"This track isn't available on your device" for some local files

[edichez]

Plan

Premium

Country

US

Device

Asus Zenfone 9

Operating System

Android 13

My Question or Issue

I have a playlist with several hundred tracks unavailable on spotify. These local tracks are available on my PC and I can play them with no issue. Several years ago I followed a Spotify guide that's no longer available to have these available on my phone (Create a playlist on the PC, connect to the same network on both devices, and then download the playlist on my phone). 

Recently I've had an issue where some of these songs are unavailable, despite others working perfectly. Sometimes even on the same album, some will work and some won't. You can see in the attached screenshots that some of the songs work and some don't. All files are mp3s.

Steps tried:

Clean install

Redownloading while on the same network

The problem persists with the same tracks not working

[edichez]

The screenshots mentioned, I had to retry posting and they were lost

[Fatimakomal]

1. Check File Format: Make sure that all your local tracks are in a supported format, such as MP3, and that they are not corrupted.

2. Metadata and Tags: Ensure that the metadata and tags (artist, album, track name) for the songs are correctly set. Incorrect or missing metadata can sometimes cause playback issues.

3. File Location: Verify that the files are still in the same location on your PC. If you moved or deleted them, Spotify won't be able to access them.

4. File Permissions: Check the file permissions on the tracks that aren't playing. Make sure they are accessible to the Spotify app.

5. Local Files Settings in Spotify: In the Spotify desktop app, go to Settings > Local Files and ensure the folder containing your local tracks is added and toggled on.

6. Network Connection: Ensure that both your PC and mobile device are connected to the same network when attempting to sync local files.

7. Firewall/Antivirus: Sometimes, security software can block local file streaming. Check your firewall or antivirus settings to ensure Spotify is allowed to access local files.

8. Recreate the Playlist: Create a new playlist with the same tracks and try syncing it to your mobile device.

9. Spotify App Updates: Ensure that both your desktop and mobile Spotify apps are updated to the latest versions.

10. Cache and Storage: In the Spotify mobile app, go to Settings > Storage and try clearing the cache. Then re-download the playlist.

11. Reinstall Spotify: If none of the above steps work, you may want to try reinstalling the Spotify app on your mobile device.

Please try these steps 

[edichez]

I did all of the suggested steps before posting and they changed nothing, even a clean reinstall of the app didn't help.

[AlejaR]

Hey @edichez,

Thanks for posting in the Community and for all the info you shared here.

We're aware syncing between devices might have some difficulties. Keep in mind there's a new Local Files experience in which there's no need to sync the files from one device to the other, as the files can be stored on phones.

In this case, we'd suggest you store your files on your mobile device and then follow the steps in this article to be able to see them on the app. Your stored music will be in the Local Files folder in your library. Make sure that both your app and your mobile device are up-to-date. Give it a try and let us know how it goes.

Keep us in the loop!

[Francesco10]

Storing the files on the phone doesnt fix the same issue for me

[edichez]

My device was already set up that way and I just confirmed it still doesn't work. 

[Yordan]

Hey folks,

Something that may help here is rebooting your phone, so feel free to give it a try. In case the issue persists, and the songs remain unplayable even after uploading them on your phone's internal storage, it's possible that the files are DRM protected. In that case I'd recommend obtaining a different version of the files.

Hope you get this sorted out.

[edichez]

I have rebooted the phone, attempted to redownload the songs on the same network as the PC, and had a clean install of the app. None of these worked. It's also not a problem with the files being DRM protected, since some of the songs from the same CD are perfectly functional, while others aren't (these are all from the same physical CD I own and ripped). 

[Susan_GP]

Hi @edichez,

Thanks for your reply and the info provided.

Just to confirm, the tracks that you're unable to play on Spotify are stored in your mobile device's storage, right? If they are, we'd first recommend searching for the files and making sure they are playable (not from Spotify, but by playing them directly from where they're stored on your device). 

Let us know how that goes.

[edichez]

Hello,

Yes, they're available and play perfectly fine on my PC, even from Spotify itself. 

This is a screenshot of one of the songs which are broken on my phone working fine in the player.

[Maria]

Thanks for keeping us in the loop @edichez!

Could you double-check if the songs play after adding them to a playlist? Just head over to Your Library > select the Local Files folder > Add the songs to a playlist.

