Songs on playlists being automatically replaced

[Lurkers]

Hello,

Every now and then a song or two on one of my playlists gets automatically replaced by the same song but from another album; a live performance version or a different studio performance. It's very annoying. Then I have to search for the old song, find it and put it back in place.

Yesterday this happened with several songs from a playlist. I've replaced a couple, but then 2 songs later I find another one replaced.

Why is that happening? I'm using Windows 10 / Spotify premium.

EDIT: More than half of the songs of this playlist got replaced!

EDIT 2: Other playlists as well got lots of their songs replaced! Spotify, what's happening??

[Eni]

Hey there @Lurkers,

Thanks for reaching out about this here in the Community.

Just to confirm, is this happening with playlists you're following or with your own playlists?

Additionally, we suggest that you log out everywhere to make sure that you haven't forgot to log out from some device by following the steps that's provided bellow:

1. Log in to your Account page. 
2. Click SIGN OUT EVERYWHERE. 

Note: This doesn't include partner devices (e.g. speakers, games consoles, and TVs), so for those go to your apps page and choose REMOVE ACCESS.

Keep us posted on how it goes.

[Lurkers]

Hello,

Thanks for your reply.

This is happening with my own playlists. It's not playlists I follow. I only use Spotify on my PC and on my Android smartphone. But it's been around a couple of weeks I don't use it on the phone. Only I use both devices. I'm single, no wife and no kids, and I live alone in my own apartment.

I tried the Accounts / Sign Out Everywhere, logged in again, but no help. Still the songs remain changed. It's several songs from all playlists I believe. I haven't counted, but if I could guess, it might be 100 or more songs.

For information, one song changed on one playlist to another version of it (same song and same artist, but a different performance of it). Then, on another playlist, that same song also changed to that same new one as on the previous playlist. They both changed to the same new one.

[Alex]

Hey there @Lurkers,

Thanks for the post.

We recommended Logging our on all devices and changing your passowrd is in order to make sure that nobody else has access to your account and could have replaced those songs in your playlists. 

If songs get replaced by the same song (title/ artist) but a different release, this might be due change in the permissions from rights holders. When that happens, certain releases of songs/ albums might get taken down from Spotify in certain countries, they are usually reuploaded again, however sometimes they are reuploaded with different metadata.

Hope you find this info helpful.

[Lurkers]

Spotify, 

But it was many songs from many different artists in many playlists, and the original songs are still there on Spotify. I went and put some of them back in place.

If it was this change in permissions from right holders, this is a deal breaker! It wrecked my playlists!! Also, I'm from Brazil, and lots of Brazilian songs got replaced too, as well as international songs.

It's definitely not hackers. No hacker would log in just to do this. The change in permissions from right holders sounds very possible. But how can I find the exact reason?

I'm sorry but this ruined my Spotify account!

[Alex]

Hey @Lurkers,

Thanks for the reply.

We can only suggest what might have happened, based on reports from other users, as we don't have access to your account.

You might want to reach out to our customer support team, through one of the channels here. They should be able to take a look back stage and give you more information, and check if they can restore your playlists to a previous state, before this change occured.

Hope this helps. Don't hesitate to reach out again if you have questions.

[TomesOfTomes]

I just had this same issue. It's my own playlist, and I had a track from Badbadnotgood called Lavendar, which is an instrumental, but it was replaced with some other (maybe new?) version of Lavender with Snoop Dog and other artists on it. Strange. Every other song in that same playlist is fine. This definitely seems like something on the Spotify end, not the user end!

[OscarDC]

Hey @TomesOfTomes,

Thanks for reaching out to the Community and welcome.

Tracks in playlists can only be updated by its owner. However, some songs could be replaced by the "same song" (title/artist) but on a different release due to changes in the permissions from rights holders.

Some releases of songs and albums might get taken down from the Spotify platform in certain countries. When the track is reuploaded again, sometimes it could be reuploaded with different metadata which leads to a different version. This may explain the “track switch” you had in your playlist.

In case this happens with different songs, we'd recommend logging out everywhere to prevent the playlist from being edited by another logged in device.

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

[Strgeo]

Did you establish why this happened? 

I'm experiencing the same issue with my own personally created playlists. They randomly change the original track to an alternate - sometimes by the same artist, occasionally by other artists

[Strgeo]

I have triedthe suggested 'solutions', but none have worked. 

