Desktop App lagging and crashing consistently

[jfinleypelletier]

Plan

Premium

Country

United States of America

Device

Issue only occurs on Windows 10 desktop computer.

Operating System

Windows 10

My Question or Issue

The Desktop App on my Windows 10 computer has not worked in months. No matter what it is on the app it seems like it has -1 ram and cannot handle any of the default functions. I have played with the settings and looked up troubleshoots on multiple occasions, and despite trying several different fixes, the app is still perpetually laggy and slow. There is no use using it, because it just starts cutting out after a couple songs, and all the inputs are insanely delayed the longer the app is open.

Has this ever been solved before? I have searched these forums and how found nothing of use, but the people I know who use the desktop app have the same issues. Is there an alternative way to use the app? I have tried using web player, the web-downloaded app, and the app-store-downloaded app. None of those work. I am very tech-savvy, and I have truly tried everything I can possibly think of.

[kibbels14]

I haven’t had it be as laggy or cut out as you seem to be having it do, but it does apparently have some issues with Windows 10 for sure. My problems surround it taking forever to start up and then sometimes having to close and reopen it cause it will suddenly not be able to find songs. I usually blame it on my desktop since I think I need more Ram anyhow, but I’ve definitely seen several posts about issues with it on Windows 10

[Susan_GP]

Hi there folks,

Thanks for posting in the Community and welcome.

You mention trying out different troubleshooting steps to resolve the situation. Could you tell us what you've tried to avoid repeating steps? Additionally, could you send us a video recording of this behavior? You can attach it in your next reply in mp4 format, or you can also upload it to YouTube or Google Drive and make it public.

On another note, @jfinleypelletier, you mention using the Web Player. Is the performance from the Web Player the same? Have you tried logging in with a different account to check if the performance improves?

We'll be on the lookout.

[jfinleypelletier]

Hey there Susan! Feel free to call me Jack. Thank you for you speedy response.

I have not tried logging into any other accounts, but I use my account on my laptop and have no issues, so I do not think that would be the issue. Happy to try it anyways if you think it could help.

For troubleshooting I have tried restarting the app, redownloading the app, resetting the app via windows app settings, clearing the app cache, clearing the app data, using Spotify by itself, using it with other apps, changing Spotify setting (like hardware acceleration, startup settings, or storage settings), changing streaming and download quality, and simply restarting my computer too. 

This link should take you to the google drive where a video of the issue is. 

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1Ihq-KIhbx_tmeUW_5dEXe6nHwZUrrZO_?usp=drive_link

[Eni]

Hey @jfinleypelletier, 

Thanks for your reply. 

Kudos for the great troubleshooting! No worries, we can try a few more steps to see if they work for you. We tried to open the video you sent, but it looks like it's set to private. Could you please set it to public so we can get access to it? 

On another note, would you mind giving another internet connection a go to see it that makes the difference? You can try creating a hotspot on your phone and using that. 

If the issue persists, we suggest that you go to Settings > toggle on Show Local Files > toggle off all the sources that appear there > toggle off Show Local Files. Then, restart the app. 

Let us know how it goes. 

[jfinleypelletier]

Hey there Eni! 

I have set the video to public viewing with link. I hope the video helps.

I unfortunately cannot try a different Wi-Fi whenever I want, because my computer was built custom and does not have wireless access to the internet. While I do exclusively use an ethernet cord, I have the same issues on my home Wi-Fi and the Wi-Fi in my dorm room so I do not think that is my issue. 

I just tried to find the show local files setting on my computer, but I could not find any setting like that. It shows up on my phone, but my phone works fine. I have used that setting on my phone in the past and not had issues, so I also do not think that the local files is my problem. If the current version of Spotify from the windows app store is supposed to have that setting, then maybe I have the wrong version of Spotify somehow? My app says it is up to date, and I have tried redownloading though so I do not think that is my issue either. 

Also, if someone sent me a video of the current updated UI and settings I would be able to easily determine if my app is somehow on an older version. 

Let me know if you have other ideas.

[Ivelina]

Thanks a lot for the video, Jack @jfinleypelletier. We appreciate the cooperation!

