My local files are downloading and showing up fine, but won't let me play new downloads

[RussianRider]

Plan

Premium

Country

United States

Device

iPhone 11 Pro Max

Operating System

iOS 104.8

My Question or Issue

My new local files are showing up on my phone and downloading fine (not greyed out), and they're playing on my desktop fine, but when I try and play them on my phone, it starts to pull up the song but stops and won't play even if I try selecting it to play on my phone from the desktop.

This issue only started today and it's only with new downloads. When I download a local file already downloaded on my computer, it plays just fine on my phone so I don't know what the issue is.

Below I attached a screen capture of me trying to play my new local files songs (the top two songs on the playlist) and comparing it to a song that plays just fine.

[Amayy]

Hi, thanks for asking!

First of all make sure to read this FAQ about local songs which will clear some doubts on why not all local songs work. Next if you are up with the FAQ then try turning them off and removing all local songs from the App. Restart the App and then import local files again, check if it is working now.

If it's still not working then try a clean install of the Spotify App, more steps in this guide(for Windows) and this (for MacOS) for you. Keep us posted how it goes.

Throw a like my way or choose this as a solution if I helped!

[Mario]

​​​​​​Hey @​RussianRider,
 

Thanks for your post and welcome to the Community!

From the screen recording, we saw that indeed the first two songs didn't start to play. It's really an odd behavior, but If the local files you have aren't corrupted and if they are properly discovered and synchronized across all your devices, then they should be playing just fine.

You could try logging in and log out from your app couple of times in a row to force the app to resynchronize, and see if this resolves the issue with the files.

It's also worthwhile noting, that we have recently reworked the way Local files are being detected on your devices. We have replaced the previous importing mechanism with a new automated Local File Discovery feature.

See if you have the feature activated by toggling the "Show local audio files" switch in your app's Settings menu. The new feature now enables the app to continuously monitor folders on your device, detecting all playable audio and listing it directly in Your Library under an entity named Local files. 
 

Hope this helps. Let us know how you get on.

[RussianRider]

I tried uninstalling the app and logged out, and I then redownloaded my local files and those two songs and any new downloaded songs still don’t work. 

[CarlosE]

Hey @RussianRider,

Thanks for keeping in touch.

Can you let us know the format of the songs that aren't playing?

Also and just to confirm, have you enabled the option Show Local Files and all the relevant sources that appear there?

Keep us posted.

[RussianRider]

The songs are mp3 files like my other songs, and yes I do have “Show Local Files” on.

[MafeG]

Hi @RussianRider,

Thank you for your reply!

Just to confirm, where did you download these files from? 

Also, could you activate the Offline Mode on your phone and see if the files can be played? 

Keep us posted. 

[RussianRider]

I downloaded them from YouTube to MP3 like my other songs. I could try downloading them from elsewhere to see if that changes anything.

[galacticchicken]

Sorry to interject, I'm having the same issue. Do you find that local files you downloaded a while ago still work fine, just not newer ones? The newer local files as well as the older ones only work on my computer, the newer ones will not play on the mobile app. 

[RussianRider]

Yeah that’s exactly it, it’s only the new downloads, old files work and download just fine on mobile.

[galacticchicken]

Yeah went ahead and uninstalled spotify on both platforms, reinstalled, logged out, downloaded music again. Nothing is working rip. All settings have been set to whatever the other local files are set to. Seems like a spotify issue.

[MafeG]

Hi folks, 

Thank you for your replies.

Please keep in mind that files downloaded from unofficial sources are not supported, so we can not guarantee they will work. 

In any case, you can also try creating a new folder on your PC, then move your audio files there and change the location of the local files folder from the app Settings.

Also, try disabling your firewall and antivirus to try to synchronize the files again.

Let us know how this goes.

[galacticchicken · Accepted solution]

Okay so I downloaded the same songs from somewhere else and now they play just fine.

[CarlosE]

Hey @galacticchicken,

Thanks for keeping us posted.

We're glad to know it's working now.

If you need anything else, the Community is here for you.

Cheers!

[RussianRider]

Where do you download them from now? Because I would like to try and see how it will fix the problem on my end.