Spotify Autoplaying When Opened/Changing Playlists

[amyfogmeister]

Plan

Premium

Country

United States

Device

iPhone 14

Operating System

iOS 18.1.1

My Question or Issue

within the last month there have been a TON of bugs & idk why or what change caused this. to start, abt 1-2 months ago, my spotify app (mobile, web browser, & desktop version) started having issues with playing/pausing content. for example, any time that i open the spotify app it’ll just start automatically playing whatever track i left off on whenever i attempt to open it. i touch 0 buttons, it doesn’t matter if i’m connected to bluetooth or listening thru my phone speaker - nothing changes it, every single time i open the app, it just starts playing. 

the other new issue is that regardless of what i was previously listening to and/or what buttons i did/didn’t press, when i open the spotify app, it stops whatever i was currently listening to, and either shuffles the entire playlist or just starts playing a random playlist that i was not at all listening to.

it completely messes up my place in the playlist, the shuffle order of the playlist i was on, the part in the previous song i was listening to - and it just picks a random playlist to start playing out of nowhere.

i talked to customer support & looked thru the community tab - nothing helped. i’ve deleted/redownloaded the app several times, & it only fixed the issue long enough for me to end my chat w customer support (ofc) before going back to the same issues. my app is up to date, i’ve tried redownloading it, i’ve looked through settings, i’ve done everything. it’s making the app really hard to use, any answers/ideas are appreciated pls & ty

[maedo]

Hey, I don’t know if this is related at all, but suddenly I’ve gotten a pop up every time I open Spotify now. I can’t attach a screenshot, but it says “Couldn’t open link. Spotify can’t open this type of link on this device.” As far as I know, I never tried opening a link in the first place.

[Dessi]

Hey @Kjsinkowski,

Thanks for the reply!

It'd be great if you can give us a bit more info and answer the questions in the first part of my last reply, as well as try out the suggestions to see if they make a difference. That would give us a bit more context to the situation and help us investigate this further.

Keep us posted.

[Joan]

Hi @maedo,

Thanks for the reply.

Do you per chance use any cache clearing or storage/battery optimization apps? If so, consider disabling those or at least adding Spotify as an exception, because if the cache becomes corrupted this may be causing this sort of behaviour. This might also explain why a clean reinstall, which resets any corrupted cache, only solves the issue temporarily.

Hope this helps. 

[coasts]

I have this issue as well! 

When clicking the widget on my iPhone it opens the app on CarPlay rather than on my phone.

[Kjsinkowski]

Yes. Mine also just auto plays when not plugged into a car. Tap widget > Spotify opens and starts playing.    

[AlejaR]

Hey there @Kjsinkowski,

Thanks for the video you kindly sent us.

We think it's important to mention that the widget is expected to redirect you to the last content that you were playing. The autoplay part is not expected.

That being said, we'd like to check, does this happen when you open the app? Or does it just happen when using the widget? Can you replicate it using the larger (4x1) available widget? 

Lastly, would you mind sharing with us the exact Spotify version you're running on your iPhone?

Keep us in the loop!

[Kjsinkowski]

Thank you!

Spotify version
9.0.28.607

I did just replicate this with the wider widget. When I first added it I
tapped that widget on my Home Screen 4 times and all 4 times it opened but
did not auto play. The 5th time, boom- opened and auto played the last song
that was playing. Now it is continuously doing that as well.

[BetaRayChill]

Yes! Thank you. Some developer or update made music/podcast autoplay when pressing lock screen or regular screen widget. It’s insanely annoying and a complete backward step. People click something, then figure out what they want to do within an application. If this is intended then it was a bad idea by whoever conceived it. 

[MihailY]

Hey @Kjsinkowski,

Thanks for your reply!

We've forwarded this to our tech team, we'll keep you posted in this thread.

Cheers,

[nathan_dunn]

Issue just popped up with app where now whenever I open it, it starts playing the first song of the last playlist I was listening too automatically. I’ve tried disabling autoplay, I’ve uninstalled and reinstalled the app and I updated my IOS and nothing has changed. It’s annoying as it keeps playing the same couple songs and it also blares out my phone unprompted.

Device

iPhone 11

Operating System

iOS 18.3.2 and before

App Edition

9.0.30.604

[Billy-J]

Hey @nathan_dunn, thanks for reaching out to the Community!

I am sorry to hear that this is happening to you. Can you ensure that Autoplay is turned off on your mobile device by following these steps? Once you’ve checked that, I’d recommend performing another clean reinstall of the app following these steps. It’s more thorough than a simple reinstall. 

Let me know how this goes!

[nathan_dunn]

Hi @Billy-J I’ve disabled autoplay and completed a clean reinstall as stated and I still have this problem.

[Billy-J]

Hey @nathan_dunn, 

Thanks for trying those steps! Can you let me know if this is happening when it’s connected to any sort of Bluetooth device (like headphones, car stereo, etc)? Also, can you confirm the exact make and model of your device as well as the software version? I can see that information from the first post, but want to make sure.

Keep me posted.

[nathan_dunn]

Hi @Billy-J It happens without any wired / Bluetooth device connected. I’ve completely turned off Bluetooth to verify this.

As for the information you asked for:

IPhone 11 running IOS 18.3.2 but this issue appeared before updating my OS. 

Software version: 9.0.30.604

[tessamar]

I’m having the same issue. I also disabled every auto play feature and have deleted and reinstalled the app. 

Essentially, every time I open the app, Spotify forgets what it was doing and just restarts. If it’s a song off an album, it will go back to the first song. If it’s a playlist, it will start from the first song. This issue started after the last update a couple days ago. 

[Mkbooth]

Spotify widget is no longer opening app to correct song. It opens app, plays from the top of a random playlist. Spotify plays random playlist from top when opening. Keeps restarting my playlist. 
Something strange happens each time I open the app either through widget or clicking app. Either song blasts without pushing play. Playlist starts over and plays or completely different playlist or episode plays from top. 
iPhone 15 pro max running ios18.3.2 

tried reporting to Apple and Spotify help. Neither could solve problem. 

[Easteighth]

This is happening to me too. I recently changed from an iPhone 14 to an iPhone 12, so it’s not related to cache or the device. I think it’s happening mostly when I am attached to a Bluetooth device (speaker, car, or Google home device). It’s possible it happens more with podcasts than music. The most annoying thing is I can’t control the infinite switching from one podcast episode to another, randomly. It marks the episodes it’s skipping as listened to, and keeps going until I force quit the app. 

[Easteighth]

To be clear, it was happening on my iPhone 14 and is also now happening on my iPhone 12.

[l_cif]

Plan: Premium

Country: USA

Device: iPhone 11

Operating System: iOS 18.4

Shared my spotify screen on a facetime call which caused the app to become really laggy. Now the spotify app restarts my shuffle & plays a random song in my playlist every time I open it. Also grabs control when I open it while listening on my mac. I'v cleared the cache, deleted the app, updated my phone, restarted my phone, refreshed the bluetooth connection, refreshed my internet connection...nothing works. It happens regardless of whether I have a bluetooth device connected or am connected to the internet. REALLY annoying. Anyone else having this issue?

[delamike]

Absolutely! And if anplaylisr continues to play it most of the times skips to the first song. Gives me kind of Groundhog Day vibes and I end up hating the first song of the playlist.