Local files skip/won't play

[unboxedeliza]

Plan

Premium

Country

US

Device

iPhone XR

Operating System

iOS 15.1

My Question or Issue

I've been wrestling with an issue that pops up when I try to sync local files from my computer to my phone, and I've browsed thread after thread on similar problems and tried solution after solution, but nothing has seemed to fix it. Essentially, local files work completely fine on my computer, but when I go to play them on mobile, clicking on one has it pop up as if it's going to play for a split second before it disappears like the song was instantly skipped. I have the playlist downloaded on both devices, on the same network, etc., and the songs look completely normal--the green "downloaded" arrow appears and they are not greyed out--but they still refuse to play. If I play them on my computer with the mobile app open, they show up as playing via connect, but if I try to transfer the audio to play on my phone, it instantly breaks.

So far, I have tried:

• Deleting the playlist and starting again with a fresh one (at least half a dozen times)
• Checking every firewall/antivirus program on both devices to make sure Spotify was allowed through
• Moving the files around in my computer/changing the source folder, changing their names, removing them from Spotify and re-adding them, etc.
• Trying the process on a different WiFi network
• Performing a clean reinstall of Spotify on both devices
• Checking the settings menus of both the apps and each device to ensure that local network and/or files were enabled
• Making sure both apps/devices were up to date

At this point, I'm at a total loss. Even worse is the fact that when I did this process maybe half a year back with the same songs, I had absolutely zero issues. What do I do here?

[Ver]

Hey @unboxedeliza,

Thanks for posting here.

The troubleshooting steps that you've tried so far are very good.

Could you also try logging in to another account to see if that changes anything? That way we can check if it's an account-related issue.

You can also send us screenshots of how the local files appear on your devices. We'll look into this further.

Keep us posted.

[unboxedeliza]

Hey! Thanks so much for your prompt response. Weirdly enough, when I went to go grab screenshots, I found that the files were suddenly playing like normal, after nearly three full days of back-and-forth troubleshooting with no luck. I truly have no explanation for what happened or why, but it seems like the problem has abruptly fixed itself?

I truly appreciate your willingness to work with me and help out!

[marcus8883]

Hello, sadly this issue is still recurring for me and I have tried every solution that @unboxedeliza has along with more troubleshooting. I also tried to adjust my Wifi modem's settings, adjusting my computer's Spotify %appdata% folder settings, changing my network settings, and redownloading the files. I even tried to wait about 4 days for the problem to possibly fix itself, however, my local files are still skipping/they wont play on my phone. With my troubleshooting I found out that some of the songs downloaded on my playlist do play on my phone, but only 2 or 3 of them, which I found odd because I downloaded all of the songs on the playlist I am trying to sync at around the same time (within the same hour or so). I have an iphone 11 and I have had my phone updated to 15.3.1. I'm going to upload an attachment of what it looks like for me when I try to play my synced music. At this point I am at a total loss as well. I would greatly appreciate if someone could find a solution to this issue and let me know if they have any please.

[Jeremy]

Hi @marcus8883,

Thank you for your reply and for the troubleshooting you've done so far.

Can you provide us some screenshots of how the playlists looks on the iPhone as well as the settings page - or a short video showing the issue?

It would also be great if you can let us know if you're trying to play the files directly through the phone speakers or through Connect, BT, etc.

We'll keep an eye out for your reply.

Take care!

[marcus8883]

Hey Jeremy! Thank you for the quick reply. Please see the file named "
RPReplay_Final1646882586.mp4" that I attached in my last message to see a short video showing the issue, which should give you a good understanding about the problem I'm facing. If you view the video, that's what all of the songs I have tried to sync recently look like on my phone. Like @unboxedeliza said, whenever I try to play a synced song on my phone, the mini-player at the bottom of my screen shows up for a split second and then goes away like the song was instantly skipped. The songs look completely normal, all of the songs I am trying to sync have the green download symbol under it like they are synced and downloaded, but the songs simply refuse to play on my phone. And btw, I am not trying to play the song through any devices - I'm just trying to play them directly through my phone. And again thank you I appreciate you working with me; and please keep me updated if any solutions are found.

