Greyed Out Local Files on iPhone

[hcf01]

Plan: Premium

Country: USA

Device: iPhone 7, MacBook Air

Operating System: iOS 13.3, oS Sierra

My Question or Issue: For the life of me, I can't get my local files to play on my iPhone. Yes, I've been able to in the past, but I can't now. I added my friend's new record to my local files on my MacBook, then created a new playlist. I followed all of the steps, making sure my iPhone and MacBook were connected to the same wifi, making sure "Downloaded" was selected, yet still nothing happens. The songs are greyed out on my iPhone, yet playable on my MacBook. I even deleted and reinstalled Spotify on my MacBook to see if that would help, but it hasn't. I looked in past threads and tried using some of those troubleshooting methods, like connecting my iPhone and MacBook to my personal hotspot, though it didn't work. Any assistance would be greatly appreciated. Thank you.

[slug_camargo]

The last update broke local file indexing whenever the song title has "special" characters, maybe that's the issue?
We have an ongoing thread on this issue over here -> https://community.spotify.com/t5/Desktop-Windows/Local-files-broken-again/m-p/5071755

[Jeremy]

Hey there @hcf01,

Thank you for your post here in the Community.

Can you try the following:

• Add some songs from our catalogue to the playlist as well as the local file/s and make sure you have ‘Show unavailable songs in playlists’ turned on in Settings
• Play some music on the device that has the local files to see if it shows via Connect on the other device
• Make sure the router supports the Bonjour protocol. If the router is made after 2005, it will likely have this protocol. The best way to handle this is to check the router make/model and Google it
• Create a hotspot with the phone and connect the desktop to it, might help

We'll keep an eye out for your reply.

Cheers!

[hcf01]

Hi Jeremy, thanks for getting back to me! I just tried your suggestions and here's what happened:
1) Skipped to playlist radio instead of local files
2) Connect indeed works
3) My router should support the Bonjour protocol
4) Connecting to my personal hotspot didn't change anything
Do you have anymore ideas? Thanks!

[hcf01]

Maybe! Do numbers and parentheses count as special characters?

[Jeremy]

Hey again @hcf01,

Thank you for your reply and confirmation 🙂

Can you confirm if you've followed these steps correctly? 

It can also be good to try with a clean reinstall to make sure there's no old cache files causing this.

Keep us posted 🙂

Cheers!

[hcf01]

Hey Jeremy, I did follow those steps, but I just realized my files are .wav. Is that format not supported?

[Mihail]

Hey @hcf01,

Thanks for getting back to us.

You can find the list of supported formats in this Support Article that @Jeremy linked to. There you'll find also workarounds for certain types. If you don't find the formats of your local files there we recommend that you get in touch with the official distributor for options on how to switch the format.

Keep us posted! We'll be happy to lend a hand if you need more help.