Spotify sucks.

[TheDawnOfANewTage]

I live in China, and using a foreign phone in my town means my data speed isn't great- no worries, I download my stuff before heading out. Extra step, but it's no biggie and saves me money on data. Right?

No.

When Spotify senses a signal, however weak, it goes for that signal- so for months I was downloading stuff for nothing, and was very confused as to why my downloaded music/podcasts wouldn't load whilst out on runs. Finally figured out that I have to go into offline mode for it to prioritize the downloaded stuff, but.. what f***ing sense does that make? You have a signal that literally isn't strong enough to load the playlist's track names, never mind being able to actually play the music- and it tries to do that instead of just playing the stuff sitting there in storage on my phone. Holy hell, nice deal with the data providers, that one. I bet plenty of Americans don't even know that's happening.

There's also no way (as far as I can tell) to check download progress, and since I've downloaded a lot of running playlists that seem to automatically add new songs my phone gets bogged down downloading 60+ tracks to.. god knows where. Dunno which tracks, dunno which playlist, dunno how long it will take, and it often seems to get stuck. But trying to do anything until it's done will only screw it up further, so I gotta just close and open Spotify again and again until it actually works properly and finishes downloading the tracks that just appeared outta nowhere.

Navigating sucks, they're more interested in pushing certain products than they are in providing me with more of the material I consistently listen to- no, I don't want to listen to "Man vs. Food", I've given no indication of that being an interest- I would like to be able to find my 2nd favorite news podcast without 20 f***ing clicks though. I like a certain kind of electronic music- f*** you, here's 30+ playlists with the same f***ing dubstep songs. Artists you may like? Whoever gave us the most money, f*** you.

Sorry, more a rant than anything else, but I'm wondering if anyone does actually have advice/alternatives. Anyone commiserate or is your experience better? I'm using the paid version, only way to get the downloads FYI.

Click to read more...

 

[Unlimited Chequing]

Ugh! So it's not just me that is bothered by this!

I have an old iphone that I use specifically for music when I go on my bike rides (no data) so I have the same experience as you. I didn't even know there was an offline mode until this post! I just started turning off the wifi on my phone when I didn't need to download new music/podcasts, cause it would get so annoying when I'd be out riding and all of a sudden when I reach the end of a song or podcast episode, the next track wouldn't play so I'd have to pull over, fish out my device and then select the next track through the downloaded list.

With regards to downloaded podcasts, there's no way to sort the order to play them and it always plays them in the most recent download to oldest, which makes no sense because some podcasts are episodic. I made a complaint about that on the Spotify Community page and the idiot mod responded by telling me to select the play order through the filters and then locked my post. Problem is that option doesn't exist for downloaded podcasts so I reamed him out through PMs for giving me wrong information and closing my post before I or anyone had a chance to respond. So he deleted his post and put a new one, still suggesting I use the filter option that doesn't exist and added a suggestion that I submit it as a feature request.... which don't get implemented unless it's voted enough by the community so it'll probably never get added. So now I just download the most recent episode and work backwards to the oldest one I haven't listened to. How stupid.

Those Spotify developers really need a lesson in how to design a proper UI.

 

[Didalee Hed]

I don’t know why I need to download my stuff more than once.

 

[bleedblue1223]

And people wonder why I keep my ipod for workouts and other casual uses. Cloud makes things worse in certain situations.

 

[Roo Returns]

If you travel anywhere with public transpiration that goes underground or in the country, you can't rely on streaming services. I refuse to let good WiFi and location determine when I listen to music and in what way.

 

[Osprey]

And people wonder why I keep my ipod for workouts and other casual uses. Cloud makes things worse in certain situations.

It seems like a valid thing for people to wonder. Why not transfer the songs from the iPod to your smartphone? You don't need to use cloud services just because the device has them.

 

[bleedblue1223]

It seems like a valid thing for people to wonder. Why not transfer the songs from the iPod to your smartphone? You don't need to use cloud services just because the device has them.

