The application is not responding

[Sanctus2099]

Spotify gets unresponsive -> You close it. Try to reopen it and you get a message box with "The Application is not responding". Only works again if you go to task manager and kill any process that's related to Spotify.

This has been reported before by loads of people but the topic here was randomly closed without a solution in a very tone deaf way: https://community.spotify.com/t5/Desktop-Windows/The-Spotify-application-is-not-responding/m-p/54134...

Most people report the exact same thing and somehow it's marked as "too general".

[Sanctus2099]

And the number one solution reported by the mods (which every user agrees does not work) is to uninstall everything, if possible even windows and potentially to disassemble and reassemble the PC.

[thisisnthelping]

Plan

Premium

Country

USA

Device

System Model HP Pavilion Laptop 15-cs1xxx

Operating System

OS Name Microsoft Windows 10 Home

My Question or Issue

I am wondering why the thread

https://community.spotify.com/t5/Desktop-Windows/The-Spotify-application-is-not-responding/td-p/5201...
was locked, when it was not resolved nor do I not see it listed in ongoing issues?
The instructions given were to do full clean re-installs of the app, but as the other more technologically inclined individuals on that thread described, that is but a temporary band-aid for an ongoing issue with, what seemed to be discovered in that thread, both versions available for Windows, from the App store and Website. I have this time many problems a week and am considering switching to another service if it cannot be addressed. I am running Spotify version: Spotify for Windows 1.1.90.859.gf1bb1e36(.) Am I to understand it was locked because the best conclusive solution to be provided is to re-install it every time? Perhaps there is a thread time limit before it locks but irregardless this one is still happening for me. Thanks!

[user-removed]

I am having this problem at this very moment. 

[Vasil]

Hey everyone!

Would you mind letting us know if your currently installed version of Spotify is downloaded from our website or from the Microsoft App Store :?
We could try installing the one that is not currently present on your device to see if that makes a difference.

Let's troubleshoot this cleanly so that we can get a valid resolution as soon as possible 🙂
Thanks a lot!

[karatektus]

i have installed it from your website.

for other details see my post in the "tonedeaf closed thread" 😉

[aebra]

Oddly, the other thread was locked and it was mentioned that we should check the Ongoing Issues board, but if you try going to that page to search you'll see that you end up searching *forum discussions* like this one and not the issues board. How is that even useable? I did try spending some time sifting through existing issues *manually* and then found this issue reported in *2020*, but was marked as "Not right now" as the resolution. The solution reported there also doesn't seem to fix anything.

The message seems to be pretty clear from Spotify - the moderators here in the forum or the issues board don't actually solve problems, but will certainly offer you suggestions ad nauseam until it is deemed they can't actually help you. I wonder if any of the issues actually make it to the status of a bug report where a real software developer takes a look.

[karatektus]

nah. this is first level support. you gotta get through the "deflect" layer of dev protection 😛

[Eni]

Hey folks, 

Thanks for getting in touch about this. 

@karatektus, we appreciate all the info you shared in the other post, but just to confirm what Vasil mentioned above, have you already tried installing the Microsoft Store version? We want to cover all our bases to try and find a solution for this. 

@aebra, as mentioned in the other thread, there isn't a specific cause for this issue and it can be due to different root causes for each individual case, that's why we started this new thread. The ongoing issue you mentioned is for a specific scenario (using Search), but thanks for letting us know that the suggestion mentioned there didn't work for you. We'd also like to confirm which version of the app you're using (Microsoft Store or the one from our website) and whether you're having the same issue using the other version.

 We'll be on the lookout.

[thisisnthelping]

I provided that information in my original support question. As I already specified in my original message as well, the version does not make a difference. Many customers have explained over and over that you go through the same support questions and end with the answer that you have to do a full re-install every time it glitches out. The question I  am asking is; is any further investigation into this well established issue going to be done, or is your final support conclusion to re-install the entire program because of a bug?

[OscarDC]

Hey folks,

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

This issue is currently Under Investigation by the internal teams and we hope to get it resolved as soon as possible. However, the Spotify version you have could be important as newer versions may include a fix for a reported issue or some other files to correct a behavior within the app.

We'd recommend adding your +Vote and subscribe to the main thread to be aware of any updates on this. In case you haven't done it yet, include in the main thread the Spotify version you're currently running while the team keeps investigating. We appreciate your patience and understanding.

If you have any additional questions, don't hesitate to ask.

[aebra]

The main thread you are linking is for the application crashing, which is a different issue than what has been reported here as the application not responding. In fact, the app is unresponsive and usually requires the task manager to quit where the other issue that you are referring to is with the app automatically closing.

[karatektus]

omegalol this is so stupid. its like you run into one firstlevel supportperson after another without them either talking to one another or even reading the thread 😄

I would laugh if I wasnt paying for it.

[karatektus]

okay today and yesterday i noticed something. I feel like it happens once everytime after I boot up my PC. 
Also: The UI crashed today as usual, but the music didnt stop playing. even after I closed the application it still played. It stopped after closing "the one" process.

[Sanctus2099]

I've recently switched jobs, and the work PC already came with windows 11 and Spotify installed from the Microsoft store. So far I haven't had any of the same issues with it (after 2 days of usage), but it will be a long time until I update my home PC to win11 given all the missing/broken features in it.

[Sanctus2099]

Do you even read the topic before you think to herd people to a very different issue?

[thisisnthelping]

Again as already described by others, that's not the same issue. No one in this thread said they're having issues with the app crashing. It was very clearly detailed as going unresponsive until closed, and then saying "the application is not responding." upon attempting to startup again. This is a seperate issue as crashing. Will that be investigated, or will it just be lumped into an unrelated issue?

[litemotiv]

Here is one scenario in which this happened for me, i will compare the Windows app (from the MS store) to the Android version. Both involve playing through a Spotify Connect speaker.

Android

App is used night before to play via Connect.

Pick up phone in morning, press play.

Music starts playing locally on phone.

Select Spotify Connect speaker and music shifts to speaker.

Windows

App is used night before to play via Connect.

Open laptop in morning (resume after hibernate), press play.

No output is audible locally or remote.

Close app and restart, popup says "Spotify is not responding".

Kill Spotify in Task Manager and everything works again.

So in this scenario the Windows app seems to stall/hang trying to play via a stale Connect output, which was retained in it's memory due to the laptop hibernating. 

[Yordan]

Hi everyone,

Thanks for the inputs so far and thanks @litemotiv for sharing this method. Something you could try is running the Spotify app in compatibility mode for a lower version of Windows to see if it would have any effect. This can be done by right-clicking the app > Properties > Compatibility.

As for the error message appearing when you attempt to start the app again, this is the expected behavior. When the app becomes unresponsive, the Spotify processes are still running in Task Manager. Closing the unresponsive window does not kill them immediately - they will still be running in the background for a short period.

Since there can be only one instance of Spotify running at a time (i.e. you cannot have two Spotify-windows simultaneously), when you try and open the app again (from the desktop, for example), Windows attempts to pull up the window that's frozen and since it's unresponsive, the error message is displayed. 

What we can try and troubleshoot is why the app becomes unresponsive in the first place. If you notice a pattern which triggers this behavior, like @litemotiv do share it here so it can be looked into.

Thanks and take care!

[STARWOLF760]

any news about this issue?