iPad Will Not Sync Unless Freshly Installed

[mlpmlp]

Plan

Premium

Country

USA

Device

iPhone 15 Pro, iPhone 16 Pro Max, iPad 5th Gen 12.9", M2 Macbook Pro, M4 Macbook Pro, Older intel Macbook Pro ...

Operating System

Current OS on all devices 

My Question or Issue

I sync Spotify across a ton of devices even beyond the above. While the majority of the devices have no problems, my iPad will only sync if Spotify is re-installed. Restarting the iPad or Spotify does nothing. 

This applies across the app: settings changes, adding songs to playlists or my favorites, saving/making playlists, locally downloaded files have to be re-downloaded on re-install, etc. 

What's an actual fix to get this syncing that isn't reinstalling the app every time I want to listen? 

[mlpmlp]

@eni

thanks for the link to the thread. it is unfortunately 8 pages of people expressing the same issue. 

one solution suggested is for a windows PC. even when browsing the contents of the app package on a mac, that folder can't be found to delete. 

this issue is when shuffle is on. i have tried turning shuffle on/off, smart shuffle (which i don't use), restarting apps, reinstalling apps, etc. i hear the same songs ALL OF THE TIME, even sometimes when i'm shuffling another playlist. i've even tried pasting my entire liked songs library into a new playlist – same ~50 songs play. there was a period of about 3-4 weeks in February when spotify actually shuffled again and I was beyond stoked. didn't last long, back to the same ~50 songs in the same order. it might actually play more eventually but this app somehow makes me sick of listening to music with this so i move over to other streamers. 

if shuffle is off, it plays songs in my library/playlist in the order they have been saved. 

[Ivelina]

Hello again @mlpmlp,

Thank you for the response.

First I'd like to say that we really appreciate all of the provided info and troubleshooting steps that you've already performed. This is helpful to us and we've forwarded these details to the tech team. As previously mentioned, we've notified them about this syncing behavior, however, there are currently no updates on the matter, but rest assured that the team is known of the issue.

When it comes to Spotify shuffling the same songs in the same order, usually Spotify prioritizes and suggests content that you mostly listen to and this or similar behavior could also be related to having a large library. 

Since you've already tested with various troubleshooting steps, including creating a new playlist with your Liked Songs, but the same behavior persists regardless, it's not guaranteed that this behavior is not related to the account itself. For this specifically, it's a good idea to ask a relative or a friend to log in to their account on your devices to see if there's a difference with the Shuffle function.

Lastly, we have seen similar reports in the forum before of other users mentioning that Shuffle plays the same content for them. For example this and this thread, where you can take a look and it's worth giving your vote for the mentioned Live Idea here. You might like it, as it's about an option for a “true” shuffle, which would play all the songs in a playlist in a random order, and once they’re all played, reshuffle them and play them again.

Once again a huge thank you for all of the provided info and cooperation. It's really appreciated.

In the meantime, the Community's here if anything else comes up or if you've got any other questions.