Spotify Not Playing Songs? 11 Ways to Fix

Spotify is one of the most popular digital music services, which gives its users instant access to millions of diverse pieces of music from all globally popular genres. With Spotify, you will get almost anything you like in the name of music, from archived old schools to the latest hits.

You just hit Play and everything will stream. You then will enjoy unlimited music anytime and anywhere. Not only that, but you can even download the songs to listen to when offline.

With Spotify, you get to stream unlimited music online, without having to download any of it on your device. It gives you access to music, podcasts, video streaming, and all of it for free!

About its versatility, you can use it on your phone or your PC, use it on your Windows, Mac, Linux, or on your Android and iOS, hence it has become one of the most accessible music platforms.

At times, Spotify might lead you to a heart-aching situation within no time. Problems like Spotify error codes 4, 18, and Spotify no sound affect users from time to time. You hit Play to listen to some music from Spotify, but you end up hearing no sound

Whether the problem of Spotify no sound is caused by an unstable internet connection or overused CPU, even other problems, you can remedy your problem by following the below helpful solutions.

In This Article show

Check Bluetooth and hardware

You need to do some checking first. Did you use Bluetooth or Spotify Connect to send the Spotify sounds to other devices for playing? If so, turn off these connections to fix this no sound from Spotify issue.

You also need to check whether other apps on your device export sounds. If not, maybe the sound card or other hardware has some problems.

Check Volume settings

You need to check the volume settings on your device. Different devices may have different settings. You’d better check the settings by going to the device support site for help.

On Windows 10:

Right-click the Sound icon.
From the context menu, select the Open Volume Mixer button.
Check the volume settings for applications, speakers, and system sounds.

On Android or iPhone:

Go to Settings and find out the setting for sound and volume on your phone.

Restart Spotify or login again

Your Spotify app might just be misbehaving. An app stopping to respond or hanging is not a strange occurrence. Such problems might arise due to overloaded RAM, overused CPU, or some virus. This should be the first problem to check out. To do this, exit Spotify and restart it again. If the problem persists, log out, then log in again.

Shut Down Spotify in Task Manager

If the Spotify desktop version is not working on Windows PC, try to close the Spotify and other apps running in the background.

To do so, you can follow the steps below:

First, open Task Manager by using a key combination (SHIFT + CTRL + Esc).
In the Task Manager window, navigate to Spotify and select it to proceed.
You can repeat the same process to other running apps (which might be interfering).
Then, click on End Task.

Once it’s done, run Spotify again on your system and check whether the Spotify application not responding is fixed or not.

Update Spotify to the latest version

The problem might arise from the fact that your Spotify app is not up-to-date. Just like any other software, Spotify undergoes periodic upgrades to catch up with and incorporate new trends in technology. So, if you notice the problem still persists after logging out and logging in or restarting the Spotify app, then check if there is an update. Try updating the Spotify app if there is one already.

Spotify is constantly updating its app with newer versions. So, check whether your Spotify app is up-to-date to avoid glitches. If the app is updated, it won’t show an update option. Turn automatic updates on for the newer versions.

On Desktop

Open Spotify
Go to the top-right corner
Tap on Updates available

On Android

Go to the Google Play Store
Search Spotify
Tap Update

On iOS

Go to the App Store
Search Spotify
Tap Update

Check the internet connection

At times, the problem might be your internet connection. You can check internet speed using other apps. Open any other app which requires an internet connection and check the speed.

If it takes longer than usual to load, then your internet connection might be the problem. Try a different service provider if you are in a position to. Or try changing from 5G to 4G and check if the problem gets solved.

Uninstall and re-install Spotify

Maybe, you’re experiencing the problem due to some corrupt packages in your app. A virus might even be the culprit here. Head to the Settings option, then open App, click on Spotify and start clearing data.

This will mean that you will have to log in again and download again the music files you had saved to listen to while offline. If the issue still persists, then try uninstalling the Spotify app, then re-installing it.

