Can't sync local files

[RakRa]

Plan

Premium

Device

Huawei P10 Lite

Operating System

Android 8.0.0, Windows 10 Pro

My Question or Issue

I can't sync local files on my PC to my Android phone.

In the Android app, local songs are grayed out in mixed playlists and only non-local files are downloaded.

When I try to access a local files only playlist, the Spotify Android app crashes without an error message.

What I've tried on my PC

• My PC and Android phone are on the same WIFI network. I also tried opening a mobile hotspot on my phone and connect my PC to it.
• I turned on network discovery and file sharing.
• I allowed Spotify.exe through the Windows Firewall.
• I disabled Windows Firewall completely for Public, Private and Domain networks.
• I disabled my Antivirus (Avast).
• I restarted Spotify after each change made.

What I've tried on my phone

• I did a relog.
• I deleted the Cache and cleared all data files.
• I uninstalled and redownloaded the app.

Nothing of the above worked out.

[RakRa · Accepted solution]

tl;dr: If nothing else works, syncing local files from any OS other than Windows (10) should do the trick. Not a great solution, but a valid workaround.

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I tried every little thing I could find on the web to solve the local files not syncing issue but nothing worked (refer to top post). I tried it with two different devices: My laptop running Windows 10 Home and my desktop PC running Windows 10 Pro.

At some point I remembered that I owned a MacBook Air in the past which I used to sync local files to my Android phone. My current laptop (Dell XPS 15) also has macOS High Sierra installed. I tried syncing local files from there and it worked.

Furthermore I have a portable installation of the latest Ubuntu on a USB stick. I plugged it into my desktop PC, booted into the system, tried to sync local files to my Android phone and it worked too.

So the issue lies either within the Windows version of Spotify or Windows itself. I'm guessing it's some setting in Windows 10.

It's not the Windows Firewall (I disabled it completely).

It's not the antivirus software or firewall (I disabled it permanently).

It's not a third party firewall (I don't have one).

It's not a VPN/proxy related issue (I didn't use one).

[user-removed]

Plan

Premium

Country

Germany

Device

Samsung Galaxy S9

Operating System

Latest

My Question or Issue

So I've been struggling with this since forever, and now it's happening again.

I can't sync local files from my Windows 10 PC to my Galaxy S9.

I disabled the firewall on my router and on my PC completely.

I connected to two different connections. I also tried connecting to the same hotspot. Nothing happens. It just says  "waiting for download".

Is there anything else I can do to fix it ? Please don't say reinstall or restart the app, I already tried that thousands of times.

I'm getting sick of this problem.

[digger5150]

My Question or Issue

I found this topic, which is listed as 'Solved'. It is not because it's happening to me. It hasn't been fixed and is actually worse. https://community.spotify.com/t5/Android/Local-files-being-replaced-by-spotify-s-version-when-they-S... I have several files of music, physically on my PC, in the correct format. Because Spotify is showing the tracks as unavailable, I can't get my local files to sync to my Android phone and download. They are over-written by Spotify's unavailable version and thus, not downloadable. Two examples - Peter Gabriel's I Don't Remember, and Biko, from his greatest hits album. Those two tracks are not available on Spotify, but the rest of the album is. I bought them on iTunes and downloaded them. They show in my local files library. They show in playlists I put them into. They will not download from my PC to my phone. Other examples: Run Run Away, by Slade; Yesterdays by Guns N Roses. Other files not in this category will download fine. It's only the ones Spotify has in its database as unavailable. I have tried about 10 different ways to make this happen - refresh local files completely, point to specific folders, clear the app cache, uninstall and reinstall the app, new playlists, download on PC, turn off firewall, turn off antivirus, hook phone up directly to the PC. Spotify, it is is not me, it's you. This used to work fine and then over time, it didn't. Last year I noticed this was happening and creating a new playlist with those files jolted things back to normal. But many updates of both the Desktop and Android apps later, and this functionality is broken. The only workaround I can find that works, is for me to rename the songs and the albums on my PC. Then magically, they are seen as other songs, and download to my phone. This is a huge pain point and shouldn't be necessary. Please fix this. There will be no solution other than to fix the code.