The new Spotify iOS app is buggy and broken [Possible fixed?]

[user-removed]

Update: There was a new update yesterday (2014-04-06) which seems to have fixed it for me, and seems to be why it's started working for two people after a reinstall. Hopefully this is the end of the story, and thanks Spotify for reacting quickly to this issue.

Edit: Some people report that reinstalling the app does fix the issue for them (see here), however this does not seem to help in all cases, for example mine.

Since the new iOS update I have noticed a number of critical shortcomings and bugs which are really disappointing. I don't want to come across excessively negative, because I love Spotify, however I expect far more from a service that I am paying a subscription for, especially when it used to work (almost) perfectly, and it really is infuriating at times.

I understand the desire for a redesign of the interface in keeping with iOS 7, however redesign is not an excuse for complete loss of functionality; I can't even try out the new design because of how buggy the app has become. In the app, when I switch tracks, the interface buttons are disabled for around 15 seconds while it loads the next track info (bear in mind this is on offline playlists), including the pause/play button, and often it will take around 20 seconds to update the cover art and track info. It is even worse from the lock screen or when using headphone buttons, when changing tracks, or even just pausing, can take up to a minute (no exaggeration) to take effect. The pausing functionality is what is really aggravating, and it also destroys the functionality whereby removing heaphones pauses music. Doing this now results in full volume speaker music, which can be unacceptable in certain situations.

My phone is an iPhone 4S, and I don't believe 3 year old technology is the problem here. The old app worked fine, and you can't tell me that 3 year old technology isn't sufficient for a music player. I have tried the obvious - restarting the app, restarting my phone, deleting the app and reinstalling (and thus having to resync 500 songs in my offline playlists). Clearly this is a problem with the app and I am disappointed it was released without proper testing.

It's funny, whenever I got annoyed enough to switch to listening to Spotify on my laptop instead without being able to pause it on my phone, Spotify had no trouble recognising that I was using two devices at once. Also, redownloading the 500 songs didn't seem to stall, but somehow immediately after skipping a track I get the buggy behaviour again. Currently the cover art is completely desynchronised from the current song I'm playing because your app is getting so confused about the basic operation of changing tracks. How does changing a track take a minimum of 5-10 seconds!? It's almost impossible to go back a track because you can never press the previous button in the first few seconds where it actually does that.

I hope that an update fixing these bugs will be released soon, because it is becoming extremely frustrating to use the app. The entire reason I bought a subscription was so I could use the service on my phone, and though I've been very pleased up to this point, I just can't use my Spotify on my phone anymore.

PS: Also, there seems to be an issue with a recent OS X app update in which the app does not always capture the play/pause/change track keys (F7,F8,F9), thus launching iTunes.

😠

[user-removed]

Sorry, the feedback link on the FAQ took me to this subforum, could a moderator please move this to the appropriate place, perhaps bugs?

[Peter__]

Moved over into the iOS section for now. 😉

[jablooon]

darn, I got say he is right in 100%. What happened Spotify? From when 'beauty' and 'fancy design' is worth loosing all of the funcionality and fluency? 

😠

[Meologies]

I just want to say totally agree with everything the OP says.

I think the update is rotten and to many simple things are wrong.

[argyris]

New app unusable and just awful on Ipod touch 4, how the hell did this get released?

Needs to be improved with some sort of fix pretty quickly if I'm going to continue with a premium subscription.

[Archipelago]

It's not the old handsets olly, this newest version have been dreadfull also in my IPhone 5S (16GB, iOS 7.1). I've tried all the tricks now to make it work and it still wouldn't function properly. Looks pretty neat, but usability is horrible. As a long time paying user it have been a letdown. Time for quick fix!

[Spev]

Yup, 100% agree. Updated over the weekend on my itouch 4 and the app is pretty much unusable.  You know spotify had pretty much become my primary source of listening, and I'm now having to switch back to other means until this is fixed.

I should add that I much preferred the previous look and feel as well, and those round images for related artists are inconsistent given everything else has square images...

[LeeClutterbuck]

Completley agreeing with OP too. I actually admire the new design, it looks a lot more fluent, and feels like it should work better. It's a huge dissapointment that the exact opposite is true! I'm using my iPhone 5S, so it definitely cannot be older hardware causing the issue here. Its somewhat possible the firmware could be causing the spotify app to run slowly, however this would just run back to a incompatibility issue and bad app design. I'm all for the design, the way the app looks now compared to before is 100% preferable, but the functionality and performance needs a total overhaul! I'll keep paying my subscription, but because I can listen on PC. But the app needs fixing ASAP! 😞

[violetta29]

"In the app, when I switch tracks, the interface buttons are disabled for around 15 seconds while it loads the next track info (bear in mind this is on offline playlists), including the pause/play button, and often it will take around 20 seconds to update the cover art and track info."

I agree 100%! I only listen to Spotify offline and the performance makes me cry. Can't wait the next update!

[LeeClutterbuck]

Hello once again everybody!

After a tip from a colleague over my desk, he suggested "un-install and install it again, a fresh install might work", I thoguht I would give it a go to see if it does help.

Fortunately, I can say right now im listening to my playlists and browsing music speedily once again on my iOS device!

Ofcourse this doesnt seem like an ideal fix (unisntalling will erase your dowloaded content, not your playlists, just the cached songs for playlists ticked "Available Offline") so BE WARNED if you do this to fix the issue, you will have to download your offline songs again.

