Music from local files don't work

[gto512]

Plan

Premium

Country

United States

Device

iPhone 11/Macbook Pro early 2015

Operating System

iOS 15.2.1/Big Sur 11.6

My Question or Issue

I've had this problem before but now it's even weirder. I solved this issue a while ago but wanted to add some songs to my playlist with all my local files songs. When I tried to add them, they would show up in the playlist but they would be unplayable. I removed them from the playlist and tried to add them again and it didn't work, so I tried un-downloading the playlist on my Mac and re-downloading it again and that didn't work either. So finally I decided to try the un-download re-download trick on my phone and that made all of my local files songs unplayable - the ones that I had previously downloaded that would play before couldn't be played. I tried making a new folder on my Mac with all the music and that didn't work either. I found a thread that said to uninstall Spotify on both the computer and the phone and make a new playlist so I did that too and it still did nothing. One thing I noticed is that only a few songs have the downloaded icon next to them on the computer but none of the songs on my phone are downloaded. Any suggestions? Thanks!

[MafeG]

Hi @gto512,

Thank you for posting on the Community about this!

Great troubleshooting so far, there are other things we can try here. We understand you have already reinstalled the app, please do it one more time following these steps which will ensure your devices are cleared of any damaged files. 

After reinstalling it, disable your firewall and try to synchronize the local files again.

Let us know how this goes.

[gto512]

I just finished doing all this and nothing changed. Am I syncing it wrong? I assume by syncing you mean downloading the playlist on both the computer and the phone. Or are there any settings I should change? I have local files turned on for both the computer and the phone and I have "hide unplayable songs" switched off on the phone.

[MafeG]

Hi @gto512,

Thank you for keeping in touch.

To answer your question, synching the local files is certainly downloading the playlist on both devices. 

Now, since the previous steps didn't work, please try creating an internet hotspot with your phone, then connect your PC to it and try to synchronize them again. 

Keep us posted!

[gto512]

Still nothing has changed. I included screenshots from both my computer and
my phone. The first one is from my computer, and as you can see only one of
the songs has the downloaded arrow. The second one is from the phone and
they are all stuck like that.
[image: Screen Shot 2022-02-07 at 11.01.41 AM.png]
[image: IMG_BAD3C1FE1555-1.jpeg]

[gto512]

It looks like the images didn't work so hopefully this does.

[MafeG]

Hi @gto512,

Thank you for sharing those images.

Just to confirm, did you take those images when trying the mobile hotspot step? 

It's also worth clearing the Hosts file on your PC with these instructions, then disable your Firewall and try to synchronize again. As a heads up, the steps I sent you may be for a different issue, but are still applicable in this situation.

Let us know how this goes.