Your Library desktop issues

[Lanciano007]

I got problems again after updating my desktop app a few weeks ago. Seems after last update a few days ago i got more problems.

I tried to add an album to My Library. Since yesterday this gave the problem that the album i tried to save didn't and doesn't appear in My Library. Tried a few times but can't find the place where it should have been saved. I can't find the Album anywhere. I need it because all the songs that were in it got automaticly 'liked' against my will.

I didn't 'like' the Album, I only added it to my Library, but I can see all the songs that are on this Album are now 'Liked' by me????

I can't find any of these songs in my Liked Songs Playlist. None! 

Is my algorithm getting **bleep** now???

I can't unlike/dislike the songs in bulk because they are nowhere to find in My Library. They appeared in bulk without letting me know. Do I have to look for and unlike all 99 songs from the Album one by one? Songs I didn't like, don't appear in my liked playlist, but are wrongfully registred as 'liked' (somewhere) for sure...? Please help. Thanks.

Only on my Mobile phone the Album appears in My Library now. 

But, also on my mobile phone i can't find the supposed 'liked' songs from this album. The only place where i can see that the songs are 'liked' is at the artists' page. An artists page i would have probably never visited again. Hope these ghost registrations didn't happen before. It would probably kill my algorithm... On the first pic you can see 2 of the 'automaticly liked' songs under Pat Kelly. 

When I go to the page of Pat Kelly (or all the other artists on the album) on my Mobile app i can see only 1 liked song under the artists name. When I click on it, it shows me I 'liked' the entire release of the Album (Not mentioning the songs). The album is a compilation of various artists and 99 songs. When I delete the album from My Library the automaticly 'liked' release dissappears on the mobile app and also seems to solve the unwillingly liked songs on my desktop app. They got unliked again. 

Update: So the problem is that i can't Add this album in My Library on desktop App, because it will not appear there (only on mobile device) and automaticly Spotify registrates on all devices I 'Liked' the albums release and all songs in it, but they don't appear in My Liked songs Playlist.

PS: the other problem i got after updating is described in an other thread. It is about playing songs in Artist Discography on laptop that break and get the message Spotify can't play this....etc. (This started a bit more than a month ago, after the update we got that time. I see many users have same experience. Same as last year after an update but slightly different....)

Another thing I experienced after that update at the same time was that even while the slide was turned off in settings for showing my Local Files, Spotify was fully connected to all my Local Files on my laptop. It felt very intrusive. It was not only songs Spotify was connected to but everything that holds audio files, also connected to audio messages from my whatsapp...etc. My Library didn't show any map Local Files. Switching 'Show Local Files' on and off again seems to be the solution to break this connection I never asked for...

In Settings in my desktop app there's an option switched on, where it says: "Display short, looping visuals on tracks (Canvas)")

But the switch is greyed out. I can't switch it off. On my mobile i can do this, but this ofcourse doesn't have effect on my desktop app (i hope), nor on the browser webplayer. Why is it switched on and greyed out in my desktop app but have the option to choose on my Mobile? Why is it even there as a green switch that is not switchable because an overlapping greyed out thing blocks it? Is this normal?

Another thing is that I get a lot of songs in my New Releases Playlist that are greyed out already. Last week i could play a newly released album but some songs were still greyed out until release date. I moved those songs to one of My Playlists. All songs seemed to be playable there on release date, but while playing 3 songs, the next 3 songs played only for 1 second and got greyed out again...when replacing them to another playlist they looked like playable again, but greyed out again a fraction of a second after pressing the play song button.

I think all began after not last update but the one before this. (a month ago)

Any suggestions? Kind regards

[Lanciano007]

I'll repost my message from a few days ago that I posted somewhere else but nobody responded yet. It overlaps a bit my last post here. But i think it's maybe related.

*One of the other issues i have after one of the last 2 updates is that my homepage takes almost 1,5 seconds to load. Seems I have huge Album Art covers at the bottom now. And it seems they are causing the playlists I use, that would run smoothly before, take a while to pop-up now. This happend after last update, i think. Spotify is not transparent about what's included in their updates, so we can only think and experience...Every slide that I do, or a song that I move or add to a playlist has a few fractions of a second delay. opening some albums give a message "Something went wrong", or it sometimes takes 2 seconds to open an album...etc etc. Desktop player doesn't work smoothly anymore.

