Local files trouble not playing on Android

[t1kk]

Plan

Premium

Country

US 

Device

Samsung Galaxy 9

Operating System

Android Oreo

My Question or Issue

 I'm having an ongoing problem and I don't know whether it's related to my phone or my desktop (Windows), or perhaps neither. 

I fully understand the mechanics of specifying local files directory on my desktop and syncing my phone, and am able to do this easily enough, but many files do not play on my phone. I notice that often this is the case with albums/songs which are otherwise not available on Spotify due to the copyright holder's restrictions.

For instance, I own a CD of XTC's Apple Venus album, from which I ripped mp3 files, and can play those in Spotify desktop. I sync my phone and the files appear on my phone as downloaded, not even greyed out. Yet they don't play on my phone.

(I add the songs to a playlist and sync the playlist)

Here's the kicker though--sometimes they do play on my phone. But because the files appear as downloaded (not greyed out, and with green checkmarks) there's no way for me to know why it's suddenly not working. 

I've deleted my local backup cache on my desktop (I noticed that my local files directory in spotify was showing multiple files of the same song), but that doesn't solve the problem.  In fact, I can still see multiple files of the same song (each which play fine on the desktop), even after I delete the local cache.  

Any help would be appreciated. 

[Jemi]

Hey @t1kk, help's here.

We first suggest that you do a quick reinstall for a fresh start and to ensure that you have the latest Spotify version. This means that you'll have to re-download any music you've saved for offline use.

After that, check out this help article to check out the most common criteria for using local files on Spotify.

If that doesn't work, try putting the files in another folder and use that folder as a source for local files from your app's settings in your desktop. Rename the files if necessary to something that only contains letters and spacing, without any special characters.

Let us know how that goes!