Spotify is the clear choice for all your music needs. It’s available for all major platforms and in the Web version. However, you might experience certain issues with the Spotify web player, such as the page not loading or the song not playing. This error might be caused by various issues, ranging from extensions to the web browser itself.
In this post, we will explain all possible solutions for the Spotify web player not working. If you follow them, you can start playing songs in no time. Let’s begin.
How to Fix the Spotify Web Player Not Working Issue
I always recommend these pre-checks before applying any fixes. These tiny things might cause huge frustrations. So make sure you’ve completed these requirements.
1. Update OS
No matter what operating system you’re using, could you keep it up to date? Older Operating system versions might cause compatibility issues with new software and browsers. To do so, go into Settings > Update and Security in Windows.
2. Update Browser
Your browser should be up to date to access Spotify. So ensure you’re running the latest version of Chrome or Firefox.
For Chrome – Open Google Chrome > three dots > Help > About Google Chrome > If an update is available, it will start automatically.
For Firefox – Open the Firefox browser > hamburger icon > Help > About Firefox > Firefox will automatically start checking for updates.
3. Check if you have a good internet connection
A good internet connection is the key to streaming any media content. If you could load YouTube or other pages, but only Spotify is not working properly, follow these fixes.
Now that you’ve checked all the requirements, let’s move to the fixing part.
Steps to Fix Spotify Web Player Not Working
Since you are using a Web player, if your browser has issues, you should fix them first.
1. Extensions
Extensions usually cause issues. To confirm this, we can open an incognito tab (Private tab) and try to load the web player.
Since extensions won’t be active in a private tab, the web player should work if those extensions were the problem.
For Chrome, press Ctrl+Shift+N, For Firefox, it’s Ctrl+Shift+P.
If it works, try removing those extensions individually until you find the culprit.
2. Enable Playing Protected Content and Audio
Most streaming services, such as SoundCloud and Spotify, use Protected content playback to avoid piracy. Hence, you must enable this option from your browser settings.
Chrome:
- Enter this chrome://settings/content/protected content to your address bar and hit enter.
- Enable the Protected content playback by toggling it.
Firefox:
- Enter this about preferences#general to your address bar and hit enter.
- Search for “DRM” and enable DRM content playback.
Also, you should see if audio is enabled for the website to access. This should be enabled by default. However, for some reason, it might not be enabled.
- So to check that you can
- Click on the lock icon in the address bar and click on “Site settings.”
- Scroll down and see if Sound is set to “Automatic” or “Allow.”
3. Clear Browser Cache and Cookies
If the page is not loading or takes infinite time to load, it might be because of old webpage caches and cookies. So to clear them:
For Chrome: Press Ctrl+Shift+Del; from the pop-up, select Cache, Cookies, and hit clear.
For Firefox, open Preferences, Type in Clear in the search bar, and click on Clear data. Put a tick mark on cookies and cache and hit clear.
That’s it. If the issue was within your browser, these fixes should fix it. However, if it is related to a network issue, you should follow the next step.
4. Flush DNS Cache
Some redundant caches for the Domain naming service might be causing network issues, preventing you from accessing the Spotify web player. Let’s flush them out first.
- Press Windows key +R.
- In the Run box, type in ipconfig /flushdns and hit enter.
- Let the process complete, restart your PC, and check if the problem is solved.
5. Trigger Playback Externally
An awesome feature in Spotify lets you play songs on other devices linked to your account. Can we try this to trigger playback for the web player? To do so,
- Open Spotify on your other device, like your Android smartphone.
- Play a song and tap on play on other devices, and select the web browser.
- The song should start playing on your PC’s web player.
6. Alternatives
If the Web player does not work, you can use the PC client software on your Windows, Mac, or Linux PC.
- You can get the app directly from the store by clicking here for Windows. (This applies to Windows 10 and Windows 8.1 users.)
- You can get it from the Mac store or by clicking here.
- Linux users download the app using the default package manager or Software Center. Click here for more info.
From Editor’s Desk
So these are the fixes you can try to fix the Spotify web player issue. As you can see, these steps are simple. However, I highly recommend using the App available for your Platform because it will be more convenient than using the web player.
The player app will perform faster and smoother on a lower-end PC. Nevertheless, the solutions mentioned above should work for you without any hassles.