Spotify for Mac Not Responding when Quitting and Not Showing Music Library in Local Files

[aarlihn]

Ever since upgrading to macOS Sonoma, Spotify never quits on its own and is not showing any songs from my Music Library even though Spotify has access to it in System Settings. It always says not responding in the Force Quit Applications window. I’m using a M2 Max MacBook Pro, macOS Sonoma 14.3.1, and Spotify for macOS (Apple Silicon) 1.2.32.997.g4c6498b6. I’ve tried clean reinstalling, looking at host files (didn’t see any lines with “Spotify”), installing an older version, etc. When I look at Spotify in Activity Window when it’s not responding, the CPU is at 99%. Also, when I add “My Music” as a source for Local Files, it only adds ~500 tracks instead of the 3,000+ in my Music Library. Any ideas of what’s going on? Thanks.

[Ivelina]

Hey @aarlihn,

Thanks for posting in the Community!

Let's start troubleshooting this together in order to see if any of the suggested steps would make a difference.

Firstly, go within the Spotify app on your Mac then from the menu on top of your screen click on Spotify (left corner) > Hardware Acceleration so it's unticked and disabled. You may need to restart the app for this change.

It's also worth testing via logging into a friend's or a relative's account and even try with a different Internet connection if you haven't already to see if that changes the app's behavior. You can share mobile data from your phone via Hotspot if that's possible for you.

Thanks and keep us posted on how it goes 🙂

[aarlihn]

Hi Ivelina,

When I went to disable Hardware Acceleration, Spotify started to not respond and I had to force quit. When I restarted, the option was unticked. Now the app is seemingly closing without a problem – except for the last two times I tried switching Local files on/off or adding sources and it froze again. I tried using my iPhone as a Hotspot but I don't know if it changed anything. Spotify opened and closed.

[goonic]

im having the same issue spotify will only close when i force quit it through activity monitor. Turning off hardware acceleration fixes it but makes the app very slow so theres really no point.

[Eni]

Hey @goonic, 

Thanks for getting in touch about this and welcome to the Community! 

Just to confirm, have you already tried running a clean reinstall of the app? If you haven't, we suggest that you do so by following these specific steps. 

If this doesn't do the trick, we suggest that you head to Settings > toggle on Show Local Files > toggle off all the sources that appear there > toggle off Show Local Files and then restart the app.

Keep us posted on how it goes.

[aarlihn]

Also, Liked Songs is showing local files, with some grayed out even though they exist on my Mac and are local, not on Spotify. Something's going on and has been for a while. I tried clean installs, looking for host files but not seeing "Spotify" anywhere to delete, etc. Hopefully someone can look into this for me.

[Maria]

Hey @aarlihn,

Thanks for keeping in touch!

Just to confirm, does this only happen with the Liked Songs playlist? Or are the local files greyed out in other playlists as well? A similar topic is currently being investigated by our teams in this thread. Feel free to have a look and leave a comment there, should it be similar to what you're experiencing.

Also, keep in mind that not all local files might be playable in the app. Have a look under Local File not playing? on this page for more details.

If you need anything else, just let us know!

[aarlihn]

You're welcome. Thanks for looking into this for me.

Local songs also show in the playlists I already added them to, as expected, but they're grayed out so I can't play them, even though they're on my MacBook Pro. OK, I'll look at that thread.

Yep, these aren't new local songs but songs Spotify previously just recognized, before one of the app updates and I upgraded to macOS Sonoma, so the songs are compatible formats. Thanks for your help.

[Ivelina]

Thanks for the response @aarlihn.

Something else that you can give a try is to move the local files into a new folder on your MacBook and then add it.

Let us know if this does the trick!

[aarlihn]

Hi Ivelina,

Thanks for the suggestion. I created a new folder and moved the music from my Music folder to there, and ~300 more songs were added but it's not all of the 3,000+ songs.

[MihailY]

Hey @aarlihn,

Thanks for the additional info.

Can you try opening one of the files that don't show up in an audio editor and saving them as a new file in the same folder? Does the new one appear in the Spotify app?

Let us know how it goes.

[aarlihn]

Hey @Mihaily,

You're welcome. So, first I tried exporting the mp3 song via QuickTime as an .m4a into the same folder and Spotify didn't recognize it. I force quit and that didn't help. Then I converted the .mp3 song again to .m4a and moved it to another folder I was using for Spotify local files. At first Spotify didn't recognize it, but after force quitting multiple times (because I still can't just CMD+Q quit, the app just freezes) then it recognized the one "new" song I had just moved to a different folder. I don't want to have to do this for thousands of songs.

[AlejaR]

Hey @aarlihn,

Thanks for your reply and for all the info you kindly shared.

It's quite a bit of troubleshooting we've been through, and we're at a point where the issues you've experienced recently seem to be related to the Sonoma OS. In that sense, it'd need help from Apple instead.

We've noticed other users have reported similar and different issues related to the latest Sonoma update here. That being said, we'd recommend reaching out to Apple support to get further insights about the recent problems you kindly mentioned.

We'll be on the lookout!