The other reason is for battery drain and wanting a smaller device during my workouts/runs. I still use phone and streaming devices at times, but the nano has it's uses.

 

[TheDawnOfANewTage]

Ugh! So it's not just me that is bothered by this!

I have an old iphone that I use specifically for music when I go on my bike rides (no data) so I have the same experience as you. I didn't even know there was an offline mode until this post! I just started turning off the wifi on my phone when I didn't need to download new music/podcasts, cause it would get so annoying when I'd be out riding and all of a sudden when I reach the end of a song or podcast episode, the next track wouldn't play so I'd have to pull over, fish out my device and then select the next track through the downloaded list.

With regards to downloaded podcasts, there's no way to sort the order to play them and it always plays them in the most recent download to oldest, which makes no sense because some podcasts are episodic. I made a complaint about that on the Spotify Community page and the idiot mod responded by telling me to select the play order through the filters and then locked my post. Problem is that option doesn't exist for downloaded podcasts so I reamed him out through PMs for giving me wrong information and closing my post before I or anyone had a chance to respond. So he deleted his post and put a new one, still suggesting I use the filter option that doesn't exist and added a suggestion that I submit it as a feature request.... which don't get implemented unless it's voted enough by the community so it'll probably never get added. So now I just download the most recent episode and work backwards to the oldest one I haven't listened to. How stupid.

Those Spotify developers really need a lesson in how to design a proper UI.

Glad it's not just me! Well, not glad, but good to know I'm not nuts. Besides the download/stream prioritization, ya, the UI is the other unforgivably bad part. It's weird how difficult they make it to explore anything new- Spotify knows I like news, so please, put that at the top of my podcast options. I like Radiohead- don't recommend Ariana Grande to me, recommend Yorke's latest album. Just kinda weird how I have to know what I want and search for it, actually using the app to find new material is incredibly frustrating. Then the playlist things you mentioned.. I have a podcast that has a 6 part series, and ya, there's no way to keep it from playing in a backwards order. Like, come on man, that is not a tough solution to engineer. Lemme manually rearrange them, I know nothing of programming and could work that one out in a week.

If you travel anywhere with public transpiration that goes underground or in the country, you can't rely on streaming services. I refuse to let good WiFi and location determine when I listen to music and in what way.

Right, which is what makes the prioritization thing so annoying. For months it was a mystery, because sometimes it'd load the downloads, other times it'd go looking for the stream. Idk, maybe someone more technically minded knows better, but to my mind it's absolutely asinine that it goes looking in the cloud when the stuff is sitting on the phone already downloaded. Use that. Now I have to go offline to go outta the house, go online to download new shit, offline to listen to it, back and forth.. I downloaded it. If I search for something, please, for the love of god, check to see if it's downloaded first.


This is all very "first world problems," mind you, but it just sucks because I was so happy with Spotify at first. I don't like illegally downloading, but I can't pay $15 a pop just to explore some new music. Spotify seemed a great solution, but a) they pay smaller artists friggin pennies b) they push larger artists unnecessarily, c) the actual app is kinda a mess. It works, I've figured out how to finagle exactly what I want, but good god do they not make it easy.

PS- As I speak I just opened "search" and "podcast"- "women in the workplace" is what they're pushing currently, "battle tactics for the sexist workplace" being the first option listed. Like, wtf? Nothing I've ever done has indicated an interest in this material. Ditto the next category pushed, which has "mind massage" and "laugh out loud" as possible podcast options. No, I like news and history, Malcolm Gladwell! Help me find some more of that you stupid piece of shit.

 

[TheDawnOfANewTage]

Apologies, this has turned into my own private rant zone, but seriously- what. the. f***.

