Playback stops

[iksa1]

Plan

Free

Country

Finland

Device

Huawei Honor 8

Operating System

Android 7.0

My Question or Issue

I have had this problem a long time already. The playback on my phone always stops after a few songs, usually in about half an hour. It always stops between songs, never in the middle of a song. I have searched this community for similar threads and tried the suggestions provided in those threads (usually for phone models other than mine), including disabling Canvas in Spotify settings, but nothing seems to help for me. I usually listen to Spotify when I ride my motorbike, i.e. I use bluetooth earphones and I explicitly turn the phone's screen off manually and put the phone in my pocket after having started the music. Sometimes I listen to Google Maps navigation instructions on the same phone at the same time but not always. I hope someone could provide a working solution in this thread. Thank you!

[Petya]

Hey @iksa1,

Thanks for reaching out! 

Please check out this article with helpful tips what to do when you're having issues with playback. After that, confirm which troubleshooting steps you have taken and let us know how it went.

We look forward to your reply 🙂

[iksa1]

Thanks Petya.

That link took me to the Finnish version of the page https://support.spotify.com/fi/using_spotify/troubleshooting/spotify-not-working/ no matter how many times I tried to remove the /fi part from the url, so hopefully there are no significant differences in the different language versions of the page.

I now did the following:

1. I do not have any downloaded songs but I still checked the free space on my phone: it was 41,95 GB free on the phone and 49,04 GB free on the SD card.
2. First I reproduced the problem again in order to make sure that I can later verify if anything has changed. I closed all applications other than Spotify on the phone. I turned WiFi off so that only mobile data was on. That would be the case when riding the bike, too. Then I started playing the playlist I usually listen to. Unlike when riding the bike, I now did not connect my Bluetooth helmet phone but instead listened through the phone's own speaker. It took a bit longer this time until playing stopped (about an hour or so), but it did stop. So I think at least the helmet phone and being on the move can be removed from the list of possible causes.
3. I have always had automatic updates turned on, so I have always had the latest version of Spotify installed. Usually Spotify has not been running when I have started listening, so I have started it. Those have had no impact so I thought I could skip the steps "ensure the latest version" and "restart the app" for now. Instead I uninstalled and then re-installed Spotify. That required also signing in again. I made sure no other applications were running. Then I started listening to the same playlist. Quite exactly after 30 minutes (between songs again) I stopped hearing the music. I turned the phone screen on and Spotify still seemed to be in a playing state, there just was no sound anymore. I pressed the volume up button on the phone once and then the music could be heard again. At this point I realized that I had not turned the screen off manually in the beginning after starting to play like I always do when I'm riding. Therefore I decided to do also step 4.
4. I closed all apps, including Spotify. Then I started Spotify again, and started playing the playlist. Then I manually turned the screen off. I wrote down the current time, it was 12:02. At 12:31 (29 minutes after starting to play the playlist) a new song started playing, so I kind of expected it to be the last one that is going to play (because I've noticed the 30 minutes limit is quite accurate). And I was right: that song ended at 12:36 and then I could not hear anything anymore. However, I was a little surprised that when I turned the screen on again (note that this is something I cannot do when I'm riding a motorcycle and the phone is in my pocket), it was not in the stopped state. I tried pressing the volume up button again but that had no effect. I did not do anything else but a little later the music continued playing by itself. At this point I started wondering if the application fills some buffers every 30 minutes or something, and if that filling fails (for example, because of temporary internet connection problems which may be more likely to occur on the road), it turns into stopped state. Does anyone know if this is how the app works?

I'm not sure if it's relevant but I had CyberGhost VPN connected all the time. I installed it some months back, the problem existed also before that.

Isn't there any way to get to know the actual cause of the problem? Like any kind of logs or other debugging data that the app produces? This guessing and trying arbitrary actions takes huge amounts of time, is not a very professional approach, risks introducing new problems that did not exist earlier, and in the end we cannot be sure if the problem actually becomes fixed by these guesses or just goes away for a little while. If the Spotify developers actually got to know the cause of the problem, they could target a fix to address that exact thing and there would be some certainty that the problem actually becomes fixed.

[Petya]

Hey again @iksa1, 

Thanks for taking the time to describe the issue in such an exhaustive way. We appreciate your effort.

It looks like the issue ocurrs a bit after your screen gets locked. In this case I'd recommend you to do the following: 

1.  Go to Mobile Settings> Apps> Spotify> Permissions. Allow everything you see there.
2. Go to Mobile settings>Apps> Spotify> Battery> Optimize battery usage> select top All (not optimized for apps)> Spotify> disable.
3. Go to Mobile Settings>Data usage>Cellular data usage>Spotify> Restrict App Background data.
4. Restart the phone.

