current playing song disappears from bottom of screen and settings drop down

[jerrawa]

Heya, having some trouble with spotify, Hope someone can help, details are below.
Thanks

Aimee

Please describe the problem:
When listening to music (either downloaded or streaming) on my Galaxy S2, the current playing track section at the bottom of the app dissapears(the bit with the play/pause button), so I have no way to pause or skip to next track. When this happens the quick play section(not sure of this features real name) in the settings drop down at top of phone also dissapears and also missing from the lock screen.

What are the steps you took to get to the error/issue?

Essentially all I do everyday is the following, however I cannot deliberately force this issue to occur.
1. restart phone
2. open spotify, start playing some music
3. minimise app by pressing home key
3.a. The quick play thing appears in settings drop down.
4. let screen go to sleep and lock.
5. unlock phone
6. reopen spotify by pressing spotify icon on home screen to open app. 
6.a. Now the current playing track thing is gone and the quick play thing does not reappear in the 

Troubleshooting steps
- cleared cache
- restarted phone
- recently (maybe 1 version ago) I uninstalled, cleared everything and reinstalled spotify to get my downloaded music onto an ext. SD card.

What I expected to happen:
The current playing track thing stays at bottom of screen and the quick play thing appears when the app is minimised.

Did you restart your device when troubleshooting in section B?
Yes

Did you read the connection troubleshooting tips?
Yes

Your device
Galaxy S2 GT-i9100T, Australian Telstra version

Device’s Operating System
android 4.1.2

What type of account do you have?
Premium

(FYI for the below points: Android devices tend to refer to the internal memory as "SD Card" and the SD card you inserted yourself as "External SD Card")
Space left on your device
249 MB, I have uninstalled as much as I can and deleted cache and moved stuff to SD to free up space on this partition.

Space left on your SD card (if applicable)
8.6 GB

Space left on your External SD card (if applicable)
21 GB

Is your device rooted?
no

Are you using a custom ROM, if so which one, exactly?
N/A

Did you set your external SD card as storage location?
Yes

Did you manually install an older version before installing the latest version from the Play Store?
No

Do you have the same issue when switching between WiFi/Mobile Data (If applicable)?
Yes

If you said "No", when does the issue not occur?
N/A

My mobile Spotify version
E.g. 0.8.4

My mobile provider and country
Telstra Australia

My username
Jerrawa

Do you have a Spotify (non-Facebook) login?
Yes

Are you logging in with Facebook or with your Spotify login details?
Spotify login

Do you have any screenshots you can attach to more clearly explain your issue?
No sorry, telstra screwed our version of Android so we cannot take screen shots. However if you really want one, Ill grab a camera and take a photo of my phone.

[Joe]

Hey, I'll see if I can come up with some ideas tomorrow when the beer in my system is at a lower level but, in the meantime, could you try something really bizarre for me and pop a note here of the outcome. When the play controls disappear, could you rotate to landscape mode then back to portrait to see if that brings them back.

Thanks 🙂

[jerrawa]

Thanks Joe, Ill give that a go when it happens again.

[jerrawa · Accepted solution]

so the issue hasnt reccurred since I posted this. Thats good i suppose.

I did remove the spotify widget from my home screen, and re-add it. Maybe something funky was going on with it.

Thanks

[agentfitz]

I'm having this same issue and it's VERY annoying. Searched high and low to try and find the actively playing song (all menus) and it was no where to be seen.

Glad to see I'm not the only one.

Galaxy Nexus - Android 4.3

Spotify App version 0.7.5.698

[Joe]

@agentfitz Are you missing the play bar at the bottom of the spotify window when a track is playing - the one containing play controls, track/artis name and a small cover picture? What version of spotify are you using?

[agentfitz]

Hey there, yes the play bar is missing, but the weird thing is that it only happens sometimes and I haven't figured out what triggers it. It'll be there and then later I'll look for a song (to rewind for example) and the playhead/play-pause controls have disappeared.

I am using Spotify on Android (version 0.7.5.698) on a Galaxy Nexus phone running Android 4.3

Thanks

[Joe]

Strange. Have you put the spotify widget on one of your home screens? If so, does removing it fix the issue?

[jerrawa]

hey @agentfitz, it started happening to me again the other day. I still havent figured out what triggers it, although its always after the screen goes to sleep. eg Im listening to music for a while, screen goes to sleep, wkae up phone, play/pause thing it messed up. 

It also does not always have all the symptoms I described, its sometimes just a couple of the following:

- missing from bottom of spotify playlist screen

- missing from phone lock screen

- missing from android menu drop down

- (new) the current playing song is there but it has frozen on some song and you can't press play/pause anyway.

Some things I have tried:

- removed widget and its not there at the moment  - this doesnt make a difference for me

- updated to the latest spotify the other day - still occurring

- restart phone frequently - mainly because of this issue

Things that seem to bring it back occasionally but not always - (and are far from a fix)

- rotating the screen

- closing(sending  to background) and  opening spotify several times

- closing(sending  to background) and  opening spotify from the android menu drop down (if its there)

I'm thinking its some sort of window/memory management thing in android that drops the handle (or doesnt restore it properly) for the play/pause bit when it goes into sleep mode or when you send the app to the background. I wouldnt mind having a poke around the

source code, although I'd probably be a bit out of my depth, I not that good of a coder.

