no download to SD Card on Android Marshmallow

[langweiligh3]

Hi,

As you can guess, I use Android M (concept for Android Sony Xperia Z3 Compact) and Spotify keeps refusing to download songs to my external SD. The SD is empty (32GB) and works perfectly fine with other apps. I even filled up my internal storage to make sure. Unfortunately, it still doesn't work.

Anyone else with this problem?

Thanks a lot.

PS: pls don't point to some FAQ or other solutions like reinstalling, deleting spotify folders etc, I tried that all.

PPS: a lot of people are asking for an option to set the download location; please, please!!

[justayo]

Try uninstalling it the re-installing it. 
I think it only checks for best place to download offline music to during the install process.

[langweiligh3]

dude, did you read my post to the end???

[woodandrew90]

Part of the following has previously been posted here.  I have simply modified it to reflect my recent experience in getting Spotify to download to SD.  Looks complex, but follow it step by step and it will take no more than 10-15 mins.

- Go to System Settings

- Go to "Apps" 

- Find Spotify there and tap on the app.

- Tap "Force Close"

- Then tap "Clear cache" if it's not greyed out.

- Then tap "Unninstall" and remove the app.

- After uninnstalling, power off your device.

- If you can, remove the battery now.

- Power back on.

- Using a file manager on your phone or with your USB cable and your computer, go to Internal Storage > Android > Data and delete a folder called  com.spotify.music (may be called com.spotify.mobile.android.ui on some Android/Spotify versions).

The following may not be necessary, but may help: Fill your Internal Storage (IS) to leave just 1GB of free space. You can do this with photos, movies, etc; just put them into the DCIM folder in IS. This is obviously easier and quicker to do if you can connect your device to a PC via USB.

The objective of this is to push Spotify to identify the SD card as the best (largest) free space for music download. You will delete the added ‘bloat’ files after the first download in Spotify. The objective here is just to force Spotify to default to SD at the first download; all further downloads will follow into SD, even after you free up that space in IS.

- Reinstall Spotify from Google Play

Now download some tracks from Spotify and use your device’s File Manager to check that they are going into the following : External Storage>SD Card>Android>Data>com.spotify.music>files>spotifycache>storage. Within the ‘storage’ folder you should see folders labelled (for example) ‘01’, ‘0c’, ‘10’, etc. These contain the track files. If you find these, you know that Spotify downloads are now going into SD card (success!).

Attention for this last part : you may need to use the device File Manager to do this last verification step (for some reason, Windows Explorer does not show this folder structure when my device is connected via USB).

[lgeleta]

quick question: what android version are you talking about?

[woodandrew90]

I am using 5.0 on my LG G3.

The key part of resolving is to delete that com.spotify.music folder from internal storage.  Uninstalling the app does not delete that folder (and therefore even after a fresh install of the app, the app will keep defaulting to that folder).

If the OP filled up the internal storage later, after Spotify had established the folder in internal storage (" I even filled up my internal storage to make sure. Unfortunately, it still doesn't work."), then nothing but deleting the app AND deleting that folder will resolve the issue.

[langweiligh3]

dude man, it does not work.
And assuming there is just one folder named like this (or two, one on internal, one empty on ext. SD), they get deleted when unistalling the app for me. Android-Data-com.Spotify.music, right?!
that's why I wrote no "delete spotify folders" solutions in my opening post...

[Ad1000]

User of 5.1 Lollipop

Reinstallation works to me. Thanks for the info.

Before new download plus installation delete the com.spotify.music folder from internal storage. 

Spotify creates folders on SD card as well as in Internal memory, however, it uses the folder on the SD card.

Best regards,

Ad

[woodandrew90]

@ Langweilih

Unistalling the app does NOT delete the com.spotify.music folder in internal storage. That is why it must be deleted after app uninstall. (and note that it may be called something different, according to Spotify or Android).  Simply, delete any folder starting with com.spotify

Also, the ability of Windows Explorer to map the folders and files in a device attached via USB isn't perfect. I had to use the devices own file explorer to check that the new com.spotify.x folder was on SD card (Windows Explorer could not see it).

Overall, and per other recent comments in similat threads on this forum, wouldn't it be so much simpler if Spotify simply let you define which storage device to use?!

My experience was:

1.  Music originally installed to SD card (by default)

2. Had problems with app crashing, so unistalled and reinstalled (I did not dismount of change any SD card settings)

3. On reinstall, music was downloading to internal stoarge. WHY?  All folders etc were still on the SD card!!!!!!

So I had to follow the procedure per my previous post to force Spotify to download music to SD card (and yes, yet another uninstall + resinstall + download music, just to fix a Spotify problem)

[1113012192]

I am in the same situation as you. When I uninstall the application, "com.spotify ..." folder is deleted too. I tried to simply remove the folder without uninstalling the application but it does not. How then?

[myshya]

Hey,

Have you tried modifying app permissions? Marshmallow allows to do that without having a root, so maybe they changed?

[lgeleta]

It is not a configuration issue. It is a bug. Spotify is not (yet) Marshmallow compatible.

[lgeleta]

The funny thing is that it has to have the permission to write to external SD as it creates its cache directory there but it does not save the music files to external SD.

[Bretbretterson]

Any word on this? Just upgraded to Marshmallow on my moto x pure and now Spotify will only save to internal despite uninstalling, deleting the cache, deleting the folders...everything. Come on Spotify, the option to save to SD used to be there. It should be a function, certainly for those of us that are paying for it.

[woodandrew90]

I am curious (and concerned) about this because Marshmallow is supposedly coming for LG G3 soon.

So if I currently have Android 5 and Spotify Correctly saving download to SD card now, what happens when I update to M?

I don't uninstall Spotify or the music currently on my SD Card.

After installation of M, will Spotify switch to saving any new downloads to internal memory? Will Spotify still show and access music that was previously downloaded onto SD?

[lgeleta]

If you already have Marshmallow and you are experiencing a problem open a ticket with support to make them feel the pressure.
Regarding the upgrade, in my case after the upgrade application decide it a new device, exceeding the number of allowed devices, and removed offline content. Subsequent downloads were written to internal storage.

[averytleopold]

+1 on this. I'm having the same issue and I have a moto x pure as well. Tried everything to no avail. Come on spotify... it looks like people have been having this issue for weeks!

[Bretbretterson · Accepted solution]

Solution for moto x pure right here: https://community.spotify.com/t5/forums/mobileforumtopicpage/board-id/spotifyandroid/page/1/thread-i...

[averytleopold]

Just tried this and it worked... thanks a ton!!

[Charlo852]

I have the same problem. 

Phone is LG G4

and just upgraded to Marshmallow. 

This is DRIVING ME NUTS.  

I think the problem lies with how the external SD Card gets named by the system.  So my SD card is "1" like all Android versions before, it's "B334-081A".  May be randomized.  

Seems like Spotify app can't find the external SD card perhaps.  I tried the solution posted on:

https://community.spotify.com/t5/forums/mobileforumtopicpage/board-id/spotifyandroid/page/1/thread-i...

But NO LUCK!

Can anyone contact Spotify to fix this?