Photo: Bogdan Popa/autoevolution
Spotify has been my favorite music streaming service for many years already, but in the last few months, the experience with the Android Auto app has become a huge mess.
On one hand, the update to Android 14 certainly didn't help. Many users ended up struggling with the app due to the operating system update, as the application failed to load or couldn't send any sound to the car's speakers. Spotify shows that it plays music, but no sound comes from the speakers.
Android 14 appears to be the culprit, but Google says it's investigating the reports, so it could take a while until we get a fix.
Now, it looks like Spotify is hitting another roadblock, this time unrelated to Android 14. The application no longer shows any content in playlists when the Android Auto experience is enabled.
I spotted this glitch about two weeks ago, and I could bring the app back to normal by force-closing it on my smartphone. For some reason, the bug keeps coming back occasionally, though it's unclear what causes it. It doesn't happen on every Android Auto launch, so I couldn't determine a pattern to tell what goes wrong.
The fix that brings Spotify back to working condition is the same every time. Force-closing the app restores it, though I obviously don't want to do this so often. I also tried keeping Spotify running in the background on my phone, but it doesn't look like this makes a difference. The app still misbehaves for a reason that nobody could determine.
I originally believed the problem happened on my side, but several users on reddit confirmed the same glitch. All claim that Spotify no longer loads content in playlists, and if I were to guess, I'd say the problem was introduced by a Spotify update shipped earlier this month.
Until an update goes live, the only option is to stick with the force-closing workaround.
Using Spotify has become quite a challenge recently on Android Auto, so I can only hope the parent company pays more attention to bugs and the general stability offered to users. As a driver whose main focus should be on the road, I don't have the time to keep messing with the application, so if something doesn't work as expected, I'm more inclined to dump it completely rather than try to fix it when the vehicle is in motion.
YouTube Music runs correctly in my car, so the problem doesn't seem to reside in Android Auto but rather happens at the app level in Spotify. The parent company has remained tight-lipped on the glitch so far, so it's hard to tell if it has at least started an investigation to figure out what goes wrong with Android Auto.
Android 14 appears to be the culprit, but Google says it's investigating the reports, so it could take a while until we get a fix.
Now, it looks like Spotify is hitting another roadblock, this time unrelated to Android 14. The application no longer shows any content in playlists when the Android Auto experience is enabled.
I spotted this glitch about two weeks ago, and I could bring the app back to normal by force-closing it on my smartphone. For some reason, the bug keeps coming back occasionally, though it's unclear what causes it. It doesn't happen on every Android Auto launch, so I couldn't determine a pattern to tell what goes wrong.
The fix that brings Spotify back to working condition is the same every time. Force-closing the app restores it, though I obviously don't want to do this so often. I also tried keeping Spotify running in the background on my phone, but it doesn't look like this makes a difference. The app still misbehaves for a reason that nobody could determine.
I originally believed the problem happened on my side, but several users on reddit confirmed the same glitch. All claim that Spotify no longer loads content in playlists, and if I were to guess, I'd say the problem was introduced by a Spotify update shipped earlier this month.
Until an update goes live, the only option is to stick with the force-closing workaround.
Using Spotify has become quite a challenge recently on Android Auto, so I can only hope the parent company pays more attention to bugs and the general stability offered to users. As a driver whose main focus should be on the road, I don't have the time to keep messing with the application, so if something doesn't work as expected, I'm more inclined to dump it completely rather than try to fix it when the vehicle is in motion.
YouTube Music runs correctly in my car, so the problem doesn't seem to reside in Android Auto but rather happens at the app level in Spotify. The parent company has remained tight-lipped on the glitch so far, so it's hard to tell if it has at least started an investigation to figure out what goes wrong with Android Auto.
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