Uninstall the Spotify app and reinstall it if all the mentioned ways do not solve the song-playing issue. Delete the Spotify app on your desktop or your computer. To reinstall it, follow the given steps,

On Desktop

Search Spotify on your webpage
Log In to your Spotify account on the Spotify webpage
Click on the “Install App” at the left-bottom of your screen

On iOS and Android

Go to App Store or the Google Play Store respectfully
Search Spotify
Then hit the Download button

Clear up some RAM

If your RAM is full, you might experience this problem. So, you can go to the storage use and check how much space is left in your RAM. If it is small, say less than 10%, then the overloaded RAM will make almost all the applications in your device hang. To remedy this, you can close some apps you are not using, go to the storage settings, and clear RAM if your device has such a setting. You can also uninstall some apps you no longer need.

Check your device storage

You cannot play songs on Spotify if the memory is full. Check whether your storage device has run out of space or not. Spotify suggests having at least 1 GB of available memory.

If the storage is full, you can manage the memory on your device and mobile by following methods:

Clear Cache

A cache is a specific storage space used to temporarily store data and files. It improves the performance of a device, browser, or app. You can manage your storage space by simply clearing the cache.

On Windows

If you are a desktop Spotify user, follow the given steps to clear the cache,

Open File explorer
Go to Local Disk C and click on Users
Choose the folder of your username and open App data
Click on Local File and Open Spotify file
Select all the files and tap Delete to clear the cache

On Mac

At the top of your Mac, tap on Go
Click on Computer
Double-click on your user profile
Open the Library > Caches
Select the Spotify cache and click on Move to Trash

On Mobile

Open the Spotify app and log in to your Spotify account
Go to Settings > Storage
Tap Clear Cache to free up your storage

Spotify keeps crashing

It occurs when the Spotify app closes randomly or rather the music stops mid-play. In other cases, the program does not respond to commands like “reloading.” This can be solved in the following simple steps.

Reboot your phone. Once the device is back on, open the Spotify app and check if it crashes. If it persists, go to the next step.
Clear data and cache of Spotify. From the home screen go to settings then apps. Open the app manager, select and tap Spotify. On the drop-down tap storage then tap CLEAR CACHE, tap cached data and finally tap CLEAR. Now open Spotify and check if it still crashes. If it does, go to the next step.
Uninstall and reinstall Spotify. From the home screen, go to settings, then apps. Tap the app manager and select Spotify. Tap UNINSTALL, and click OK on the on-screen notification dialog box. Next, go to the play store and reinstall the Spotify app from there.

Use Spotify on a different device

Your device might be having a technical problem. So, if after trying out all the above remedies, you still cannot hear any sound, you can try playing music from Spotify using a different device.

This is made easy by the fact that Spotify can play on your mobile, tablet, computer, and television. So, if you are experiencing this problem on your mobile, try your computer but with the same internet connection and the same music track.

If the problem is fixed, look for a way to repair your mobile phone. Or vice versa, if it can play on mobile phone and misbehaves on the computer, know that your computer is having a problem.

Your Internet Service Provider

It is possible that your internet service is messing up with your web player. To confirm this, try accessing some other websites. If no other websites work, it is probably a problem with your ISP and not Spotify.

To resolve this, try using a different Wi-Fi connection or restart your existing router or modem. Restart your computer altogether and reset your web browser and try accessing the websites again. If you still can’t access the internet, contact your ISP.

Use Spotify web player to listen to music

Except for Spotify for desktops, you can also choose to listen to music from the Spotify web player. With the web player, you can access Spotify’s music library and stream music easily from the browser. If you want to download music from a Spotify web player, you can use a third-party tool to help you. Use popular browsers like Chrome, Firefox, Edge, and Opera to open a Spotify web player for playing music.

Turn Off High-quality Streaming

Premium users of Spotify get the best quality music playback. You will have trouble playing songs when you do not change the streaming quality. So, note this while switching from Premium to a free membership account. Simply turn off high-quality streaming to solve this issue.

On Desktop

Follow the steps to turn off high-quality streaming on the desktop:

Open the Spotify app from your desktop and Tap on your profile
Go to Settings and Tap on Audio Quality
In Streaming quality, change to High or Normal from Very high

On Mobile

To turn off high-quality streaming on mobile.

