Offline devices limit

[Acideco]

I got only 1 device, my android, to use offline with my downloads. I got a message I had reached the 3 devices limit and so my downloads from my android would be erased. 

This is obviously an error and not fair for me to have to download my music again. Is there something I can do?

Thanks,

[Joe · Accepted solution]

If you go here, you'll see your offline devices listed. From what you said, the one device "android phone" will be listed three times. If you haven't yet lost your downloaded music, remove the two newest devices and, hopefully, everything will be OK. Otherwise, remove all of them but you will have to redownload your music.

It's worth keeping an eye on that page as something is causing your android to be reregistered as a new device and you might be able to identify the cause. Also you can prevent this happening again by deleting duplicate entries.

[feelikeastrangr]

Hi there @Acideco, thanks for posting to the Spotify Community. Check this thread here for Android troubleshooting support. Let us know how you get on!

[Acideco]

Thanks, hopefully i will find the that cause you mention so this doesn't happen again.

[Joe]

I just remembered three situations I've come across which can cause this:

• Factory reset
• Removing and reinserting SD card
• Android update

[spotbotwhat]

Sunday i was happy, because my problem seems to be solved with reinstalling.
(https://community.spotify.com/t5/Android/New-Android-app-preview-save-to-external-SD-card/m-p/167022...)

Yesterday - another day - same problem again?
i continued downloading playlists - but parallel took a look at the filemanager on my Android. unbelievable - internal storage decreases more and more. What the bleep?
creepy, if you don't know, what's going on?

Spotify, if you can hear me:

I DONT WANT TO REINSTALL OR DOWNLOAD EVERY FEW DAYs!

Because of the Complete Guide to fix nearly everything on android, i looked at the offline devices:
Oops. - a second Android offline device is listed - despite i only own 1 Phone?

Yesterday it was definitely NOT because of
-Factory reset
-Removing, inserting SD card
-Android or Spotify Update

Ok - Completly back to start? Or trying to go back to sunday?
First I deleted the newer entry. Then take a look at the Phone, trying to open an offline playlist.
Aarghhh! An Errormessage - saying that the number of offline devices exceeded - all downloaded content is gone
Fake news?
in numbers: 2 - 1 = over 3? This Errormessage is misleading!

i deleted the 2nd entry too, removed the cache and stored data and did the download again - lucky - again on the right location on the SD Card

I continue to search the entry in the setting for the location of the offline-content, as described in the help-Page.
Can't find it?

Reregistering of the same offline-Device seems to influence the location of the Offline data.
For my opinion, this is a serious issue - i hope to gather further information for avoiding this!

[Joe]

---

@spotbotwhat wrote:

Reregistering of the same offline-Device seems to influence the location of the Offline data.


More precisely, something happened in your android which caused spotify to see it as a new device. Whatever happened, almost certainly caused your downloads to diconnect from the app.

Possible causes are unmounting or ejecting the SD card orperforming a factory reset. Connecting the android to a PC to copy data can also cause the SD card to unmount and will result in the spotify cache no longer being seen by the spotify app.

If you didn't do any of these things, it could be that the SD card isn't properly seated in the carrier resulting in an intermittent connection. Keep an eye on the phone notifications. There will be one if the card unmounts and another when it remounts.

---

[spotbotwhat]

Hey Joe, thanks for posting your hints, but
Spotify did it again! x bleep x
I start the app, then the well known Error:
"Error on Download-3 Offline Devices exceeded - all downloaded Content erased."

Ok - i go to the "offline devices" https://www.spotify.com/de/account/offline-devices/
there is only one android listed? Last updated 3 days ago. Interesting, isn't it?

- I did not make a factory reset.
- I did not remove the SD card.
- I disabled automatic update.
- I did not connect the phone to a PC.
- I had an eye of correct placement of the SD-Card.
- no problems with making movies or photos.
- no problems with listening stored music with the musicplayer onboard.
- no notifications of unmounting or remounting the SD Card.
(btw-phone and SD card are purchased new in January)

At the moment i consider the Download-Feature to be unusable. Perhaps spotify at all?

any other ideas?
(the list of all the things wich i did not do is growing. My patience not.)

spotifyversion: 8.4.1.846 armV7
P9 lite with Android 6.0 EMUI 4.1.1

[Joe]

Ouch. 

I suggest you use the online contact form and someone at Spotify can help get this sorted. If you get an automated response directing you back to the community or to the help pages, please reply to it by email and you will hear back from one of the team shortly.

[spotbotwhat]

Hey Joe-

good News!
2 weeks ago came the Upgrade to Version 8.4.3.479 armV7. Since then it seems to work as designed. 🙂
Perhaps i should stay on this Version 'til EOL of my Phone?

[MaximilianBrown]

Same thing happened to me. One phone registered multiple times. So I go and remove these devices and then it just re-deletes all the music i re-downloaded. What the **bleep** is this **bleep**, this is ridiculous. How **bleep**ing hard is it to make a streaming/download service that works. Spotify is wasting WAY too much of my time, AND your taking money for this? Are you **bleep**ing crazy?

[Joe]

Thanks for the update @spotbotwhat. I'm glad things are working for you 🙂

[spotbotwhat]

I'm very sad, but i must withdraw my last success-message.
Every now and then - the green marked playlists turned to white.

Every offline-content is lost.

Sometimes there is a second registration of my one and only phone in the list of offline-devices.
(I think, there exists an unique number or ID for every device to avoid such muliple registration?).
If i delete the last offline-device the result is the error-message saying that i have more than 3 ofline-Devices and all Content is erased.
What a joke!

And sometimes there is only 1 entry in the offline device list.
Despite that - all offline content is lost.

Spotify is a nice service for streaming music - but offline Content is not reliable - i am glad to own an old IPod - thats real reliability!

I hope, spotify will improove this exhausting issue soon?