Is there a Spotify Loading Issue Fix Coming?

[andrewsjra]

I realize when Spotify was rushed out for V10 it was going to be buggy. But after having it for a while now I would expect most issues to be fixed. I cancelled my Apple Music subscription in favor of Spotify and being able to use it on my Tesla. It seems the loading of your personal library still has issues. I’ve seen many people say click on something else like Tune In and back and it will load but that doesn’t work for me. I’ve tried it multiple times and sometimes after 18-20 tries it loads but even that’s not guaranteed. Is anyone else having this much difficulty loading your Spotify library? I don’t have issues loading other things on Spotify such as new releases and playlists. Those work great. I’ve reported the loading issue as a bug report and I’m sure plenty of other Tesla owners have done the same. Makes me wonder if Tesla actually looks at this stuff. I wish they would fix this so I can listen to my own library of music when I want to, not when it decides it wants to load. Slacker works better but their library of music is limited.

 

[Bubbatech]

The key is when you bring up Spotify and you see the categories. Don’t tap any of them. Wait a minute or two. Then tap, say, playlists. Wait again. If you do this, it will work most of the time. If it hangs, click something else like the phone category or something. If you do this, it is merely horrible, but usable. I have found the only way to use it well is to use playlists. I haven’t been able to figure out the logic behind how it lists albums, artists, or songs. You can’t find anything. It’s not in alphabetical order or any other specific sorting method I can discern than whether you have played a thing recently. It’s nice having it, but the Spotify app needs serious serious work. It’s usable, but barely.

 

[MP3Mike]

I realize when Spotify was rushed out for V10 it was going to be buggy.

Rushed out? It is the same Spotify that has been available to European Tesla owners forever.

 

[andrewsjra]

Yes for something that’s been out for a while it should be more polished. We get other enhancements and bug fixes but nothing for Spotify. I bet it’s a simple fix but I might just cancel my Spotify until Tesla fixes it. I would only use Spotify in the car so if it doesn’t work right what’s the point. When I start my car up after it’s been sleeping, the regular playlists and new release selections work and will play music 100% of the time. It’s only the “ My Library” that has issues. It will display the menu for my playlists, artists, songs, etc. When I select one of those options that’s when it’s stuck loading. If I drive for a while and then go to it, I find it loads no problem. So basically if I go on a short trip for coffee it may not load. That’s becoming a deal breaker for me. Paying $10 a month for premium connectivity and another $15 for a Spotify premium family membership seems steep for something that works sometimes. Too bad there’s no other way to report this to Tesla.

 

[andrewsjra]

Rushed out? It is the same Spotify that has been available to European Tesla owners forever.

Yes I understand it was available for years in Europe but the original betas for V10 in the US didn’t include Spotify. It only had YouTube, Netflix and tutorials in theatre mode from what I recall. Does the same issue occur in the European release? I would hope not being as it’s been around there for a long time.

 

[garth_angst]

Does the same issue occur in the European release? I would hope not being as it’s been around there for a long time.

Great question. I don't believe I have ever near a non North America person talk about how it works for them.

 

[andrewsjra]

Great question. I don't believe I have ever near a non North America person talk about how it works for them.

I actually researched it. Someone on Reddit said it was working fine until V10 came out lol. I’ll take a fix for this over an addition of Disney + they said was coming soon.

 

[trisk]

The first thing I usually select after starting Spotify is "My Playlists". If that doesn't load, I'll immediately switch to TuneIn and display a podcast playlist. All of the menus work once I return to Spotify. This has been 100% reliable for me.

 

[jeffnz]

I’ve had Spotify since before v10. I’m not sure but I think what you’re describing might be related to when the car switches from WiFi to cellular when you start driving. Doesn’t always happen though. For me it’s only now and then but more often it won’t play a song and gives a loading error. I’ve been meaning to try turning off my WiFi in the garage for awhile and see if that makes a difference.

 

[andrewsjra]

I’ve had Spotify since before v10. I’m not sure but I think what you’re describing might be related to when the car switches from WiFi to cellular when you start driving. Doesn’t always happen though. For me it’s only now and then but more often it won’t play a song and gives a loading error. I’ve been meaning to try turning off my WiFi in the garage for awhile and see if that makes a difference.

yes I believe the WiFi to LTE might be the culprit. I also had a issue this morning where it logged me out of Spotify and back to the login screen. I went to TuneIn and back to Spotify and I was logged back in. I’ve been noticing when I leave from my house I see a message on the top of my screen that I don’t have connectivity even though the upper right screen shows I do. I’m currently on firmware 2020.12.5. I wish i could email Tesla the Spotify issue to be fixed. I have a lot of artists and albums under my library that I’d like to play.

