Playlist items is missing after reopening app that not used for few days

[rndm2]

Hi, 

I think I found a bug. 

If Spotify app on mobile wasn't used for few days, and then re-opened some playlist items will be missing. 

Steps to reproduce:

1. Look for ASOT 1065 (or any other playlist with lots of tracks).

2. Listen it for some time. 

3. Stop playback and do not open Spotify app for 1-2 days. Remember track, when you stopped.

4. Open app again.

5. All next items from playlist will be missing (Image 1).

6. Go to search and look for same playlist again.

7. Scroll down to remembered track. You will see more items in playlist (Image 2).

I use latest version with Premium subscription on iPhone 11 Pro 

[rndm2]

Anybody?

[Dian]

Hey @rndm2,

Thanks for posting in the Community.

On the first screenshot you've posted the list of the items (ASOT 1000 and Mr. Navigator) is not representing the actual playlist, but the items that will be played next and those items will update once the list nears running out of entries. The list from the first screenshot shows what will be played, if all the items in the queue have been played. In the case of the first screenshot the queue contains one item (Great Spirit). You can find more information on how to manage the queue on this page.

On the second screenshot are the songs from the playlist, yes, but this does not mean, that they will all be constantly shown in the "Next from" section.

Not using the app for a few days also means, that the memory for the cached information could get released back to the system. This way the list of songs taken from the actual playlist and put into the "Next from" section would be reduced as described. But no worries, this doesn't lead to items disappearing from playlists.

Hope this clears things a bit,

Cheers!

[rndm2]

Hi, Dian 

For both 1 and 2 screenshot my behaviour was the same: search for playlist, select first track, play one-by-one. 

The problem is that when app run into the state shown on 1st screenshot it will only play Great Spirit, ID and Mr. Navigator and then stops. And I will never know if playlist ended ot it glitched again until not checked this queue. 

Now every time when I launch app I have to check if all of items present in queue. And restart search-select track-play if not. 

This is really very annoying. I even considering unsubscribe but firstly decided to ask for community support because in general I like app. 

What I want? 

If I selected ASOT 1065 I want it to be played completely from the beginning till the end no matter how many days I spent on listening (and not listening). 

[Dian]

Hey @rndm2,

Thanks for the reply.

This may also be connected to a specific device setting about battery/memory and unused app optimization.

Could you share the brand/model and operating system of the device you're consistently reproducing this issue on?

Have you tried other devices as well?

Keep us posted,

Cheers!

[rndm2]

iPhone 11 Pro 

No special settings. 
I don’t have other devices also. 

[OscarDC]

Hey @rndm2,

Thank you for keeping in contact.

We appreciate the feedback you're sharing regarding this feature. However, we can confirm that this is the normal behavior of the App. Keep in mind that the tracklist you see in the queue or "Next from" is stored in the phone cache (where the temporary files are stored) and not saved on your device.

This means that if you haven't used the app in a while, some of the recently cached information will be deleted by the system as per normal behavior of the device. This will reduce the tracklist shown on the queue as it's shown on your screenshot, but this doesn't mean that the songs have been deleted from the playlist. This is why if you look for the playlist again, it will have all the songs listed.

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

[rndm2]

Well.

In this case I really don't have a choice, I only can unsubscribe and look for another app. This behaviour is not what I am expecting from audio player. 

---

From software engineer's perspective I understand what you are trying to say, I also understand that this is not a big deal to warmup cache  on app startup. 

From the user's perspective I don't care about cache, idling, queues and lists. I want to choose playlist, start listening to it, and listen to all the songs from the list without additional actions no matter how many days I spent listening.