Spotify breaking on Samsung devices. App becomes unusable until I restart the device.

[graccy99]

Plan 

Premium

Country 

US

  Device

  Samsung Tab S8 Ultra,  Galaxy S21

  Operating System 

Android 12  

My Question or Issue

Spotify on android (samsung) breaking after a few mins in background. Losing all media controls of the app until device restart. 

Whenever spotify goes to the background for a bit it will eventually stop working where the song/episode keeps playing but I can't pause/skip and the app doesn't show what is playing either. The only fix I have for this is to restart the device but the problem will just happen again anyways.

I attached what it looks like when it breaks, even though the music is still playing.

Is there any fixes for this? Reinstalling spotify doesn't work. This is happening with Galaxy Tab S8 Ultra every time, and S21 once in a while but not every time.

[Vasil]

Hey @graccy99,

we noticed you mention you're running Android 12. Keep in mind the OS is still relatively new and as with all new OS releases there might be some issues in the early days. Spotify has not yet been optimized form Android 12, but this of course is a priority for us.

So the issues might be caused be some Android 12 incompatibilities, still let's see what we can try.

It might be helpful to give the app a fresh start. We see you mentioned you reinstalled the app, but it's not clear if all data was deleted beforehand. To do that, follow the steps for a clean reinstall here. Note that this will remove any downloaded tracks and you'll need to redownload them.

Keep us posted if that improved the situation. We're monitoring these reports on Android 12 closely, and will be passing it on to our devs.

[1176506396]

I have the same problem on my Galaxy Tablet S8+

I already tried the fresh reinstall, but it does not solve the problem.

[GinaPDX]

Hope you can fix this soon. Having to restart my Galaxy Tab because I either have no other way to stop the music or podcast, or because they are cutting off whenever the tablet goes into sleep mode is really taking the fun out of Spotify for me.

Thank you

[graccy99]

So I found a potential band-aid fix for now that works most of the time. It seems when Spotify breaks I can quit the app then turn off the screen, then spotify will be back to normal when I open it up again. It doesn't fix it if I don't turn off the screen after quitting the app. This works about 9/10 times for me on my Galaxy Tab S8 Ultra. When this doesn't fix it then I just restart the device, but at least its not every time now. I hope there is an actual fix from the devs soon!

[Eni]

Hey folks, 

Thanks for reaching out about this.

Just to confirm, have you tried following the steps @Vasil sent previously?

On another note, could you let us know the exact make/model, operating system and Spotify version of your devices?

We'll be on the lookout.

[graccy99]

Yes I have tried those steps, they have not resolved anything.

I am using Samsung Galaxy Tab S8 Ultra: SM-X900 running Android 12 and Spotify version: 8.7.10.1262

[ddinstel]

I have tried those steps as well with no luck. I'm on a Samsung Galaxy s20 running Android 12 and Spotify v. 8.7.10.1262.

[Jeremy]

Hi there folks,

Thank you for your replies and confirmations.

Can you let us know if you have enough storage on your device?

On another note, does this occur if you're using another Android device?

We'll keep an eye out for your replies.

Take care!

[graccy99]

Yes the device has 185GB available.

And yes this has happened on my Galaxy S21 and others have stated in this thread they have the same issue on their own devices that you can reference.

[graccy99]

Yes I have tried those steps, it did not resolve anything.

[Eni]

Hey @graccy99, 

Thanks for getting back to us. 

Would you mind asking a friend or a relative to log in to their account in your device to check if the issue persists with a different account?

We'll be waiting for your reply.

[graccy99]

The issue still persists with a different account logged in.

[Eni]

Hi @graccy99, 

Thanks for your reply. 

No worries, there're also a few other things we can try. Could you make sure that Spotify has all necessary permissions enabled?

1. Open your Settings menu.

2. Scroll to the bottom to find Spotify and open the app settings.

3. Enable everything you see.

Additionally, we suggest that you make sure to disable any cache clearing / battery saving apps that might be active on your device. 

Keep us posted on how it goes.

[graccy99]

This did not work.

[OscarDC]

Hey @graccy99,

Thank you for keeping us updated. 

We've checked this issue in our side and we could see that it’s related to a recent OS update. This update is having troubles keeping the apps running in the background. 

As Spotify needs this feature to work at its full performance, we'd suggest contacting the manufacturer directly to report this. You can find more information and some troubleshooting steps on this Samsung's post here.

If anything else comes up, the Community will be here for you.

[graccy99]

It would be great if the owners of the app that is having issues to contact Samsung directly as I don't have this issue with other application. Not sure why I would need to relay this information to them when the developers would be able to work with Samsung directly.

[Henchk]

Yeah I'm running spotify version 8.7.20.1261 on a samsung galaxy s22+ with OS version 12. I'm having the same problem, and this really seems like a spotify (you) problem rather than a user (us)  problem. Asking the OP to reach out to Android is ridiculous. Spotify should fix this or I'm going to drop you like Neil Young did.

[Ellyanne]

I'm having the same issue with my Galaxy S21 FE 5G. Cutting out all over the place and eventually stopping altogether. The progress bar also disappears after a few mins. Very frustrating. It was doing the same thing with my older Samsung Galaxy but not to the extent that it's happening now. I've given up trying to use Spotify on my phone. Please fix this issue! 

[mattywhy]

I'm also having the same issue. I've also lost the ability to manage connected devices through the mobile app. For example, it knows my pc is connected when I go to connect a device but it doesn't show that anything is actively playing, so I can't control what's playing. 

Android 12 just doesn't appear all of a sudden, they release it to software developers prior so that it can be optimised prior to its release to users. Saying that it's not optimised for Android 12 because it's a new OS is an unacceptable excuse.