Spotify on Apple Watch stops playing

[jeffintaipei]

Plan

Premium

Device

Apple Watch Ultra 2 with cellular for streaming

Operating System

WatchOS 26.0.2

My Question or Issue

I turn on my Apple watch. I open Spotify. It first connects to my iPhone spotify. I change to the Apple Watch. I play music. Everything is fine. 

HOWEVER

If I close spotify on the apple watch and then reopen it, it first connects to my iPhone spotify. I change to the Apple Watch. I play music, but the music stops after about 1 minute. The icon flicks back to iPhone. If i change back to Apple watch, the behavior persists. The same song or different songs, the music stops after about 1 minute.

AND

The same behavior occurs when not connected to the iPhone. On cellular, on a restarted apple watch, I can listen without problems. If i close the spotify app and reopen it, the music stops after about 1 minute.

IN OTHER WORDS, it is necessary for me to restart my watch every time I want to listen to spotify on my watch if i close the app.

I have restarted all devices.

I have logged out and logged in to all devices.

I have uninstalled and reinstalled on all devices.

Help.

[Maria]

Hey @jeffintaipei,

Thanks for reaching out on the Community! And kudos for the troubleshooting you've tried.

Just to check, are you connected to Bluetooth headphones when this happens? If so, could you check if the behavior persists with another pair? 

It also worth having a look at the troubleshooting steps listed in this FAQ, to make sure we cover all bases.

Should the issue persist, it would be great if you could send us a few more details on what's happening from your end. Could you let us know:

• Does this happen at any specific points, for example only when using Shuffle?
• Does it occur in Offline Mode or with another connection?
• Your current Spotify version.

Let us know how you get on!

[jeffintaipei]

Irrelevant empty placeholder answer. Your questions suggest that you didn't read my post. Are you a bot?

[Luoric]

Having the same issue with the apple watch Ultra 3, every song stops playing after 1 minute. Similarly happens both when i'm streaming on cellular and when i'm near my iphone. 

Have you experienced this issue before? 

[Ezis]

Having the same issues when running while Bluetooth is on with both cellular data and downloaded songs.

I've tried only once, but I think without any Bluetooth device connected (listening through the speakers of the watch) it's working fine. Yet, I don't want to run with my Apple Watch playing music!

Please fix this, it is so annoying and makes Spotify kind of useless to use for sports sessions.

[Maria]

Hey folks,

Thanks for posting in this thread!

As we're seeing a few new reports on this behavior, we'd like to investigate further. We just need more details on what you're experiencing from your end, as we haven't been able to replicate the issue. These details will help us narrow down the cause, and without context, it cannot be reported to the right folks.

So we can look into this issue, would you mind sharing the details requested in the previous reply? Any troubleshooting steps you've tried would be great to know as well, as it'll help us avoid repeating steps. For example, this includes a clean reinstall, re-pairing and restarting the devices, etc.

We'll keep an eye out for your replies!

@Ezis @Luoric

[nwlodychak]

Having same issue.

Basically leave phone, go on run with watch only. App stops playing a song, skipping song, song plays, stops midway through. Hitting play restarts the song from 0:00.

Honestly so annoying.

On cellular; there is for sure signal

On airpods; it is not them

Resetting the watch seems to work sometimes

Its happened to me three times already.

[jeffintaipei]

There are plenty of details from multiple users reporting the same thing, Maria. Maria, don't ask for more details. If you have nothing to offer except to ask for details, you are exacerbating the real problem: customer dissatisfaction with the product. It is counterproductive, Maria.

[nwlodychak]

fyi i’m on build id: 9.0.91.1231

apple watch ultra 3: 26.0.2

did not append in original message sorry.

[RomainVa]

I'm having the same kind of issue but little bit different on my side : 

- when I use the Spotify app on my apple watch (with cellular), everything transitions smoothly, but the issue come randomly after. Sometimes I can go for 30-45minutes of music sometimes nearly 2-3 songs top.

Another behavior have changed also : when I'm listening it's almost every time when I'm jogging, and the alerts coming from the watch running app (like speed or time) stop the music before trying to start it again. Before the recent update of watch os, it was not stopping, it was fading but keep going and it was much more appreciable.

[Maria]

Hey everyone,

Thanks for your reports - we appreciate it!

Our tech teams are now aware and we have forwarded all relevant info that you have provided, to help them in the investigation. While we can't give you a specific timeframe for if or when this will be fixed, we recommend keeping the app, as well as the devices OS, up-to-date in the meantime.

@RomainVa - as your issue seems slightly different, it's possible that it's not related to what previously been reported in this thread. However, we can still recommend making sure you're running the latest versions, as well as re-pairing your watch to the phone.

Cheers!

[Ezis]

Hey there, here is my config :

- WatchOS 26.1

- iOS 26.0.1

- Spotify 9.0.94.275

- Airpods PRO 3.0

- Have tried with downloaded & non-downloaded song, with wifi or cellular data.

Issue : Whenever I play a song on Spotify Apple Watch, with the audio ouput on my watch directly and the Airpods connected to my watch, I can only listen to the first 2-3s and then the sound disappear, either pausing or just playing but without any sound. I don't have any issue when playing sound out of my watch directly, I did a complete 1hr run with this solution, but that can't be a long term solution please !

Can't reproduce on any other audio app such as Podcast.
Should I create another blog post ? Feel like it's related.