Where can I find information about new updates? I see there are Hide buttons now in Release Radar playlist. Where can we find Hidden songs if we by accident press this button. What does it do? And does it effect our algorithm in  some way?

Now I even have more bad experiences after last update. The green dot doesn't work, again. Seems that all songs I move to other playlists don't get added in the green dot. I move a song to another playlist but when I want to delete it from the playlist it was coming from it doesn't show the new playlist in the green dot area. I can also not try it again, because I will get the message it's already added to that playlist. When I add it again i'll get two duplicates of the same song in one playlist. When I try to delete one duplicate, they get both deleted. How can I organise my songs and playlists?

I found out that when I close the desktopplayer and open it again, the green dot gets updated with both playlists I added them to. I can't do this with every move or change I make. But I also don't want duplicates and ghost registrations.. . Any help? Thanks in advance.

I use Desktop app on my laptop where I experience the issues. Windows 10. 

I have Spotify (updated) on my mobile inslalled too. No issues exept the 99 songs from the album i didn't like that got registred as 'liked' but were not findable in my liked songs list. They were not added. Probably because I didn't 'like' them pressing the green dot but they got 'automaticly liked' by Spotify after I try to add the album to my Library, where it appeared on my mobile phone but not in my desktop app. (See my message here; https://community.spotify.com/t5/Your-Library/Desktop-New-Your-Library-sidebar/td-p/5571384/page/53)

[Vasil]

Hey @Lanciano007,

Sorry to see you've been experiencing issues with the app! Let's try to tackle them one by one 🙂

In regard to the albums, saving/ liking an album will add it to 'Your Library'. Note that, in order to see it there, you need to either have all filters off or the 'Albums' filter on. I can see on one of your screenshots that you've selected the 'Playlists' filter instead, so toggling that off by clicking on it should make the album show up on your desktop app as well!

Note: When you've saved an album, opening its artist page will show that all of the album songs are "liked" but this counts all the saved songs and doesn't necessarily mean that all of these songs are added to your 'Liked' playlist. Keep in mind that having an entire album saved from any artist will likely influence your recommendations more than having only a single song saved.

As for the local files, toggling them off should make the 'Local Files' folder disappear from 'Your Library'. In case you've added any local files to your playlists, they will still be a part of those playlists but will be greyed out and unplayable.

And, last but not least, when it comes to the greyed out Canvas option - we tested this and couldn't replicate the behaviour. I have personally never seen any of these options get greyed out like yours has, which makes me think there might be some corrupted app data that is causing this, which calls for some troubleshooting. With this in mind, let's see if removing your app's cached data would make any difference first. If there's no change, try going for a complete clean reinstall of the app instead. This should resolve the issues with the Discography and your 'New Releases' as well 🙌🏼

Hope this helps! Keep us posted on how things go & let us know in case any questions arise. Cheers!

[MihailY]

Hey @Lanciano007,

Just stumbled across your post in the other thread and decided to merge it here so we can keep better track of the issues you're experiencing.

I'll do my best to go through your concerns one by one:

1. Slow performance on the Home page and error messages when opening albums - this certainly isn't expected and needs further investigation. Do you get the same behavior in the web player and/or with a different account? Let us know if the issue persists after trying the clean reinstall suggested by @Vasil.
2. Info about updates - currently, we don't offer changelogs for updates and as mentioned in this idea, it's not something we have any immediate plans to implement, but it's still a good idea to show your support by adding your vote.
3. Discrepancies in the green checkmark indicator - this is again something where a clean reinstall might help as you've mentioned that it updates after restarting the app. Again, testing in the web player and another account will help us narrow down the possible cause of the issue.

We'll be on the lookout for your reply!

[Lanciano007]

Thank you Vasil and MihailY for your reactions. 

Thanks MihaiIY. I gave my vote to the idea about Updates and Change Logs... but I saw that idea is already frozen and 9 years old...and one of the first reactions says it's a re-post from an earlier post. Oh my..haha. 

By the way, Google Play Store is very open about the changes... if my dutch is good enough. But maybe I misunderstand the word complications. It says: 'open Spotify lightning fast with our tiles and complications' 😉

I feel like a fool too. Vasil thanx. You were right about the playlist/album filter. Could have found this out...haha.

I got distracted by the real issue, why the songs in the album were 'automaticly liked' but didn't appear in my 'liked songs list'. This gave me most stress and isn't solved by my foolishness. The number of songs didn't went up and I could not find the 'liked' songs there (did not on desktop app, not on browser webplayer and not on mobile app).