[videngjim]

This seems to be happening with my account also, and I can assure you that no one else has my login information. My guess is that Spotify pays less (per-play) to ASCAP , BMI etc. for some alternate versions of songs, so it would naturally be in their interest to play the cheaper version of popular songs. If this is indeed the case, this would certainly be a big deal-breaker for me.

[Strgeo]

Interesting. All I can really add is that I spent several days going over
this with lots of different support staff. A complete waste of time and
effort. Whatever process is responsible for this does not appear to update
the relevant system logs.

I'm currently looking at alternative music providers, as I'm not going to
continue paying for this 'feature'. Unfortunately, I will still have to
reset all my playlists back to the original versions before I can export
them...

I hope you have more success in identifying the cause and obtaining a
solution.

Regards

[ID26010509]

Spotify is taking it upon itself to play different versions of songs I have placed in my playlists. These songs do not show as greyed out and unplayable. I put specific versions of songs in my playlists for a reason, and DO NOT want those changed without my permission.

[ID26010509]

I just had it happen again. The song was New York's Not My Home by Jim Croce. The version in question was supposed to be from the You Don't Mess Around With Jim album, but instead plays from the Live: The Final Tour album. I put the studio version on this playlist for a reason, and I don't want it to keep playing the live version. Neither album has the song greyed out, marked as unavailable, or marked as unplayable. I just want the correct versions of my songs to play.

[SpicyUni]

It's not even the same song for me!! I made a playlist of the best Kpop songs alphabetically and it took AGES. Then the first song (Abracadabra by brown eyed girls) was replaced by another song. So I decided I would remake the playlist, and it's STILL happening. Thing is, it's extra annoying because its in ALPHABETICAL ORDER and having the wrong song as #1 just ruins the whole thing, but this literally only happens on my phone, my computer its fine. It's very annoying. 

[johanrask]

Stop this idiocy Spotify. If I lookup a song from a specific album I want to listen to that song not something else, regardless of your agreements. If the song is not supposed to be on Spotify you have to remove it, not replace it with something else when it is played.

[johanrask]

I can add that I just noticed 2 songs that had this problem. Both track 2 och Jean Michel Jarre: Magnetic fields and Equinox. They got replaced with the versions from "PlanetJarre" which are remixes of the songs which I don't like at all.

[Naukku]

This just happened to me too, a song got replaced with a completely different song with a same name "blue". Album art and artist name appear different in three places, in the listening history, in my playlist and when playing the song but it plays a same song (not the song I originally added to my list). When looking at the artist information, it's some cover artist with 6 followers. This is beyond stupid, I can't find the original song that was in my playlist anymore. 

[MSebring]

This problem has been happening to me for some time as well and I am getting tired of it.

Spotify needs to quit saying **bleep** like this:
"In case this happens with different songs, we'd recommend logging out everywhere to prevent the playlist from being edited by another logged in device." since the problem has nothing to do with other people editing our playlists.
Spotify is doing it themselves when an album or a specific song is removed.

When an album is removed from Spotify, its songs are replaced by the same song from a different album, and sometimes it is a totally different version of the song. When a song is removed from Spotify, sometimes instead of being grayed out it is replaced by the same song from a different album, and sometimes it is replaced by a totally different song.

I have many playlists and I have seen this happen many times, but I'm just going to use my most recent occurrence as an example to provide proof of the problem.

I have a playlist called "Jerry Lee Lewis" and the first eight songs were originally from the album "The Essential Jerry Lee Lewis". That album was removed from Spotify but I still could see its album covers in my playlist, but when I played any of them I got a version from a different album instead. And to make things worse, "Breathless" was a 1964 re-recorded version instead of the original version that appeared on "The Essential Jerry Lee Lewis Album".

Since then I have replaced all of those songs in my playlist (most of them from the album "The Complete Jerry Lee Lewis On Sun" since it also contains the original Sun versions), but I have found a playlist from someone else called "The Essential Jerry Lee Lewis" which provides proof of the problem. Notice that the album covers at the top of the playlist are from "The Essential Jerry Lee Lewis" but when you play any of them you get a version from a different album. Notice also that when you play "Breathless" you get a version from a 1964 album where he re-recorded his hits instead of the original version.

The next time I see an instance where a song that was removed got replaced by a totally different song, I will post it here.

[MSebring]

This stupid thing just replaced my links with embedded playlists.

Can't you people leave anything that anyone else creates alone?