Mysterious Spotify Problem: Just Stops Working Altogether

[user-removed]

Plan

Free

Country

Ireland

Device

ThinkPad Lenovo

Operating System

Windows 11

My Question or Issue

So far, this has been an unresolvable issue for me: I open Spotify, it immediately shows two error messages "sorry something went wrong" and "Spotify can't play this right now, ...". Funnily enough it will work despite this; I click the unpause button and the audio and video works fine, until it doesn't. After about 10 mins (I use Spotify only for podcasts) it completely freezes. Everything stops and nothing is clickable. The close button doesn't work, even opening task manager and clicking "end task" doesn't make it close. The app shows (not responding) when this occurs. The only way I can get it to go away is to restart my laptop completely. 

I've tried so many things so far, I hope I don't forget to mention anything;

- restarting laptop

- uninstalling and reinstalling (Microsoft Store version)

- clearing cache

- signing out, signing back in

- deleting corrupted files

- going into Safe Mode

- Updating Audio Drivers

- Updating everything (Windows and Spotify)

- going into the audio settings on Spotify and turning off local files, turning off hardware acceleration, audio quality, etc (I tested every option in the Spotify settings)

- resetting and repairing the app in windows settings

- I have no adblockers or vpn's operating on my laptop

- resetting all audio settings in windows

- switching between audio outputs 

- troubleshooting everything imaginable

I plan on responding to any suggestions with whether or not I've tried them, and/or if it works.

This has been an issue for the last 3 days, it worked perfectly fine before.

I'm desperate at this point, I've spent hours on forums and trying to fix this issue so I would love to receive some responses.

[user-removed]

I've also reset my PC completely. This is clearly a Spotify issue.

[Joan]

Hi there @user-removed,

Thanks for reaching out. We'll gladly help you get to the bottom of this.

First of all, a sincere thanks for the detailed description and the very thorough troubleshooting you've already done and documented for us! From the looks of things, here are some steps that are yet to be covered. 

Consider trying the following:

• Does this happen on any other device or is only that one Windows PC affected?
• Does the web player behave properly on the same PC?
• If possible, could you log in with your account on a different Windows device and test if any issues occur there?
• If possible, could you log in with a different account on the affected PC? You can use the account of someone you know or make one yourself.
• Does the issue occur on different networks? If you haven't tested this, please do so. You can make a hotspot from your phone if necessary
• Double check your network proxy settings and make sure Spotify is allowed through the firewall.

These will certainly help us narrow down the possible root cause further and find a solution. Please try these steps whenever you can.

Let us know how it goes.

[Ems11]

same person here, i created a new account with spotify which seemed to work for a brief while, and then it stopped working again; it simply says; "sorry we cant play this at the moment" and suggests updating spotify. well, there was no option to install any new update so i just uninstalled it and reinstalled it.. and it didnt fix anything. i would have to resort to using the webpage but this is seriously unnerving.

[OscarDC]

Hey @Ems11,

Thank you for keeping in contact.

To continue investigating this behavior, if you installed the app from the official website, would you mind installing the version available in the Microsoft store (or vice versa) to see if it makes any difference?

Also, taking into account that the new account worked for a brief while, we'd recommend clearing any entries which contain Spotify from the host files on your computer as mentioned in this post.

Hope this helps. Let us know how it goes.

[Ems11]

thanks for the reply, ive done both of these things; even the microsoft store version of the app does not allow me to play anything. I made the effort to delete the spotify entries in the host files back when i was having my first issue, i tried again this time around and it also made no difference. 

[OscarDC]

Hey @Ems11,

Thank you for keeping in contact and for the info shared.

In order to look into this further with the relevant team, and in case you haven't sent it yet; let us know the following info:

- Your device info (make/model) and OS version

- Exact Spotify version

Also, and if possible; could any of you record a short video where we can take a better look? You can attach it to your next response by using the Insert Video option in the post editor. You can also upload it to YouTube or Google Drive and share the link with us (make sure the video has the permissions for anyone to see it).

We'll be on the lookout.