@jwylot - thanks for you help again.

I hope we can figure this out soon 🙂

[agentfitz]

Hey @jerrawa, interesting and thanks for sharing more of your experience. It sounds like we're experiencing something similar for sure.

To answer the question that was asked before, I am not using a Spotify widget. I'm going to experiment with it some more and see if there is any method to the madness... i.e. if I can figure out how to reliably reproduce the issue.

[jerrawa]

So I thought if we could come up with some test cases to try and replicate this issue. If we can replicate it, its more likely to get fixed.

You dont need to reply with the entire set of test cases with Q/A. Really all im after is if you did each of them, whether you could replicate the problem, and if any thing fixes it.

Please post any other test cases you can think of. Id like to be able to replicate this issue because I dont believe its entirely random.

Thanks!

small warning: I just made up names for all the screens, I hope you understand what I mean 🙂
Before starting: I suggest changing sleep and autolock to <30sec, so you dont have to wait that long.

Questions to answer after each test case
Q1a. after waking phone, is the current track on lock screen? Y/N
Q1b. can you press any of the buttons on the lock screen? Y/N
Q2a. is the current playing track thing at the bottom with the play/pause button? Y/N
Q2b. can you press the play/pause button?
Q2c. if it is missing:
Q2c.i. does rotating the screen bring it back? Y/N
Q2c.ii. does minimising/hiding spotify and restoring it bring it back? Y/N
Q2c.iii.does minimising it, then restoring it from the android menu drop down bring it back?
Q2c.iv. anything else you know of that brings it back.

Q3. Its there but the trackname has not updated

spotify test cases
1.
- start playing a playlist
- leave spotify maximised on the play list screen (where the current track should be at the bottom with the play/pause button).
- Allow screen to sleep and auto lock.
- wake phone -Dont unlock yet, Answer Question set Q1
- unlock phone, spotify should still be open/maximised - Answer Question set Q2, Q3
- minimise and maximise spotify, - again Answer Question set Q2, Q3

2.
- start playing a track.
- touch the track to open the track display.
- leave spotify maximised on the track screen (where only the current track is displayed with its pictture).
- Allow screen to sleep and auto lock.
- wake phone -Dont unlock yet, Answer Question set Q1
- unlock phone, spotify should still be open/maximised, press the cross to go back to the playlist screen - Answer Question set Q2 Q3

3.
- start playing a playlist
- minimise spotify, dont open any other apps
- Allow screen to sleep and auto lock.
- wake phone -Dont unlock yet, Answer Question set Q1
- unlock phone, spotify should still be open/maximised - Answer Question set Q2, Q3
- minimise and maximise spotify, - again Answer Question set Q2, Q3

4.
- start playing a playlist
- minimise spotify, open another app and leave it maximised
- Allow screen to sleep and auto lock.
- wake phone -Dont unlock yet, Answer Question set Q1
- unlock phone, spotify should still be open/maximised - Answer Question set Q2, Q3
- minimise and maximise spotify, - again Answer Question set Q2, Q3

[jerrawa]

5. 

- pause your music

- let your phone go to sleep and lock by itself

- leave spotify maxmised

- wake phone, but dont unlock, answer question set Q1

- unlock phone, spotify should still be maximised. Answer question sets Q2, Q3

- I started playing music again here

- minimise and maximise spotify, - again Answer Question set Q2, Q3

Ok, the reason I wrote that one was because I just did that - paused my music and let my phone go to sleep. 

Q1a/b - The play/pause thing was on my lock screen but it did not work.

Q2. after unlocking my phone the play/pause section was there, then it slid off the screen to show a message saying I had no internet connection, then the No internet connection thing slid off the screen but the play/pause thing did not come back.

- none of the suggestions so far has brought it back.

- even waited for my phone to go to sleep and did the whole process again, with no success.

- additional info: my phone was connected to WIFI, not 3g

[jerrawa]

This is still a frustrating issue for me.

Theres 2 parts to my issue:

- The current playing song dissapears from bottom of playlist.

- The play/next thing does not appear on the lock screen

Updates:

I have a new phone - Galaxy Note 3

New spotify version: 1.1.0.113

The only workarounds so far are to logout and back in to the app, or to restart the phone.

Sometimes if I minimise and maximise the app a few times it comes back, this seems to work better if the current track screen is up (rather than the playlist).

Anyone one else having this issue?

[Problem11]

1. I am having the same problem. Did a Google search and found this forum thread from 2014. Did you ever solve the problem? If so, please share the solution.

[AndresM]

Hi @Problem11,

Thanks for posting on the Community.

In order to check further, could you share with us the make/model, OS version and Spotify version installed on your device? Also, tell us if this started after a recent update.

Changing tunes, it's well worth running a clean reinstall on your device to get rid of any cached files that might be causing this issue. Once you do this, restart your device and let us know how it works.

We'll be here holding up.

[Alex]

Hey folks,

Thanks for the posts folks.

We want to inform you that the right folks at Spotify have identified what's causing the issue and are working on a fix as we speak.

We recommend you keep your app up to date not to miss the new release 🙂

Take care!

[jerrawa]

Nice!
Im sure theres a few people who will be happy this is getting fixed.