Artists showing in Recently Played Artists list despite being in private session

[wurdahmekanik]

Devices

All devices

Operating System

All OSs

My Question or Issue

Pretty self explanatory: artists are suddenly showing up in my Recently Played Artists list despite me being in a Private Session. This never used to be the case, but I noticed it started happening a few days ago. This seems to be a bug.

As a side note: the layout of this community forum is horrible and it's really unclear if this is actually a good place to file a bug report, or if this is just going to be treated as a discussion that no one from the team ever actually sees.

[MateusM]

Hey @wurdahmekanik! Thanks for reaching out!

Can you double-check if the “Recently played artists” option is turned off? You can find it by going to Settings > Privacy and social > and then look under Listening activity. Turning that off should completely prevent your recent artists from showing up on your profile. You can find more details about it here.

Keep me posted, and let me know if you meant something else!
/Mateus

[wurdahmekanik]

That's not what I meant. The expected / previous behavior was that when in a private session, any artists played would not show in Recently Played Artists. Adding artists to the RPA list regardless of whether one is in a private session is new behavior, and I would consider it a bug because it goes against the idea of activity being private if it can still be viewed.

[MateusM]

Thanks for clarifying @wurdahmekanik! 

Private Sessions automatically end after 6 hours or when you restart the app, so it’s possible the session ended without you realizing. Also, make sure it was switched on right before you started listening (padlock icon on desktop or toggle in mobile settings). You can read more details about this here.

If everything was set up correctly and artists still showed up in your Recently Played, can you send me the make and model of your device, along the OS and Spotify version you're using?

Keep me in the loop!
/Mateus 

[wurdahmekanik]

It definitely did not end, and they were being logged while the padlock was on and while the Android app displayed "private session" at the bottom. This happens on every device I use and every Spotify client I use, which is why I put "all devices" and "all OSs" in my original message (this includes but is not limited to Asus Zenfone 10, Linux desktop app, and Windows desktop app)

[MateusM]

Hey @wurdahmekanik!

Thanks for the extra info and for confirming you’re using Private Session the right way.

We’ve passed this on to the right team so they can take a closer look too. There’s no specific timeframe for now, but in the meantime, make sure to keep the app updated so you don’t miss any fixes.

Hope this helps!
/Mateus

[Olika]

Hi, recently noticed that while listening to music on "private session" the history is visible on profile's "recently played artists". It never happened before, always the artists stayed also private, and were not included in my public profile view. Why such a change? I hope this is an temporary error.