How to refresh a playlist after a change?

[carlosdurana]

I'm making some changes on a playlist with web API, like adding or removing a song, and that changes don't take effect automatically. 

How do I solve this problem?

Thanks in advance.

[Hubo]

Hey @carlosdurana, thanks for posting on the Spotify for Developers board!

Hmm, just to make sure, the playlist doesn't refresh in your apps after making changes with the API? Could you check if the playlist updates in the Web Player after refreshing? That might help. Let me know how you get on!

Have a great day,
Hubo

[ertdredge]

Hi, all.

Plan Premium

Country USA

Devices iPhone 8, Macbook Pro mid 2014

Operating Systems iOS 13.4.1, Mac OS 10.14.6

My Question or Issue

I've also got an app hitting the web API to add and remove tracks from a publicly visible playlist.  It's been generally doing exactly what I want for several months, updating the playlist followed by the changes being instantly pushed and visible to anyone, as @carlosdurana is hoping for in the top of this thread.  In my testing there have been some instances of mobile or webapp clients not getting the playlist updates, but it worked reliably on the desktop clients.

About two weeks ago, however, the playlist updates stopped automatically pushing to others on any client:  When I add a track via the Web API the playlist is updated, but no client app updates until you click away to a different playlist and then back (at which point the playlist is correctly displayed.)

This issue is not a problem for playlist updates made manually via client apps:  If I add a track to the playlist myself from either a desktop or mobile app, it's instantly visible on any other client apps I or anyone else has looking at the same playlist.

While trying to figure out what's going on this week, I noticed it was fixed for a while yesterday morning, but as of now it's broken again.

Did something change this month?

Thanks,

- Ert

[carlosdurana]

Hi @Hubo, thanks for your quick reply on this.

Yes, I've tried on the Web Player, Windows Client, Linux Client and it has the same result.
After a few changes (add, remove and reorder) made with the API, it stops to refresh/update the playlist and I have to do it manually.
Thanks again.

Best Regards,
Carlos Durana

[carlosdurana]

Hi @ertdredge, thanks for your support on this.

By my tests it looks like with a certain amount of changes, the playlist became somehow "blocked" for auto refresh. I say this because I've tried with a playlist and at start it did refresh but after a while it stopped, then I've tried on the Web Player and Linux Client, with the same playlist, and it didn't refresh as well.
Hope they fix this problem.

Best Regards,
Carlos Durana

[ertdredge]

@carlosdurana yeah, I'm curious since this worked fine for me for many months before seeing this problem.

I did some spelunking and found someone posting about this exact problem over 3 years ago followed by a fix rolled out for it a few days later.

[carlosdurana]

That's the same problem...
At first I was thinking that could be related with the rate limits of the requests but the code returned by them does not indicate that...lets see what they say about it and hope they solve this problem...

[carlosdurana]

Reply duplicated, sorry!

Hi @Hubo, thanks for your quick reply on this.

Yes, I've tried on the Web Player, Windows Client, Linux Client and it has the same result.
After a few changes (add, remove and reorder) made with the API, it stops to refresh/update the playlist and I have to do it manually.
Thanks again.

Best Regards,
Carlos Durana

[francoromera]

Same is happening to me. When I remove or add a song to a playlist, the playlist in the database is clearly updated, but none of the clients actually update until i click on another playlist and back on the playlist i changed. It used to work before, and suddenly stopped working. So I asked a friend to try the same and it works for her, and she tried until it stopped working for her too. So there is clearly a limit. Is there anything I can provide to help troubleshoot the issue? I am using API to make changes, and the clients are Spotify 1.1.48.625.g1c87c7f7 (for Mac), and Spotify 8.5.89.901 (for Android)

[ertdredge]

@francoromera do you happen to have noticed any more about how the limit manifested? Like, was your friend just on the page for the playlist, and new songs kept appearing in the playlist as you added them via the API, and then at some point you added the 20th or 100th track and it just didn't show up, is that basically the size of it? Did you happen to have tried again with a new playlist?

I noticed that all of my playlists that I tried this will seemed to have broken all simultaneously.

[drastick]

This exact same thing is happening to me. When adding or removing tracks via the web API I get valid responses but the web player, desktop player and iOS app don’t update unless I leave the playlist, open something else and then return to the playlist. Also if on the playlist before it refreshes the song ends it does not play the song that is added but not visible.

hopefully after almost a year of people having this issue there will be at least some type of response.

[kasperkamperman]

Unfortunately I noticed this too. Playlists always updated perfectly, but currently sometimes they do, sometimes not (without going back in-out the playlist). 

I tested both in the WebPlayer and the Desktop Mac application and the experience is the same. 

I noticed it even shows wrong tracks. Track number 43 (The Wombats) is also the 1st track of the list, but it's was never added to position 43 (which should be Patti Smith). 

As you can see also the dates added are incorrectly displayed and not updated. 

This is also a fresh playlist (so it's kind of fast blocked for auto-refresh it seems).  

It's clear that something broke the last year. 

I hope someone from Spotify support can chime in. Multiple people are experiencing the same situation.

[baptisteArno]

I have the exact same issue. Did you guys find a workaround?

[3ris]

Also having the exact same issue, have to click to a different playlist and click back for me to see the new changes. It was working fine yesterday, tried clearing my cache, adjusting the rate, uninstalling and reinstalling the spotify desktop client, clearing cookies, still no fix.

[carlosdurana]

It's really a shame to see that this problem ins't yet solved...

[ertdredge]

Since this started over a year ago I've worked around it as best I can.  A newly created playlist pushes updates to all clients when the update is made via the API the same as the UI for approximately the first 100 updates, and then it starts showing the behavior described in this thread.  So I create fresh playlists when I need this functionality and it works again for a while using that one.  Extremely annoying.

[BonzoBuckeye]

And true to apps getting too big, no responses, no fixes, We are just OUT OF LUCK

[BonzoBuckeye]

It does not update or make the lists current between devices.

[WeSound]

Hello everyone. 

Any update? I have the same issue.

[PidoAyala]

Hey, it's 2025 already, and the issue hasn't gotten resolved yet. Any word on this from the devs?