To stay consistent, I got Spotify back to the same state it was in before I went through this process (downloaded playlist I had offline before). For the purpose of testing this process too, I spent a while of my lunch break SOAK testing the app after re-installing too (you're welcome :P) just to see if its performace held. I have to unfortunately note that it did freeze up for a short moment where music stopped and the interface froze in-app, but this happened once in my 30 minute test. I was able to rapidly change songs with the display updating smoothly, however I will add, the timestamp bar for songs does take a while to catch up and often gets-to-grips about 3 seconds into the song. This happens from both the lock screen and in-app. My music was also stopped from the lcok screen, and the interface did not respond. I unlocked my device and then it was fine once again. Changing through songs online (not downloaded) worked fine for me too, and seems to play speedily (including the buffer, which usually in the office is awfully long)

It seems updating from the previous version causes this, whereas a fresh install avoids this problem (for now, ofcourse if this procedure fails after a while, its not a solution, and il drag this post down). Apps will always have "funny moments" (all apps admittedly do) but this procedure does improve the app for someone stuggling with this topical issue. I would love to see it work for everyone else aswell, and in my opinion it does improve the app post-update if you struggle with performace. I would hope this does help others too! I don't think this can be marked as a solution, as I said before, its not ideal to have to completley re-install the app, but if it does help, it is a start! 🙂

Quick Recap:
Solution (for me): Un-install the app and re-install

WARNING: this does removed cached "Available Offline" songs

Hope this helps everyone who chooses to follow this fix! 🙂

Edit: This post was previously marked as a solution, after further reading and a post below where the "fix" has been reported as not a solution, I have unmarked this post as a solution. I have posted more below regarding this. Apologies! 😞 

[Spev]

Thanks, that worked for me, hadn't had time to try uninstall/reinstall.  

[user-removed]

I'm glad this fixed the issue for you, LeeClutterbuck 🙂 However, as I mentioned in my post, I did try this, and it did not fix the issue for me. I'm not sure why your answer has been automatically marked as a solution, but this did not solve my problem.

Edit: Ok, very strange, I reinstalled yesterday and redownloaded my offline playlists, and the app was still buggy, however now (a day later) it seems to be working, I am cautious as to whether it will remain working. It looks like there was an automatic background update sometime yesterday, so this is possible the reason it's started working for me now, and also why it worked after your reinstalls at that specific time.

[LeeClutterbuck]

Hi nitrous_

My apologies! it seems i completley missed the following segment of your original post 😞

"restarting the app, restarting my phone, deleting the app and reinstalling (and thus having to resync 500 songs in my offline playlists). Clearly this is a problem with the app and I am disappointed it was released without proper testing."

I have read through some other related threads too and seen this is a problem for many, and re-installation is not a permanant or all-round fix (should always do my reading before I do my speaking!) It does seem the problem underlies with the app itself, and not from changing app versions, hardware version or other variables. It seems were waiting for Spotify to fix this one 😕 

I believe my post was marked as a solution by another user who reported my method to work. Ofcourse as i said, if it isnt a solution for everyone, it isn't really a solution.

Here's hoping this issue can be fixed globally soon by Spotify. I'm sure they already know of this issue and are working on it. 

[user-removed]

No worries! At least it seems that some people have had success with your idea :). I've just updated some of my posts because it seems that they released an update yesterday, and automatic iOS updates have pushed this through without many people noticing. This seems to have fixed the issue for me (after my reinstall), so hopefully that will fix the issue for most other people for whom reinstalling didn't work.

[LeeClutterbuck]

Hi again nitrous_,

I'm happy to see your edit! I am glad to see the app is working for you now 🙂
A background update is a possibility, but either way, I'm glad to see your problem has now gone away 🙂

[LeeClutterbuck]

Hello Everyone,

Just thoguht I would give a little update. As seen above, both I and nitrous_ have now noticed improvements after re-installing today (as mentioned above, and in the OP, nitrous_ did not experience improvement when re-installing yesterday, however today it has proved to help)

Although this has improved the app in my experience, I share my skeptisism with nitrous_ that this may not be a permanant fix. Only a few hours after re-installing today i have started to notice these issue on a small scale once again. This time, its freezing for only a matter of moments (for now) but still, it seems to show this is not really an effective fix.

If I experience this issue any more severely, il be sure to post it here. This issue doesn't want to go away 😞

[Almarenco]

Well, my spotify is also buggy as hell since I installed the new version. Not only does it do all the awesome stuff reported in this thread (Freezing, buttons becoming inactive at random, etc, etc) Just an hour ago it started doing the worst thing so far. It would only play the first 12 seconds of any song I hadn't downloaded. Spotifi, do you even test your stuff before you release? Have you heard of quality control?? Anyone who'd used the app for a 30 minute period would have noticed it is borderline useless.

BTW, I am using spotifi on an Iphone 5, 16gb and on an Ipad 3 w retina display.

[ravitrok]

This does not make me happy, after upgrading to IOS 7.1 11d167 on my IPhone 5 and updating the Spotify App I can not load my playlists on the Iphone.

The spotify is crashing all the time I choose to display the playlist. This does not only apply for my Iphone5 but also for a Iphone4 and 4S loading the same playlist.

Really terrible.

Please let me know how to solve this.

BTW: How to reach spotify support desk? 

[MariusMessiah]

Yeah, I've been having these problems since the update as well. 

I just tried to re-install it, but the problems percists. Huge lag and names of playlists missing, until I open them. (The ones that are available offline)

The biggest problems however - and the ones that render the app completely useless for me, is that Spotify will only play, say 10 secs of a offline synced song - then either:

A) Pause it - and go back to the beginning when pressing play
B) Mute the sound completely, and turn it back on after 15-60 seconds, or when I pull out the headset and put it back in. 

I dare say that Spotify is the most important app on my iphone 4. Earlier versions worked like a charm, so this update was certainly a massive dissapointment.