I already tried emptying the cache on the installation I had before. No result. With a clean install from The Spotify page these are the changes when I did the same steps with the same album (that 99 Reggae songs album):

*after adding this album to My Library songs are still automaticly registered as 'liked' on artist pages, but are unfindable on My Liked songs Playlist. 

*The Canvas switch (Display short looping visuals on tracks) in Settings is still greyed out. (If a clean install from Microsoft doesn't fix this I will try to find out if another program is blocking this switch. Or do you think it can still be a corruption?).

*The Local Files settings now show 2 secondary options when switched on: Songs from Downloads and Music Library. Can't remember these options popped-up before. So there was some integration issue, I think. There was no Local Files Folder showing in My Library (didn't it also have to show there with only the 'playlist Filter' selected?). It seems the slowiness and delays with homepage and sliding songs to add to playlists got solved for the biggest part. Have to see tomorrow.

*I see new things 'building up' here and there. Sometimes it takes a second or so to finish. First time I see My Location appear on artist's event page, for example. Can I opt-out for sharing my location? I can't even remember i gave permission to share my location. I know there are no events in my area, and I don't like the feeling Spotify 'spams' me only for their ticket sales commissions.

*I still get the 'Spotify can't play this song..' message in Discography section when playing a song there and leave the page and come back. The next song will still get this message.

This was only a quick test. Still have to check if the issue with the green dot persists. But I think it was part of issue the integration was corrupt.

Tomorrow I'll continue a bit listening and using Spotify with this clean installation. Then I will try and do a clean Install from Microsoft store and look if this will give some differences. I didn't install the app there, because it gave me some worries again in combination with my last two points behind the *

I'll also come back later on this. It has to do with that I got a message from which country I was from. Seems Microsoft has different versions for different countries...or regions? In settings on Mobile app I see now under the section Preferences for Content that there are possible region restrictions behind: 'See unplayable songs'. Since when do we have these region restrictions? And why does only mobile have this option in settings, while it has effect on all devices? Was there no option in Desktop app's settings too? In my memory I switched this setting to see unplayable songs 'on' in my desktop app and not on my mobile app in settings. What happens if my Mobile and laptop are in two different countries/regions...for example?

I need some time to try, use and respond. I will come back with updates in a day or 2.

Kind regards

[Yordan]

Thanks for the reply, @Lanciano007 👍

Let's split this into a few sections so it's easier to follow. Click on each section to expand it:

► Liked Songs on the artist page

As previously explained by @Vasil, the Liked Songs on the artist page will include any saved tracks in your Liked Songs playlist or saved albums in Your Library. If you were to remove the album from Your Library, the songs from it would no longer show up on the artist pages.

A workaround would be to select all songs from the album with Ctrl + A, then right-click on one of them > Add to other playlist > New playlist. That way, the songs will be saved in your library as a playlist instead of an album, so they won't show up under Liked Songs on the artist page.

► Canvas

If Canvas is still greyed out, check if you're using any data saving or battery/performance optimizing software that might be blocking the feature.

► Location for live events

You can change the location for your live events recommendations by heading to Browse > Live Events.

► "Spotify can't play this right now" error

I'd recommend trying out all troubleshooting steps from this article.

► Show unplayable songs

This option is available in the mobile app only and allows you to hide any songs that are greyed out due to content availability. The feature is always activated on the desktop app, meaning unavailable songs will always show.

Hope this clears things up! Let us know how it goes 👍

[Lanciano007]

hey hello to all,

I haven't tried downloading an installation from Microsoft yet. Otherwise, few changes in each area mentioned. Since it's probably more than 1 issue. Thought I'd report this now. I tried switching off all apps that I could think of that maybe would protect or block something on  my laptop. Without any luck with the grey Canvas Setting yet. Spotify browser Webplayer (updated Chrome) has the same greyed out Canvas switch in Settings. So, my browser and Desktop App have the same issue.

Today I focused on the Canvas block in combination with other settings.

When I open the desktop app and go to settings, there are 2 parts that take a fraction longer to load on the first visit to the settings page. I suddenly see them appear.
The line 'Language', and I see the slider of 'Explicit Content' slide quickly 'On'.
With every subsequent visit to settings, I don't see this change until I close the app and open it again. Then this happens again on the first visit to settings.