Open the Spotify app and Go to Settings
Tap on the Audio Quality option
Under Streaming Quality, choose High or Normal from Very high

Spotify keeps pausing

This is when the Spotify application stops playing music after a few minutes. The app remains open, but the music resets itself to “restart” at an annoying frequency.

Do follow the steps below to see if it helps:

Reboot your phone and open the Spotify app.
If it persists in pausing, log in to your account at spotify.com. Click on the username in the top right corner. A drop-down menu will appear. Click on “Sign out everywhere”. Then log back on to your account.

Update/reinstall your audio drivers

Now, if all of the above fixes have failed, chances are that your Spotify problem lies deeper, and you may need to update or reinstall your audio drivers.

Outdated or corrupt drivers can actually cause lots of problems on your PC, and not only with apps like Spotify. Drivers are key elements in connecting and operating a range of external devices and are absolutely necessary to make your whole system run smoothly. If they are out of date or not updated in time, you can run into lots of different issues on your PC.

Your system can experience a drastic slow-down, your peripherals may malfunction, and you can also experience game crashes and security threats. This is why it is very important to keep your drivers updated and working properly.

There are several ways to keep your drivers in order.

First, you can update your drivers manually. This option is typically recommended for users with more experience because making a mistake when updating your drivers can lead to very serious consequences.

If you are up for the task, here’s how to proceed:

Press the Windows key + X key combo to launch the Power User menu.
Select Device Manager from the menu.
Next, locate the “Sound, video, and game controllers” category and expand it.
Right-click your audio device to select it.
In the context menu, choose Update Driver.
Click “Search automatically for drivers” for the system to locate and install new drivers.
Restart Windows to complete the process.

Now, here’s the catch. If Windows can’t locate the needed drivers, you will need to find, download and install them manually. This involves going to the driver manufacturers’ websites, locating the latest available driver versions, and then installing them yourself. Naturally, if you’ve never done this before, the process can seem a bit intimidating.

Spotify keeps skipping songs

This is when the songs in the playlist do not play to completion. After a few seconds, the app skips to the next song in the playlist. In some cases, some songs are not entirely played by Spotify while sometimes, the songs play but keep on skipping.

Follow the simple steps below to solve this problem.

Open Spotify, then go to settings.
Scroll down the drop-down items then select delete cache data. It will delete everything in the app and not the application.
Restart your phone and open the Spotify app.

On a PC, first, close Spotify, then create a backup of the cache folder storage by renaming it. Restart Spotify, the app will recreate the folder as it tries to write to it and the problem is solved.

Set Cross-fading Value to 0 Sec

Cross-fading songs is an advanced feature of Spotify. If your songs are not available currently, you can change the Spotify cross-fading setting.

Open Desktop Spotify > Settings > Advanced Settings.
In the Playback item, turn on Cross-fade songs and adjust the value from 5 Sec to 0 Sec.

Changing Playback Speaker on Your Computer

Another way to fix Spotify Songs that can’t be played on your laptop or desktop is to set the playback devices to another one.

Right-click the volume icon on the taskbar and select Playback Devices.
In the playback tab, select another speaker as the default speaker.
Reopen Spotify and try to play the unavailable music again.

Show the Unavailable Playlists or Songs

When you download a song to your local disk and later delete it from the Spotify database, it will still show up in your Spotify playlist, but you cannot play it. So you need to find out which songs are not playable.

Opening Spotify Settings on your desktop.
In Display options, turn on the button to “Show unavailable songs in playlists”.

After that, you can easily identify which songs are currently unavailable. If you want to replay them, you can download them again.

Redownload songs

If certain songs aren’t working on Spotify on your Android phone, it’s possible that the downloaded song files have become corrupted and this is why Spotify is not showing or playing downloaded songs.

Go to Spotify, tap Your Library at the bottom right of the screen > Liked Songs.
From here, tap Downloaded Songs at the top of the screen to remove all downloaded songs from your Liked Songs list.
Wait a minute or two to make sure that the app has had time to remove the songs. Restart the app. Then, tap the Download button to redownload the songs.

