Best Ways to Fix Spotify Stops Playing Problem

"For a few days now, Spotify keeps randomly stopping music in various different ways:

1. Spotify playing in background/ foreground > Lock device > Spotify stops playing with no evident pattern of time/track playback.

2. Remote controls in my car work only 1/10 times. If I lock the device, they stop working after a few seconds and start working again when I unlock the device and re-open the Spotify app.

3. Playback using external devices (Sonos, BlueOS) is extremely bugged now. If I put the app in background and foreground, it won't control the device but show that music is stopped while it is still playing.

Can anybody help me with these issues?" – Tover from Spotify Community

It’s been a long time that Spotify users run up against various types of bugs through version changes of this app. The most common one and also the most annoying one is that Spotify will stop playing songs out of no noticeable reasons. And questions like "why does Spotify stop playing when I lock my phone" and "why Spotify stops playing after a few seconds" are constantly asked on Spotify Community and Reddit.

Today, we’re going to troubleshoot these problems and resume your smooth listen experience.

Part 1. Checklist: Why Does Spotify Stop Playing

Why Does Spotify Stop Playing?

Since Spotify are constantly updating and mounting more features within its app, and unavoidably there’ll be many bugs and problems that they’ve never encountered before come up. So it’s hard to determine which solution will help you out in the case of playback stopping issue. The problems could be with your phone, your earbuds or with any other devices you’re using to listen to Spotify. And sometimes it is with the bad internet connection.

To keep it well-rounded, we’ll cover more solutions as many as possible to troubleshoot the problems in the following section.

Checklist:

Here're something you need to check before we dive into the fixes.

#1. Check Your Internet Connection

Spotify needs a Wi-Fi or mobile data connection to work. To ensure the online streaming, it's best to use Wi-Fi instead of mobile data. You can start to check the current internet connection with other music services on the device, such as Apple Music. Switch to another available internet connection, such as from mobile data to a Wi-Fi network.

#2. Check Spotify Connect

With Spotify Connect, you can use one device to remotely control listening on another. If others stop the Spotify playback on your device, Spotify will stop playing randomly.

How to use Spotify Connect

1. On desktop, open the Spotify app for desktop.

2. Stream a song, then go into the Now Playing.

3. Click the device icon (or similar) next to the speaker icon, you will see the current device that consumes Spotify contents.

From here if the current device is not your device, you'll also see a green tab like "Listening on [current device's name]". In this case, even the Spotify is playing contents in the Now Playing, the sound won't be on your device.

#3. Check Your Headphones Connection

If you're using your headphones, such as AirPods to connect and listen to Spotify, this playback issue may be with the headphone’s connection. Both wired and wireless headphones have the setting to cut out the playback. You can check if this cause Spotify stops playing randomly.

Part 2. Fix: Spotify Stops Playing Problem

In this part, we’ll introduce 9 fixes to the playback issues of Spotify.

#1. Restart the Spotify App

For starters, you'll need to restart the Spotify app to try playing the Spotify contents.

#2. Change the Music Quality

If you select a high music quality for your Spotify playback, it'll interrupt your Spotify playback. You can change your music quality for a lower one.

How to change the audio quality on Spotify

1. On desktop, open Settings.

2. Scroll to Audio quality > Streaming quality. Open the drop-down menu of the audio quality, switch to a lower one.

#3. Turn Off Battery Saver Mode

You should also turn off the Battery Saver mode (or similar) on your phone device.

How to turn off Battery Saver mode

For Android:

1. Open Settings, scroll down to Battery & Performance.

2. Turn off the Battery Saver.

For iOS:

1. Open the Settings app, scroll to Battery.

2. Turn off the Low Power Mode.

#4. Turn Off Data Saver Mode

Data Saver mode conserves mobile data when you are streaming Spotify music online. You should turn it off to ensure the smooth audio playback.

How to turn off Data Saver mode

1. Open the Spotify mobile app.

2. Go to Settings, scroll to Data Saver to turn it off.

#5. Turn Off Hardware Acceleration

Hardware Acceleration is Spotify's feature that helps users meet the app requirements for a smooth listening experience. However, this feature sometimes causes problems. You should turn it off to make the application work again.

How to turn off Hardware Acceleration

1. On desktop, click the Profile icon > Settings or click the Edit settings link for the desktop app > Preferences > Compatibility.