As you mentioned that you don't see the setting to enable Local Files in the app on your PC, it's worth going to the basics when it comes to troubleshooting, so giving the app a clean reinstall with the steps here in order to get rid of any corrupted cache or broken files is a good idea.

If you're currently using the app version from the Microsoft Store and this is happening there, the reinstall would delete it and then we recommend that you download Spotify directly from our website here. Keep in mind that the two apps can have a slightly different behavior, so let's see if anything changes when you completely delete the one you're running so there are no leftover files and change to the other one.

Then the option to enable Local Files should be in Settings > Your Library > Show Local Files. Toggle it on just in case to see if that'll change anything.

Thanks and hope to hear from you soon 🙂

[jfinleypelletier]

Thank you Ivelina! 

I had no idea that the two apps were separate. I believe I have tried to use both, and I must have kept the wrong one. I will download that later today and get back to you. 

Stay tuned for an update. Many thanks.

[jfinleypelletier]

After a good 10 minutes of use with no issues I am happy to say I think it is fixed. Thanks to everyone who was so quick to help you all are wonderful! 

For others having similar issues, mine was fixed when I deleted every version of Spotify from my computer and then redownloaded it from the online download link provided by Ivelina. Additionally, when I first opened the app this time I changed my download setting to where it would not download any songs. Before, I had a couple thousand songs downloaded which may have affected the performance. I am thinking that change helped as well. 

Take care everyone!

[jfinleypelletier]

I spoke too soon. Unfortunately it has started lagging and slowing down a lot again. I followed your reinstallation instructions closely and still have the issue. Just now it took an entire song's length to stop playing music after I closed it.       😞

[Ivelina]

Hi again @jfinleypelletier and once again, thank you for the update!

Since you mentioned that you have quite a lot of downloaded songs on your account, do you think you could try logging into a friend's or a relative's account to see if the performance of the app would remain the same? At this point it's also worth checking just so we're sure!

Have you also tested if it makes any difference if you don't have any content downloaded?

On another note, were you able to find the Local Files setting?

Thanks and keep us posted.

[jfinleypelletier]

No luck with those ideas, but it does help when I do not have any content downloaded (I will leave it like that). 

It was a little better with the other account, but still started to stutter bad after a minute.

I did end up finding local files. I do not think that turning them on made any difference (I had it off before).

Any other ideas?

[Maria]

Hey @jfinleypelletier,

Thanks for keeping us in the loop! Let's dig deeper into this a bit, there's a few more thing we can check.

Does Spotify start using a lot of resources in Task Manager when the issue occurs? And does the app exhibit the same behavior when navigating through the interface using the keyboard instead of the mouse? You can find a list of useful keyboard shortcuts by pressing Ctrl + /.

Also, did you notice any difference when listening to music through the Web Player, compared to the desktop app? Feel free to send us a video of how it look from your end while using the Web Player, so that we can have a look as well.

What you can also try is running the app while using Safe Mode. You can check the steps on how to do it here. It's worth checking for any updates to your device's OS in this case as well, just to make sure we cover all bases.

Let us know how it goes.

[jfinleypelletier]

Hey Maria, 

It does tend to use extra resources, and it keeps that behavior with keyboard or mouse. 

I actually just got the web player to work somehow, so the web player is fixed completely for me. 

I tried running Spotify while my computer was in safe mode and while it did not slow down quite as much it still was glitchy. This time it simply wasn't playing certain songs and also took a while to load in my playlists.

I am happy to now just use the web player but if we can still find the issue with that app that would be great so let me know if this information tells you anything.

[Maria]

Hey @jfinleypelletier,

Thanks for providing us with some more details, we appreciate it!

We've looked into this, however, we haven't been getting many reports of this nature recently, and we are not able to recreate the issue from our end. As a heads-up, considering the amount of troubleshooting you've tried so far, it's possible that the issues are related to the specific setup.

With this in mind, we cannot guarantee when this will be resolved for you, as the root cause quite possibly lies in how the app interacts with the device, accounts, or an network you use, but doesn't affect every user of Spotify. With each new version of the app we adjust things, which means that it's possible that whatever is causing these playback issues would change, but in this case we can't give a timeframe for when it will be fixed.

We suggest keeping your app up-to-date in the meantime, and using the Web Player if possible.

Should anything else appear, the Community is here for you!