Local file became unplayable

[HalfBeerOneNugget]

Plan

Premium

Country

France

Device

Samsung Galaxy S9

Operating System

Android

My Question or Issue

Hi,

Yesterday i had a local file on my desktop application and then synced it on my android device.

Then i played the song 2 or three times on my android device. But when i wanted to play it another time, i couldn't because the track became grey. I don't understant why because it worked few seconds before.

How can i fix this ?

[Taylith]

Hello there @HalfBeerOneNugget 

In order to play a local file on any device, it needs to be available and uploaded on any device. This means if you have the file on desktop, you will struggle to play it elsewhere even if you've synced accounts across devices.

A quick fix would be to have it on your android device as well and upload it to Spotify.

Take care.

[HalfBeerOneNugget]

Hi Taylith,

Thank you for your answer.

Do you know why the track was playable (i was in my car) and suddently became unplayable ?
It's weird.
Moreover, on my Android device, there is the green circle with downward-arrow pictogram that shows that the song is downloaded.

[Taylith]

Hello once again @HalfBeerOneNugget 

I'm guessing it's the same issue as the one with your android device.

You were only able to play the track temporarily on the android and  car because it didn't exist locally on those devices.

It is possible for the download button to still appear despite the track being unplayable.

I have the same issue with my liked songs, the whole playlist is downloaded but some songs are grayed out and unplayable.

Can you try saving the audio locally on your android and uploading to Spotify. It should then become playable.

[HalfBeerOneNugget]

Hello Taylith,

It's a shame to have to manually copy songs to all our devices. This means that if I have 3 devices, as soon as I add a song on one of them, I have to add them on the other 2 as well.
It's weird that a company like Spotify didn't handle this...

[Taylith]

Hey there @HalfBeerOneNugget 

I do get your point and I apologize.

Thing is you uploading local content to your app is not really the same as when an artist does. In the artist's case, there are procedures followed and so Spotify becomes able to host a track so that all/almost all users can access it.

If your songs were to be accessible across multiple devices, they would have to be stored on Spotify.

It may even open the door to various crimes and put artists at a disadvantage.

Maybe some day there'll be a workaround to this. Take care. 🎼