2. Turn off the "Enable hardware acceleration" option.

#6. Turn Off Low Power Mode

If you use iOS device and Spotify keeps stopping, you should turn off the Low Power mode.

How to turn off low power mode

1. From the Home screen, open the Settings app.

2. Go to General > Battery > Low Power Mode. Switch off the Low Power Mode option.

#7. Sign Out of All Devices

You can try to sign out of all your devices to fix this issue.

How to sign out of all your devices on Spotify:

1. Use a browser to go to the page of Account Overview to log in to your Spotify account.

2. Scroll to Sign out everywhere. You'll access the "Sign out everywhere" button.

3. Click on the "Sign out everywhere" button to log out of all devices.

Spotify will log out of all your devices on Spotify (except for the partner devices). You can choose to log in to your Spotify account to see if the problem persists.

#8. Redownload the Music

If the playback issue is with the downloaded songs on Spotify, you have to clear all downloads and redownload them.

How to clear all downloads on Spotify

1. On desktop, go to Settings > Storage > Downloads.

2. Under Storage, click on the "Remove all downloads" button next to the Downloads option.

#9. Turn On Offline Mode

You’re recommended to turn on the offline mode to play the downloaded songs in the application.

How to turn on offline mode on Spotify

1. For Windows, use the More button (horizontal 3 dots) to open the Windows menu > File > Offline Mode. For Mac, click Spotify in the Apple menu > Offline. Once you're on offline mode, you will see the offline mode icon next to the Profile icon.

2. On mobile for Android or iOS, go to Home > Settings > Playback. If Offline is off, switch it on.

From here to make sure the offline mode is switched on for a good 5 to 10 minutes. Before you disable this mode, try playing the songs you redownloaded on Spotify,

#10. Clean Uninstall the Spotify App

You'll have to clean uninstall the Spotify app to fix this playback issue. Pick up your device to follow these steps.

How to clean uninstall the Spotify app

For Windows:

1. On desktop, use Windows Search Box > Settings > Control Panel > Programs > Uninstall a program.

2. In the apps list, find Spotify > Uninstall.

3. Follow the on-screen instruction to uninstall the Spotify app.

4. Go back to the Windows Search Box > "%AppData%". This will open the AppData\Roaming location.

5. Find the associated Spotify folders to delete.

For Mac:

1. On desktop, use Go > Utilties > Activity Monitor > Spotify processes > Quit Process.

2. After that, open Finder > Applications > Spotify, then use Move To Trash to uninstall it.

3. Use Go and hold the Option / Alt Key > Library > Caches to find the associated folders.

4. Delete com.spotify.client and com.spotify.client.helper folders from the MacBook.

Go to Spotify's download webpage to download correct version for Windows or Mac.

Part 3. Alternatives: Play Spotify Songs with No Issues

If all these methods turn out to be useless, then unfortunately, you may have found the unknown bug in Spotify. And resorting to Spotify team for help could be extremely tedious and you may not get the result you want.

But there’s an ultimate tip we want to offer to you which not only solves your Spotify stops playing issue but also helps you get rid of Spotify bugs for ever.

By using the ViWizard Spotify Music Converter, you can get the unprotected Spotify audio files and play them anywhere. So that you'll be able to play Spotify songs seamlessly and never have to worry about any other Spotify bugs that discomfort you.

ViWizard Spotify Music Converter is made for converting protected Spotify song files into 6 different formats like MP3, AAC, M4A, M4B, WAV and FLAC. This tool runs at noticably 5X faster speed, and no quality loss will happen during the converting process.

 

Step 1Open ViWizard and Import Spotify Songs

Open ViWizard Spotify Music Converter. Drag and drop songs from Spotify into ViWizard's interface, and they'll be automatically imported.

Step 2Choose Output Format and Customization Options

Turn to Preference menu and then navigate to Convert. There're 6 types of output formats available including MP3, M4A, M4B, AAC, WAV and FLAC. Plus, you can change output channel, sample rate and bit rate.

Step 3Conversion

Click the "Convert" button and ViWizard will start processing. With all the songs being converted, click the "Converted" button and you can find where the output files are located.

Step 4Play Spotify Songs Seamlessly

Open any kind of music player on your phone or computer, and play the songs you've just converted. Now you can enjoy listening to Spotify songs smoothly.