[Jeremy]

Hi again @marcus8883,

Thank you so much for your patience and for the great confirmations.

Can you let us know if this happens with all local files or just some songs in particular?

It would also be great if you can add some songs from the Spotify catalog to the playlist and try playing them first to see if you get the same behavior.

On another note, can you confirm what type of file your songs are? For an example mp3, flac, etc..

Keep us posted 🙂

[marcus8883]

Thank you again for working with me Jeremy🙂 From my troubleshooting, I've found that all of the local files I've downloaded after a certain point (around a week ago, like last Thursday-Friday) are having this issue. However, out of all the songs I've downloaded since then (around 80), only 2 or 3 of them have synced successfully. I tried to add songs from the Spotify catalog to my playlist, and those seem to be doing fine, so it's only the local files that are having this issue. Also, all of the files I have tried to sync are .mp3 files. I'm currently trying to figure out whether the files are actually syncing and downloading onto my phone and just refuse to play, or if they just appear as if they are downloaded and actually aren't. Please keep me updated and please let me know if you have any more questions or possible solutions regarding the issue.

[marcus8883]

Update, I found out that the issue was the website I was using to convert the files into .mp3s. When I tried to download them onto my computer using another website, they seemed to sync and download onto my phone fine after that.. I feel really stupid now that I found out the solution was that easy and it took me that long. I'm not sure why the files played fine on my computer but on my phone they refused to play, but I don't really care anymore now that I figured it out. Thank you so much for working with me Jeremy I really appreciate your willingness to help out!

[beyondtheline]

Hi Marcus, may i know which website did you use to convert? because i have the same issue. It doesn't play on my phone but on my computer

[beyondtheline]

ok nvm i found it LOL thanks !

[-516kj_seoaia]

could you please tell me what website did you convert the files? I have the same issues when the recently converted mp3 could not be played on my phone even though they played fine on my desktop. I converted a bunch of songs from youtube into mp3 files. I never had any issues with it before, but now they just refused to play on my phone.

[OscarDC]

Hey @-516kj_seoaia,

Welcome to the Community and thank you for joining the conversation.

Remember that the converters or pages that help change the format of certain files are not a legal source. Keep in mind that local files can only be played if they're downloaded from a legal source as mentioned in this article.

In this case, we'd recommend trying with songs downloaded from a different page keeping the MP3 format in a regular quality below 320kbps.

Hope this helps. If you have any additional questions, don't hesitate to ask.

[catswafflesme]

how, what website are you using ive been having this problems for months and endlessly searching on how to get them to play on my phone because they only play on my computer, anytime i try to play on my phone it just tells me i dont have it downloaded.....

[catswafflesme]

how, what website are you using ive been having this problems for months and endlessly searching on how to get them to play on my phone because they only play on my computer, anytime i try to play on my phone it just tells me i dont have it downloaded.....

[marcus8883]

I basically did some experimentation with changing which website I was
using. I noticed that mobile Spotify seemed to not like .mp3
files that were downloaded from a certain website; I found a new website
and it started working for me magically. The website I currently use is
https://ytmp3.nu/CNuy/.

[praveen154]

Yes, you're right, however, I suggest you use a safe tool like https://ytmp3.page/qzs/ to protect yourself from malware.

[Deepika2]

This thread helped me a lot, BTW I've found another great site OnlyMP3 

[KarinLipaz]

So after trying all the YouTube to MP3 converters websites, I found out that the two websites above didn't give me a good feeling using it. I think I found a better YouTube to MP3 website, quickwo

[pearl-holland]

Want to enhance your gaming experience? Check out our guide on how to convert YouTube gaming soundtracks to MP3 format for offline listening and seamless integration into your gaming sessions using tools like ***link removed***