With every visit to settings, there are 2 more lines that take a fraction to appear: 'Crossfade Songs' (I have it switched 'off') and 'Open Spotify automatically after you log into computer....' (I have it switched 'No').

In Settings, I have 'Show Announcements about new releases' turned 'On'. But I think this is where the delay on the homepage comes from. Every time I open the app, I will first get the three horizontal grey dots in a line. Then the list of my last played playlists appears at the top, but a fraction later they drop a few centimeters and then come back up. As if something is placed above it but disappears again before it becomes visible. A sharp eye can see for a fraction of a second that the text 'Hide Announcements' appears at the top right. And then the part of played lists slides back up where it made room for the empty spot for a second. So the opposite is happening, it seems. I have the checkbox checked for 'Show' but get a super-fast message 'Hide Announcements'...
If I uncheck 'Show', the delay on the homepage is gone. In both cases, I don't see anything else, except that shift of the last played playlists.

I had a moment today while trying that I had the settings page open on my desktop player and then went to look at the settings on my mobile app under the section 'Datasaver' but that also suddenly appeared to be gray (I could see that it was set to 'automatic') as well as 'Offline Mode' (I had it set to 'Off'). I could switch 'Offline Access' freely (It was set to 'Off' but I have switched it back and forth a few times in the past few days). I think the sections in Settings in 'Playback' or 'Content & Display' were also grayed out, but I can't remember which one I visited. There was also a gray blank area in another section of Settings. After that I decided to close my desktop app.

The strange thing is that immediately after closing my desktop app these functions became visible and available again. I saw these settings on my mobile change from gray to bright faster than a fraction after I closed my desktop app.

I noticed yesterday that changes in playlists in my desktop app are now being adjusted very quickly on my mobile. I have never experienced this so quickly before. I still see this as a positive point.

By the way, I am logged in to my accounts (mobile Android and Windows10 desktop app) with my e-mail and not with Google or Facebook. Could this possibly play a role? I did a clean install on my Android today from Google Play store to check if this would change anything .

Also while searching about Canvas:

https://artists.spotify.com/home
It seems that I was logged-in here somehow. Well, the button showed me, but I forgot to try i really was logged in. Did the button show it because I was logged in overhere on this community? I came back, and i was still logged in here after logging out at that artists's site.

[Yordan]

Hi there, @Lanciano007,

Glad to hear that you were able to sort some of the things out yourself!

In order for Canvas to work, you need to have "Animate controls and elements within Windows" toggled on. Could you make sure it's activated on your end? Here's how you can check that:

1. Press Win + R to open Run.
2. In the new window that shows up, type the following: SystemPropertiesAdvanced and press Enter.
3. Under "Performance", make sure Animate controls and elements within Windows is switched on.
   
   

As for the playback options being greyed out in the mobile app, this most likely happened because you were playing from your laptop. The settings will become available again when you switch the playback to your phone from the Spotify Connect menu.

When it comes to being logged in to the Spotify for Artists, you're correct: your login was probably synced from one of the other Spotify platforms such as the Community or the Web Player.

Cheers 🤘

[Lanciano007]

Thank you so much Yordan. That was a very helpful and quick reply! 

Canvas in Settings is visible again. Can it have a positive effect on other things too? 

I'll let you know about my experiences in a few days. Also will respond on the delays, Can't play issue and Show unplayable songs. 

Your workaround and explanation about how the 'Liked songs' system works differently and shows different information, on different devices, were very helpful too!

Adding an album to My Library in Desktop app, does let my Mobile registrate all songs as 'Liked', have effect on algorithms, but they don't appear in our 'Liked Songs Playlist'. Clear. (Sort of. :))

Do they have double effect on our algorithm? Because the album is in My Library, normally that counts, right? And all songs got 'liked' as well...

About the Location, I would prefer not to share my Location at all.

Kind regards

[Yordan]

Awesome, @Lanciano007 😎

What I've noticed from personal experience is that saving items in Your Library seems to not only serve as a way to build & track your collection, but also have an impact on the recommendations you get from Spotify.

Since both the albums you've liked and your Liked Songs playlist are part of it, having content saved in either practically tells Spotify that this is what you enjoy listening to and encourages Spotify to suggest similar stuff, but won't have a double effect, so no worries there 👍

You'll find more info on how to control your taste profile in this article.