I have been going backwards and forwards with support on this issue for weeks and every time they give the same answer. They don't read any previous emails or listen to what I have done to try and fix this problem. It was only when I researched this further that I realised this issue is a bug in the Android app that has been around for years. It affects many different phone models and it has never been fixed.
It's the age-old Spotify repeatedly downloading and moving your files problem.
I'm writing this post for two reasons. The first is to say that support just gave up on me. The second is to say that either Spotify doesn't care about its Android customers, or this is by design. The problem has been around for so long and shared by so many people across so many forums that these can be the only reasons remaining as to why the problem still exists.
The thing is, if you report this problem, support will string you along for weeks, telling you to delete the cache, do a fresh install, check the SD card, purge cache, use a PC to... blah blah blah. What they won't tell you is that you are customer number 108452 with the same problem. A problem that has never been fixed.
I've read forum threads by users who have gone out and bought NEW PHONES to try and remedy the issue. People like myself have used multiple SD cards (new, unformatted, fresh out the packaging) of different makes and sizes, to no avail. Factory resets have been done, different models tried from top end Samsung's to mid-range Asian-market wonders like mine (three different phones and counting).
I've read users who, after two years of dutifully paying for a premium service, gave up and moved on elsewhere, which is the stage I have got to myself.
All the while, support will not tell you this is a known problem from the outset, even though they are fully aware it exists. Still. After many years. The problem has never gone away.
Today I found the app doing its usual unnecessary download of tracks. It's random. Sometimes once a week, sometimes every day. Once within three hours of a fresh install. This time though it didn't try to move my tracks to my internal storage as it normally does, it stuck with the external SD card. But it still downloaded them. Again. For the fifth time this week.
It then occurred to me: it's not in Spotify's interest to stop your phone downloading your tracks. It's in Spotify's interest to make your phone download your tracks multiple times because it boosts their download figures. Now I'm no conspiracy theorist but since support will not provide a definitive answer to this issue, it's the only conclusion I can come to.
Having read the (literally) hundreds upon hundreds of posts spanning many years of this problem, and having dealt with support personally on this matter, I've come to the conclusion that Spotify will never resolve this issue.
Staff / Moderator/ 3 years ago in Social & Random