to have my offline playlists on my iPhone. Please help!

[iDome · Accepted solution]

Hello community,

I just started using the Spotify premium service. I was pretty happy and overwhelmed about the features.

Firstly I only used it on my windows desktop and my macbook. Everythings works perfectly there.

What I did

A while after I found out that there is an iPhone app. I installed it, synced my songs for offline use. Worked!

Than again after a while I found out that there is an iPad app. Also synced for offline use. Worked!

Problem

And again I discovered a new feature. "Sync in extrem quality". I changed the settings from high to extrem on both my iPad and iPhone.

Spotify resynced (form high to extrem) all the songs on my iPad within a few minutes. But it takes hours (still syncing) on my iPhone. I tried to reinstall Spotify on my iPhone and restarted it. Didn't help. I can't get Spotify to sync the songs for offline use on my iPhone. Even if I set quality to normal. The problem just appeared out of nowhere.

Please help.

EDIT

Long story shot: Offline syncing is slow on iPhone but fast on iPad and Mac. iOS5.1.1. Same WiFi. Worked before, problem just occured.

EDIT2

Seems that many others have the same problem with sync beeing slow on the iPhone. This user also reports that his iPhone is slow but iPad fast.

Please reply and show that you are interessted in fixing the problem or me and I'm sure many others might cancle their subscription which would be a shame. Cause the service you offer is realy great.

[neilvg]

REPLY

[neilvg]

This needs to be fixed or I am leaving - I just joined today.  RHAPSODY is better.

[a4suited]

I've tried high quality on the iPhone. thats still slow as well.

I had to just make a smaller playlist just for the iphone and sync that playlist for offline listening. Kind of annoying but I couldn't just leave my iPhone screen on for a week to let all the songs sync...

neilvg? why bother posting here if you're just going to waste everyones time?

Thanks for your posts everyone else!

[neilvg]

@a4suited:  I don't understand what you mean.  My post "REPLY" was meant to be a further beckoning directed towards the Spotify Team to answer the above posts, specifically the one right before mine, which explicitely stated that Spotify should acknowledge this issue by replying to this thread.

Understand?  Admittedly, my post was created out of frustration.

Neil

[a4suited]

My apologies as "REPLY" doesn't help the situation. Sorry to single you out on this but if you want to get things worked out its usually best to provide them information to work with. iOS. ver, device, etc etc.

I get your frustration though. This is VERY frustrating. I'm pretty sure it has something to do with Apples policies. They don't want people to make money through their apps unless it goes through Apple (i.e. iTunes, in-app purchases, etc. etc.). What Spotify has in place is likely a workaround that isn't the most efficient way. It is the only thing that makes sense,

Seeing as this is a service we pay for and Apple doesn't make a cut off of it I'm pretty sure they are not making it easy for Spotify.I develop for iOS but own Android devices and it syncs up quickly on Extreme. It's definitely an iOS problem that needs to be solved. I do suspect the fix will get Spotifies app pulled from the App store. Even a temporary pull from the app store for such a high profile company is not good. For example even Dropbox has been running into issues with its apps being rejected because of a paid option they provide when signing up as a new member.

We'll see what comes of this. I really do hope they at least give us some answers.

Cheers.

[carlharris]

I'm having this problem as well. I've just signed up for Spotify. It's just not oing to be usable at these speeds for syncing offline music. Maybe I'll go back to Rdio.

[xAliceD]

i've got the same problem too... its unnormal that it takes much time like this to sync the playlists -.- please fix it soon  😛

[David]

I just merged two threads together, so I apologise if this looks a little weird. 

I just saw the newer replies, so I'll pop this over to our top men again to take a little look at. 

[njuniper]

Please fix this.

Signed up for Premium Account in order to sync music to iPhone for offline use, but this is UNUSEABLE.

The sync is way too slow. Hours and hours for 3 albums!!!!!

[dangrmous]

Same here with my iPhone 4, iOS 5.1.1, latest Spotify. Phone is plugged in via USB.

Extremely slow sync. Not acceptable to use this app, I'm going to cancel Spotify premium in a month if this isn't fixed, since I only use it in Offline mode (thanks to AT&T's horrible data network)