Syncing local files of songs that are now unavailable in the Spotify catalogue

[mjayvizzle]

I recently discovered that Spotify doesn't offer the full albums of The Cat Empire anymore in their catalogue - which is bad enough.

I have one album (Live on Earth) on my computer as mp3 files, so I can still listen to these songs in Spotify.

The problem: I can't sync these local files to Spotify on my Android device and listen to them. I can select my playlist with these songs in Spotify on my computer and sync them with my device, and I think the files are transferred, since the status bar shows the process on both my computer and the Android phone. But these files don't show up in the playlist on the Android device... Only the 2 songs which are available in the Spotify catalogue are shown...

I tried re-syncing the playlist, and the songs showed up in the playlist on the Android for a split second after each song was synced, but the list entry disappeared again without any interaction...

Reinstalling the Spotify app didn't help either.

I think this might be caused by the Spotify app automatically hiding tracks that are not available (anymore) in the Spotify catalogue, even when local files were synced...?

App version: 1.1.1.162

[smidny]

1) Transfer the mp3s you have to your phone directly via USB.

2) Turn your phone off for a minute and then back on.

3) Reinstall Spotify and log in.

The Spotify App should then detect your songs as local files automatically.

[Joe]

That's interesting. I just had some strangeness with an album playlist for which only a couple of tracks are available on spotify - album Beyoncé – Beyoncé.

I had this playlist synched offline on my android. After the upgrade to spotify 1.1.1.162, I noticed that the playlist still showed the green arrow but now showed 0 tracks. All tracks were missing on desktop client too. What's weirder is that a second playlist with an identical name appeared below it, listing all the album tracks although most were greyed out.

Then it gets worse - I added my local files back to my now empty original playlist and they were sunched to the duplicate playlist which ended up with 26 tracks.

I eventually fixed this by deleting both playlists and recreating and resynching the original. I'm now waiting to see what happens.

There's definitely something weird happening with the local files/partial albums. At this stage, I guess all we can do is collect a bit more data before involving spotify.

In your case, does renaming your playlist to something other than album - artist enable you to synch it?

[Joe]

@smidny Did you actually try that?

[smidny]

No I haven't tried it but I'm pretty sure it will help.

[Joe]

What you suggest will not work and will cause the user to lose all offline music. It's not a good idea to offer such advice unless you know for sure that it actually works.

A good place to start would be with the FAQs.

[smidny]

A full reinstall has already taken place so Offline files aren't likely to be a problem. Are you saying that when you open your Spotify app that no 'local' section exists? And that if mp3s are stored locally on your phone that Spotify won't then detect them and list them in your app?

It is worth a try is all I'm saying. 😉

[Joe]

@mjayvizzle I'm going to play with this some more but if you come up with steps to reproduce this before I do, please post them and I'll escalate it to the spotify staff.

[dinomight]

Same problem here. I actually just saved several of my albums that aren't on Spotify to playlists to sync to my phone. One of my albums is a deluxe edition not available on Spotify, and certain bonus tracks won't show up on the phone even though they're in my playlist. Also, I had unlinked these from the catalog prior to putting them in the playlist.

EDIT: I noticed the number of tracks was off on the phone, then I checked on the computer, and that count was off as well. Then, I noticed the missing tracks weren't in the playlist on the computer. I'm honestly not sure now if I just overlooked them the first time I made the playlist or if they were deleted at some point after I looked on my phone, but I deleted everything from the playlist, dragged all the songs back over, and then everything was immediately available on the phone.

So, in summary, try this:

1. Delete all tracks from the playlist that's having problems.
2. Go into local files, right click the tracks you want to sync, and click "unlink track."
3. Drag the songs back into your playlist and sync them.

[mjayvizzle]

The solution of dinomight (deleting tracks in playlist, unlink tracks, add tracks do playlist, sync) worked for me as well... But would be nice if the "normal" way would work as well again one day!

[dinomight]

I think when they get around to allowing local files to be integrated with Your Music this will all be much simpler, but yeah it's too bad a workaround is needed at the moment. Glad that worked for you.