 

[Casmium]

If you have a family plan on Spotify, create a seperate account for your car and most of your problems will go away, it doesn't like having to share your account with another device, but works great on its own account

 

[andrewsjra]

If you have a family plan on Spotify, create a seperate account for your car and most of your problems will go away, it doesn't like having to share your account with another device, but works great on its own account

I actually have the family plan and have separate accounts with my wife. I also did what someone recommended by logging out of my Spotify account on my phone so that it doesn’t prioritize wanting to play off the phone as opposed to the Tesla. I was very happy with Apple Music before I opened a Spotify account, however I was in love with the ability to control everything off my screen. Looking down at my phone to switch artists, songs and albums is dangerous. If Tesla got Apple Music that would be awesome but i doubt they will. I just received update 2020.12.11.1 and of course it did not fix the issue. Doing more research it appears Europe has had similar issues with Spotify which they’ve had for years. The likelihood it gets fixed is not likely. I’m going to try disconnecting from my WiFi and see if just being on LTE will work when you the car wakes up. Keeping my fingers crossed.

 

[Darwood77]

All these workarounds are getting old. Just fix it already, Tesla!

 

[andrewsjra]

I tried slacker premium and although it’s better than regular slacker it’s still not great. You can listen to whole albums but you can’t view all the tracks at once and you can only skip tracks. You cannot go back to listen to a previous song. Ultimately Spotify is the best if it works. Maybe we have to wait for v11 for a fix.

 

[PRLM3]

Yes for something that’s been out for a while it should be more polished. We get other enhancements and bug fixes but nothing for Spotify. I bet it’s a simple fix but I might just cancel my Spotify until Tesla fixes it. I would only use Spotify in the car so if it doesn’t work right what’s the point. When I start my car up after it’s been sleeping, the regular playlists and new release selections work and will play music 100% of the time. It’s only the “ My Library” that has issues. It will display the menu for my playlists, artists, songs, etc. When I select one of those options that’s when it’s stuck loading. If I drive for a while and then go to it, I find it loads no problem. So basically if I go on a short trip for coffee it may not load. That’s becoming a deal breaker for me. Paying $10 a month for premium connectivity and another $15 for a Spotify premium family membership seems steep for something that works sometimes. Too bad there’s no other way to report this to Tesla.

I have this problem and it's a super PITA, but you can still listen to spotify which is a killer app IMHO, just do it from your smartphone and connect the music in your M3 to the smartphone, and run it that way. I agree that's kind of a bummer, but it's what I default to when it repeatedly screws up and I need some tunes.

 

[lifejoker]

I actually researched it. Someone on Reddit said it was working fine until V10 came out lol. I’ll take a fix for this over an addition of Disney + they said was coming soon.

Great question. I don't believe I have ever near a non North America person talk about how it works for them.

I am in France and Spotify has all the same issues, the experience is terrible, takes forever to load something most of the time, no logic whatsoever into the album or artist order, good luck finding what you are looking for...its just terrible, slow and thats when it works.

 

[andrewsjra]

I am in France and Spotify has all the same issues, the experience is terrible, takes forever to load something most of the time, no logic whatsoever into the album or artist order, good luck finding what you are looking for...its just terrible, slow and thats when it works.

I reported this to Tesla customer service and they said they will be addressing this in a future update. Who knows if that will happen but at least it was reported. The bug report option never seems to work or Tesla doesn’t listen.

 

[PRLM3]

So took one user up on the advice of waiting a couple minutes to try and load the content. Works pretty good. As opposed to repeatedly trying to load then switching to radio then back and trying again ... driving for 2-3 minutes, then trying to load content -- seems to work pretty consistently. Pretty good workaround ...

 

[andrewsjra]

For me it’s about 6 minutes from when it’s asleep to driving it. I just don’t like I make a quick trip down the street to Starbucks and it doesn’t load before I get there. Then I get back in the car and back home and still can’t get it to load. If they are going to have all these features it should work as advertised. Otherwise what’s the point. They need to focus on the drivers needs and not what they want like more video games. Now they screwed up the Bluetooth for phone calls. My wife and my model 3 have no audio when answering calls. Still no fix after the past couple of updates. I would take a permanent bug fix for the basic features than receiving games and fart mode. That’s just me as I don’t have auto pilot and FSD.

 

[camalaio]

For me it’s about 6 minutes from when it’s asleep to driving it. I just don’t like I make a quick trip down the street to Starbucks and it doesn’t load before I get there. Then I get back in the car and back home and still can’t get it to load. If they are going to have all these features it should work as advertised. Otherwise what’s the point. They need to focus on the drivers needs and not what they want like more video games. Now they screwed up the Bluetooth for phone calls. My wife and my model 3 have no audio when answering calls. Still no fix after the past couple of updates. I would take a permanent bug fix for the basic features than receiving games and fart mode. That’s just me as I don’t have auto pilot and FSD.

I think the counter-case to this is funny: instead of a short hop, you're driving for longer (e.g. on a highway). When you drive for longer, you're more likely to run into a dead spot. Upon encountering a dead spot, Spotify (and most of the rest of the media system) completely breaks until you reboot it or park it, even if the outage was brief. It's poorly implemented from all angles!

Tesla is brilliant. They get all the hype with the games and stuff, but they really lack the polish on every-day features. They seem to have forgotten especially that the most road-trip-worthy EV will indeed make road trips and go through dead spots... yet so many things and ideas break when doing so?

People are floored when they hear things like this, thinking Tesla was so far ahead in "tech" than everyone else. My 2014 Honda Crosstour's media system put the Model 3 to shame except for the speaker quality (which doesn't matter if I can't get high bitrate stuff to play in the Model 3!).