This should make sure that your songs aren’t corrupted when listening without an Internet connection.

Check time and date settings

One of the weirdest reasons why Spotify does not operate on many smart devices is because different devices with the same account might not have synchronized time and date settings. Therefore, check your device’s time and date settings. If the time and date on your device are incorrect, Spotify’s servers may have problems syncing with it.

This issue is more common on laptops and tablets that do not have automatic time zone settings while traveling across time zones. Here’s how to get things fixed.

On your device, tap the Settings icon.
Select Date and Time.
Turn on the Automatic Date & Time option.

Rollback update

A new version of Spotify may sometimes be the source of a particular problem, like Spotify not playing through headphones on a mobile device.

It is possible that in the past, some users did not experience this issue. However, this issue surfaced after the Spotify app was updated. If that is the case, then you should roll back the update to the older version of the Spotify app.

Some phones allow you to quickly and easily erase app updates, and the methods below will show you how to do so:

APK files can be installed simply from the web browser on your device.
Go to Google Play Store > Uninstall Spotify
Open your browser, and find the APK file you want to download on th
Check that you are downloading the previous version and press it; you should see it downloading on your device’s top bar.
When it’s finished downloading, go to Downloads, touch on the APK file, and select Yes when prompted.
The app will begin to download and install on your device.

After the installation is complete, check if it resolved your problem or not

Disable Battery optimization

The battery saver might sometimes interfere with other applications that are running at the same time. As a result, stopping the Spotify app’s battery optimization may resolve the Spotify not functioning on Android Auto problem.

Open Settings
- Scroll down to Apps & Notifications and tap it.
- Choose “Special app access.”
- Go to Battery Optimization and select it.
- Tap ‘Not optimized’ at the top, then ‘All apps’.
- Locate and select the Spotify app from the list.
- Finally, press the ‘Not optimized’ button.
- Allow Spotify to use your data in the background

Make Spotify the default music service

If Spotify auto play is not working on Android, then another option is to make Spotify your preferred/default music service. This solution has been used by several users to solve this issue.

Here’s how to go about it.

Go to Google > Settings
Google Assistant > Service > Music on your Android phone.
Then, as the default music service, select Spotify.

Android OS Update

You should also see if there is a new software update for your Android device. If updated software is available, download it and install it on your Android smartphone.

Check your Android phone’s software update by following the steps below:

To update your Android Phone software, you must have an active internet connection on your phone. Wi-Fi is highly recommended.
Select Settings from the phone’s menu.
Scroll down to the Software update option.
The system will check to see if an update for your Android smartphone is available, and you will be given the choice to download and install it. To update your smartphone, select that option and tap it.

Spotify Won’t Load

There is nothing more frustrating than not being able to open Spotify and access your music. This occasionally shows up as error 14 and every time you attempt to open the program, it automatically closes again. Other times there will not be an error message, the program just will not load for you at all, no matter how many times you click on it. Regardless of whether the program is opening and then closing again or if it won’t open at all.

The following steps should be able to fix your issue.

First un-install Spotify. Go to the Spotify menu and click “quit”.
Once you have exited the program, you need to manually delete Spotify from your computer’s library and applications folder.
You will also want to empty your trash, then, re-start your computer. Once your computer has re-started, check your library and applications folder to make sure the files are gone.

Once you have re-started your computer and verified that Spotify is uninstalled go to the Spotify website and update the most recent version of Spotify. Once the installer has finished downloading, run it and re-install Spotify. You should now be able to open Spotify without issue.

Disable Spotify’s hardware acceleration feature

Hardware acceleration is a great feature to have on board as it can take a lot of pressure off the software algorithms. By default, Spotify’s hardware acceleration feature is turned on. However, if you are wondering how to fix the “Can’t play the current track” error message, disabling this feature may be one of the ways to go.

Here’s how to disable Spotify’s acceleration feature:

Open Spotify.
Click the Ellipsis button on the top left side of the page.
Here, select View.
Next, deselect the Hardware Acceleration option.
Restart the app and check if you can now play tracks without issues.