I've downloaded all sorts of user created running playlists because a) spotify's playlists suck b) If I click through 4 tracks and like 2 of 'em that's enough of a sample to give it a try. So I download them. Onto my phone. I don't want any updates, I don't care about new tracks past what I've added, I don't care if the original user adds something new- I don't want it, not if it's gonna bog my phone down the moment I switch from offline mode to online. Like right now- I wanna download Fall Out Boy for a run. But I can't, because the moment I go into online mode it starts adding 70 tracks to random playlists. Figured out that the (lack of the) little green arrow tells you which playlists will add songs, but I can't stop the download, I just have to delete the entire f***ing playlist. There is no f***ing option for "no, I like these 30 songs they originally had, I don't need anything new, thanks." If they add 1000 songs, am I really left without an option other than to delete the download of the 30 songs I like? What a f***ing nightmare, just give me an option to opt out of updates. Allow me to prioritize things I manually choose to download right now. I can't explain how backwards and weird this UI and prioritization is, and with my shit wifi going through all this and downloading one album has taken an hour longer than it should have. Whatever, download is finally done, thanks for coming to my TED talk on why Spotify can eat year old cheerios outta a used jock strap, I'm going for my run.

edit- holy f*** they have a "data saver" option that sets your music to lower quality. Finding the ability to go offline, which saves A f***TON MORE DATA, is another step and is much less obvious. I swear to god I've never complained to a company in my 29 years of living, but I'm just gonna edit all this shit and blast away at 'em. What a money hungry piece of shit joke.

 

[Honour Over Glory]

I've never had an issue with spotify at all. This thread has been a bit of a hoot to read, I've been using Spotify for a couple of years now and have not experienced any of these issues at all, neither has my gf, brother, and friends and family that also use it. I had a friend that finally switched from Apple Music to Spotify and now wonders why he ever bothered with anything else.

Do people actually dig into the settings of their phone and apps? It's like being mad at something that is set to default because you didn't bother to check the settings and make it customizable to you. People want options, up until they actually need to use it to get a better experience, it seems.

 

[izzy]

stupid you need to make sure you are in offline mode to not burn data on songs you already have downloaded and taking space up on your phone

 

[TheDawnOfANewTage]

I've never had an issue with spotify at all. This thread has been a bit of a hoot to read, I've been using Spotify for a couple of years now and have not experienced any of these issues at all, neither has my gf, brother, and friends and family that also use it. I had a friend that finally switched from Apple Music to Spotify and now wonders why he ever bothered with anything else.

Do people actually dig into the settings of their phone and apps? It's like being mad at something that is set to default because you didn't bother to check the settings and make it customizable to you. People want options, up until they actually need to use it to get a better experience, it seems.

Do any of you download music? Are you not bothered by the idiocy of having to go offline in order to actually listen to the downloaded songs and not suck up data? There's no way to change the settings so as to prioritize that. There's no way to keep it from auto-downloading new tracks to user created playlists (I suppose I could "create a copy of playlist" and use that, but really a simple "auto-update or no" option would be much easier). There's no way to figure out exactly what it's downloading at the moment, you just get "2 out of 70 downloaded" and there's no way to check the speed. My entire complaint is that I have dug into the settings, and I find the UI horrible. Once again, go to settings and "data saver" is right there- it makes the sound quality worse. If you wanna do the infinitely more logical thing of, y'know, playing through your downloads instead of streaming the music (that you've already downloaded) you have to first go into "playback," then "offline," which is not intuitive at all. Seriously, if you have any insights into setting changes I could make to fix all this, please, tell me, but I'm saying that a) I've dug into the settings and have finally figured out a system that gives me what I want. b) That system is stupid and backwards as f***, and it still isn't perfect (see the podcast order issue, for example). If I manually choose to download songs right now there should be a way to prioritize that ahead of downloading songs to a playlist from 2015 that hasn't been touched in months, but the original creator has decided to add the entire discography of Insane Clown Pose to. If that's not possible, at least find a way to make it clear that that's what's being downloaded, that's the playlist it's being added to, and give me an option to opt out of those downloads at least.

Glad ya find it a hoot though- seriously, my complaints are somewhat tongue-in-cheek as I love a rant about rather trivial stupidity sometimes. What was your friend's issues with Apple Music?