Also, please try using the app with a locked screen over Wi-Fi. This is needed to determine the cause. Thanks in advance!

Let us know if this changes anything. We're here for you and look forward to your reply!

[iksa1]

@Petya,

My understanding is that the screen gets locked immediately when I press the power button to turn the screen off. At least turning the screen then on again will prompt for a PIN code, except that I use fingerprint instead. So as the problem occurs pretty exactly 30 minutes after turning the screen off I don't really see a relation between the two. But it's also possible that I don't completely understand the concept of screen lock.

The reason for me telling if I turn the screen off manually or whether it turns off by itself is that in the other message threads here in the forum about similar issues I saw people reporting that it made a difference for them.

Anyway this is what I did now:

1. I went to Settings > Apps > Spotify > Permissions. The items there were Camera, Contacts, Microphone, and Storage. I enabled them all (although I felt I shouldn't have done that because I care about safety and the items did not sound like being related to the problem).
2. I went to Settings > Apps > Spotify > Battery. There was no "Optimize battery usage" (note that the Android version in Honor 8 phones is 7.0). There were "Power-intensive prompt" which was enabled and I disabled it, and "Close after screen locked" which was disabled and I left it disabled.
3. The Settings did not have "Data usage" but behind "Mobile data" there was "Data saver" which was off and I left it off.
4. I restarted the phone.
5. I checked that mobile data was connected and Wifi was not. I connected VPN, started Spotify, started playing. The time was 19:50. New songs started playing also after 20:20, so I thought the issue had become fixed but then music stopped at 20:32. When I turned the screen on I saw that Spotify was actually in stopped state. By "stopped state" I have in all my messages meant that there is a "SHUFFLE PLAY" button instead of a "PAUSE" button in the Spotify app. So I was especially surprised when the playing all of a sudden still continued by itself at 20:34, and the text on the button remained "SHUFFLE PLAY", so obviously the app was in some sort of a mixed state. At this point I aborted the test because I wanted to verify the normal operation of that button and the text.
6. Then I tested with WiFi on, mobile data off. Closed all apps, started Spotify, started playing at 20:44, manually turned the screen off. The music was being played at 22:00 but at 22:09 I noticed it had stopped. I turned the screen on and there was an advertisement that I dismissed. The text on the button in the Spotify app read "SHUFFLE PLAY" i.e. the app was in the stopped state. I waited a few minutes, the screen turned off by itself and everything but this time the music did not magically continue.

[Petya]

Hi @iksa1,

Thanks folr staying with us on this one! 

We need a bit more information from you:
1. Do you experience the same issue when using Spotify Connect to play music through a speaker?

2. Please tell us what happens when you listen to music over Wi-Fi. It's important not to use a VPN.

We'll keep an eye on your replies 🙂

[iksa1]

Hi @Petya,

1. I suppose Spotify Connect means that I control the Spotify App running on my laptop through the Spotify App running on my phone. I tested that and did not observe stops in playback. I have earlier controlled Spotify web player running on my laptop through the Spotify app running on my phone and have never noticed unintended stops there either.

2. I think I described that also in my previous reply but now I tried it again. In the beginning I made sure my VPN was disconnected. I started listening the playlist on my phone connected through WiFi at 15:23. The music was still playing when I had to leave for some errands at about 16:10, but when I came back at 17:21 I noticed the playback had stopped and the app was in stopped state. So over WiFi the playback tends to last longer than over mobile data but will eventually stop as well. On the phone, that is. On the PC I have never observed this kind of problems.

[Petya]

Hey @iksa1,

Thanks so much for following all the instructions and helping us! 

Could you also try logging in on a friend's or a family member's mobile device with your Spotify account to tell us if the issue persists? 

We're keeping an eye on your answers 🙂

[iksa1]

All right, my teenager son did some testing with his Xiaomi Redmi 5 Plus Android phone. He did not allow me to monitor the testing 🙂 but this is what he reported:

- He had only mobile data connected, no WiFi, no VPN, background applications stopped

- Using his own Spotify account, he started playing his own playlist four different times and the playback never stopped at the thirty minutes milestone

- Using my Spotify account, he started playing my playlist four different times. Two times the playback stopped exactly in the same way as it does for me, right when a song ends after 30 minutes have passed. Two times this did not happen but the playback continued (I don't know how long he waited after that).