Spotify shuffle sucks

Spotify shuffle occurs when Spotify doesn’t shuffle all the songs in the playlist. Spotify may shuffle only a few songs in the playlist like the last 50 recently added songs, songs by the same artist or songs starting with a particular alphabet. You can, however, mitigate this as detailed below.

Restart your Spotify app:

Log out from your account in the settings drop-down options.
Restart the Spotify app by closing it and clearing it from the apps running in the background.
Log in again by selecting the Spotify app.
Try to shuffle your playlist and check if it is playing randomly, if not try the next solution.

Sort tracks by title:

Select your preferred playlist in your Spotify app.
Swipe your finger down the screen. A “filter “search with a drop-down feature on its right then appears.
Select “Title” from the drop-down options.
In your playlist screen, tap the shuffle button.

Authenticate 3rd party Login

When you sign up or log in to Spotify, you have the option of using a traditional login method such as your email or phone number, which is usually visible when you log out or get started with Spotify, or a third-party networking platform such as Facebook or Apple ID.

But if Spotify or third-party platforms such as Facebook or Apple update their privacy policies, users may be required to re-login or authenticate their accounts in order to resolve the issue. This is why when companies’ privacy regulations change, it can be difficult to log into apps like Spotify. However, please bear in mind that Logging in with a different social networking platform or email account will essentially give you a new account, which means you won’t retain your previous data i.e playlists or songs.

To authenticate via third party networking platforms:

Go to Profile Settings
- Scroll to the bottom and Log out of the app
- This time, use a different platform to log in
- You will have the option to choose from Facebook, Apple ID, Google, and your phone number

After logging in, see if the problem has been resolved. If not, then stay with us and continue reading.

Make sure your firewall isn’t blocking your Spotify (Computer)

This isn’t a problem on mobile devices, but if you are trying to play Spotify on a computer and it’s not working. It’s possible that Spotify’s ability to stream audio is blocked by your computer’s firewall.

On Mac,

Start the System Preferences app and select Security & Privacy.
Click the lock icon in the bottom left corner. You might need to enter your password.
On the Firewall tab, click Firewall Options and,
On the pop-up, clear the checkbox next to Block all incoming connections,
Then finally,click OK.

And on Windows computer,

Click the Start button and search for “Firewall”.
When it appears in the search results, click Windows Defender Firewall.
On the left side of the Windows Firewall Firewall window, click Allow an App or Feature through Windows Defender Firewall.
At the top of the list, click Change settings and then make sure that Spotify Music has all three checkmarks.
Click OK.

Many users complain that sometimes Spotify just decides not to connect to their WiFi networks. You can’t listen to music offline without a paid plan. What we can tell you about is that this is one of the problems most often faced when using Spotify, and it is common to be caused by your firewall settings. Spotify itself has specified how you can set up your router in a way that the app works normally.

Premium features aren’t working

Something rather common to happen to Spotify users is trying to use the premium features they should have, and being unable to do so, which is one of the biggest problems. This includes the offline mode, the lack of ads, better audio quality in songs, and more.

The most likely culprit is that you haven’t logged in to the correct account. Before you ask how that could be, just know that logging in with your Facebook account and your Spotify account are two different things, and the premium features will only be available in the account you signed up for. Another possibility is that the credit card you use to pay for the subscription has run into some issue, so make sure to check your email to try and fix it.

Conclusion

However, Spotify Premium users are able to download Spotify songs offline. These downloaded songs are cache and still cannot be transferred or played on other media players.

Spotify is a digital music, podcast, and video service that gives you access to millions of songs and other content from creators all over the world. For many people, Spotify is the modern equivalent of an FM radio. Basic functions such as playing music are totally free, but you can also choose to upgrade to Spotify premium. With hundreds of millions of users, Spotify is the undisputed king of music streaming services. However, being the market leader doesn’t mean Spotify is exempt from problems. Given its huge user base, the number of devices it supports, and the size of its music catalog, it shouldn’t be surprising that issues can occur.