 

[discostu]

Only time I use things offline is when I'm in an internet dead space. I also have a ridiculous amount of data so it's not much of an issue for me.

If you are trying to conserve bandwidth, I can imagine it is frustrating, however, I'm guessing that is by design. I share my account with my wife, so, the only time we can ever use the account at the same time is if one or both of us are offline. We're debating on getting the family account, but the times when we both need access is limited, so we're not considering it right now, but may do so in the future. If we could play off our our downloads though, there wouldn't bs a need at all to really consider.

I personally love spotify though. I don't really care about the recommendations, as, we use it for all family members, so the software has no way to really separate that out. However, I don't needy software to know that much about me that it can figure out what I want to listen to before I do. I'm happy I'm still a bit of a mystery to the algorithms.

 

[Tad Mikowsky]

I HATE how the alphabet scroll is just gone. Stupidest change ever.

 

[Honour Over Glory]

I HATE how the alphabet scroll is just gone. Stupidest change ever.

You can literally search now.

Also I only ever use offline when I am camping. Still have no issues with spotify.

 

[Tawnos]

My phone doesn’t stream the music I’ve downloaded. Ever.

 

[John Price]

There are a few flaws with car mode or repeatedly trying to scroll down to the bottom of my playlist where my good music is

And the randomization sucks, plays the same songs over

That being said, Spotify also allows you to do this so

 

[TheDawnOfANewTage]

1) Downloaded "This is Fallout Boy" playlist and it deleted half of it randomly. No biggie, just re-downloaded, but weird.
2) Had a pop-up window recommend Blink 182's new album- bro, you're recommending something I've already downloaded and listened to numerous times. I listen to a lot of different shit, so it's tough to get a feel for my taste- so my guess is they saw I downloaded "nine" and said "hey, you might like this album- nine!" Lol, good work guys.

I'll stick with it 'cause I honestly don't think there's anything better, but good god is it an example of how having a virtual monopoly allows for sloppy execution.

 

[cupcrazyman]

And people wonder why I keep my ipod for workouts and other casual uses. Cloud makes things worse in certain situations.

I still use my ipod & my 1000's of songs lol

 

[Unlimited Chequing]

Here's a new one I haven't seen before until today. I know I'm offline. That's why I downloaded it. How stupid.

 

[Unlimited Chequing]

I still use my ipod & my 1000's of songs lol

Yeah! I still have 3 iPod Classics (and an iPod nano with the watch case). Two of them have been modified to use SD cards for storage so I can always upgrade if I need more space. They're awesome.

(The white one has since been recycled.)

 

[ACC1224]

I still use my ipod & my 1000's of songs lol

I do sometimes but lack of bluetooth makes it not as friendly.

Love Spotify, have had no issues at all.

 

[Do Make Say Think]

I love it. I wish bands made more money from it though...

 

[Honour Over Glory]

Here's a new one I haven't seen before until today. I know I'm offline. That's why I downloaded it. How stupid.

You understand that if you take a song off of an album or a playlist and add it to yours, when that playlist updates via the person that controls it or otherwise, it needs to update as well.

I don't get the issues you guys are having.

The only thing I don't get is what likes do, it adds it to a liked song playlist but apparently it also helps with recommending songs? Not that it bothers me or anything, just curious.

But some of these issues, did you guys ever bother googling to find the answers off their website?

Spotify isn't great, it's a decent music app. But what's the other option? Some have half of what Spotify has and then they have some stuff Spotify doesn't, but Spotify has one of the largest catalogs of music.

 

[Honour Over Glory]

Looks like I was wrong, so Tidal has 60m songs, Spotify has 40m.

Why don't you guys just switch to Tidal, they offer the same 9.99/mo deal and a better 14.99 family account that lets you have 5 users on it. Hell, even I am curious now.

I just don't want to lose my 750+ song playlist of oldies I've been adding to for the last 3yrs.