Since you also tried a clean reinstall, feel free to follow the steps under Android on this page, just to make sure that the settings are up-to-date and that the tracks you have saved on your phone are available to be processed by the app.

Keep us posted on how it goes.

[edichez]

The songs were already in a playlist, since this is how the old design for local files used to work and they were all functional before. I went ahead and removed one from the playlist and added it back, the phone tried to download it, but it didn't work.

My phone and desktop are already set up for local files, the guide only shows me settings that are already set up that way on my machines.

[edichez]

So I did some digging myself, I can't look at the logs on the device or anything, but I managed to figure out that every single song that my phone's unable to download is one that's on my computer as a .flac and also as a .mp3. Not all of these songs are failing, but all the ones that are failing follow that. I'm guessing for some reason Spotify is choosing the wrong file. 

@Francesco10 were your files in a similar situation?

[sp3ctr3]

This is so bad. Right now it randomly works, sometimes only when Desktop Spotify is open, sometimes it downloads 90 % of songs but shows they are downloaded. Spotify broke the feature. Im so close ending my Premium subscription because this feature is only thing i need from Spotify

[Suwi]

Change the name for example the file name is: Ariana Grande '7 rings'.mp3 and try changing it to just 7rings.mp3

[Jojo2011]

I had this exact same issue. The only thing that worked for me was renaming the file.

[Jojo2011]

Never mind. The same thing happened again. So frustrating. 

[Werfer404]

I followed along with all the suggested steps in this thread as well.

About a month ago, I first noticed the issue, but it seemed to resolve itself after a few hours.

It happened one or two more times in the following weeks, and took longer to resolve each time, but still did by the next day.

Now it seems stuck in this state.  About 20% of my local files are greyed out and cannot be played in Spotify, even though they're downloaded through Spotify to my Android phone and can be played on my phone when not using the Spotify App.

My phone also seems to permanently place a few songs out of order in the playlist.  The first song in my playlist is randomly switching places with another random local file.  If I view this playlist in the desktop app, or the web player, there are no issues in the ordering.

I tried deleting and/or reordering those specific songs from my phone, but then it just picks another file to start mixing the order with if I move/delete the problematic one.

I've tried uninstalling/reinstalling the app, clearing all data / caches, resetting the desktop file locations, and everything else in this thread.  If this can't be fixed I really have no reason to continue paying for premium and will just switch to something else that can manage local files in playlists.

Interestingly, when I redownload the playlist after clearing out all local files, many of the greyed out songs are temporarily playable.  I can play them in Spotify, and it will continue to play even after they suddenly become greyed out mid-listen.  Trying to navigate back and forth will then jump to the nearest non-greyed out song, and I can't play the one I was just listening to anymore.

I had changed nothing before this issue started intermittently occurring.  I can still download the local songs to my phone just fine using the playlist (and play them if not using the Spotify App).  The file type extensions also all seem fine.

This is an extremely time-consuming issue to debug and causing endless frustration.  I'm happy to provide more info, but please take this one seriously.

[Werfer404]

I have noticed what I think may be a root cause:

On my Android phone, internal storage > Music > Spotify > Synced files

This synced files folder is recreated even after I'd completely deleted it, and has a very random folder structure within it.  I think it's trying to group by metadata, but is not doing a very good job of it.

It has a pretty random assorted of songs in it, such as song_tiltle and song_title(1), indicating it is downloading a duplicate versions of some of them.

If I view local files on my phone in the Spotify App, I can see multiple versions of some of the problematic songs (though not all)

Some of these versions play, others do not.  They are all .mp3 files.  The greyed out versions in the playlist I've been trying to fix seem to consistently be pulling in the versions that do not work, even when everything is deleted and recreated from scratch.  These files were working just fine for years beforehand though.

Deleting these duplicates, deleting the entire synced folder, uninstalling/redownloading the Spotify App, and every combination of this has not fixed the issue.

It will still grey out the exact same songs after a few seconds, mix up the order of the first song with some random local file, and then then recreate the Spotify > Synced files folder on my phone with the same small subset of songs in random subfolders.

This never used to be an issue, and I've changed nothing for a long time, so I'm pretty sure some change that was pushed on Spotify's end is the root cause.  I *really* hope this can be addressed soon though because I basically can't use the service I'm paying for until it is.