[Web API] recommendations not returned for genre seeds

[kkhal]

As of the last couple of hours the recommendations endpoint isn't returning tracks related to genre seeds.

example request: https://api.spotify.com/v1/recommendations?seed_artists=&seed_genres=rock&seed_tracks=&limit=20&mark...

example response: 

{
"tracks" : [ ],
"seeds" : [ {"initialPoolSize" : 0, "afterFilteringSize" : 0, "afterRelinkingSize" : 0, "id" : "rock", "type" : "GENRE", "href" : null} ]
}

Recommendations are still returned for artist and track seeds. The response has 249 or 250 for each of the three numeric "seeds" properties, but 0 for genre seeds.

[k8brune]

im also experiencing this issue, any work arounds ?

[derN3rd]

Having the same issue right now.

All genres return an href of null and no recommendations at all.

Only "work around" right now is to add an artist from one of the genres and then a maximum of 4 genres.

[spotifyjosh]

Thank you for reporting this, folks. We're looking into the problem further here. I will update this thread when I know more.

[kkhal]

"Only "work around" right now is to add an artist from one of the genres and then a maximum of 4 genres."

Unfortunately in this case I think it will currently only return recommendations based on the artist, not on the genres. I normally use the "Disney" genre for testing as it has an obvious impact, but no "Frozen" suggestions today!

[kkhal]

I've just checked this again, and it looks like this has been fixed. 

[derN3rd]

Yes, works also for me again

[spotifyjosh]

@kkhal @derN3rd Glad to hear it's working again for you. We resolved a bug on our side that was affecting this endpoint. Thanks again for reporting the problem here 🙏

[Moikle]

This seems to be broken again.
Example request:

'https://api.spotify.com/v1/recommendations?limit=20&seed_genres=indie+rock%2Cmodern+alternative+rock...'

It is just returning an empty response with my query genres sent back to me:
{'tracks': [], 'seeds': [{'initialPoolSize': 0, 'afterFilteringSize': 0, 'afterRelinkingSize': 0, 'id': 'indie rock', 'type': 'GENRE', 'href': None}, {'initialPoolSize': 0, 'afterFilteringSize': 0, 'afterRelinkingSize': 0, 'id': 'modern alternative rock', 'type': 'GENRE', 'href': None}, {'initialPoolSize': 0, 'afterFilteringSize': 0, 'afterRelinkingSize': 0, 'id': 'modern rock', 'type': 'GENRE', 'href': None}]}

[kkhal]

This is working OK for me (both yesterday and today), but I don't think the genres you have mentioned are valid.

You can get the valid list from:

https://api.spotify.com/v1/recommendations/available-genre-seeds

The closest valid genre to any of yours is "alt-rock".

https://api.spotify.com/v1/recommendations?seed_genres=alt-rock&limit=20

Note that this list is different from the genres that are returned with artist information.

If you still have any issues - with valid genres - you could try adding the "market" parameter.

[yiyangchen]

Today I have the same issue.

[kkhal]

Yes, this same issue seems to have reoccurred today.

[stosento]

Not to pile on, but yes, seeing the same as @yiyangchen & @kkhal.

[jsfuller77]

Same here as well. Getting recommendations by genre has been working well for me for well over six months, then suddenly stopped working last week. Is there any update from Spotify yet?

[hution]

Me too as well. Things were fine last week for me when requesting by genre_seed but this week the recommendations I get back are empty.

[teacherc]

This is happening to me as well. 

[f2villa]

Happened to me as well...

[kkhal]

This is now likely to be not working due to the recent removal of several API endpoints, including this.

https://community.spotify.com/t5/Spotify-for-Developers/Changes-to-Web-API/td-p/6540414