Spotify was, according to various sources, the tenth most downloaded app during 2021. Its file on Apple Play credits one billion downloads and, also according to data from the end of 2021, the service remained the most widely used in its sector, with a market share of 31%, compared to 15% for Apple Music and the 13% from Amazon Prime Music. You may like it more or less, but it is indisputable that we are talking about the market leader, in addition to (or perhaps as a result of) having been the company that opened this market to the general public, back in October 2008.
Being the leader of a market is, of course, a great achievement, but it also entails certain drawbacks, such as any incident being more noticeable than if it were experienced by one of its competitors, since up to 422 million users, the volume registered at end of the first quarter of this year, they may be left without the service they use to listen to music and podcasts on a regular basis. 422 million users, more than 5% of the global population of the planet.
I don’t know what part of them use the Spotify app for Android to access the service, but it doesn’t seem too daring to assume that they are the majority, if only because Android has a greater market share than iOS. And as we can read in Softpedia, Spotify users on Android are starting to experience an issue preventing them from accessing the serviceand also, in the current situation, it does so permanently.
The problem, in which Spotify would already be working, has already affected several users who have tried change the storage location or after logging out of the app. In both cases, when trying to start the Spotify app again, it freezes at the start, with the service logo, and there is no way to get past that point, making it impossible for affected users to access the catalog.
The problem is that it seems that the bug is persistent, according to some testimonials like this:
«I tried to change my download storage from internal to SD card. But then Spotify restarted and just got a black loading screen with the Spotify logo. I tried rebooting my phone, reinstalling the app (with and without the SD card inserted in my phone), downloading an older version, and doing a clean install, but nothing worked. Every time I try to open the app I get a black screen with the logo and nothing happens until my phone turns off. Spotify still works on my PC and my phone has enough storage space»
Thus, it seems that in some set of circumstances, the Spotify app makes some change that persists in the operating system even if the app is uninstalled. Our recommendation, without a doubt, is don’t update the Spotify app on Android unless it is absolutely necessary, and that you avoid carrying out either of the two operations until the reason for the problem is revealed and the company can fix it.
