Many of us at many times surely have come across this problem in our lives while using Spotify. You subscribed to the premium plan of Spotify so you would face no ads and also would be able to take your favourite music offline but this “Spotify waiting to download” error is popping up all the time when you try to take a certain playlist or album offline. This error is usually encountered on the Spotify mobile app on Android or iOS as we see most people complaining on the Spotify forum seem to be facing this downloading error on their phones.
Spotify makes it easy for us to listen to music even in low connectivity areas or while on aeroplanes by allowing us to take our favourite music offline on to our phones. But the ‘Spotify waiting to download‘ error seems to be pretty annoying. Now there are a few solutions for this problem which have worked for many fellow Spotify users. First, of all make sure that you are the latest version of the Spotify app on your phone and if you are using Spotify on your desktop or laptop as well then make sure that they are updated to their latest versions. Learn here how to update Spotify to its latest version?
How to solve the “Spotify waiting to download” error?
Well, users face this problem on their phones when downloading a certain playlist or an album, and this keeps happening and is very irritating. As you already have checked and updated your Spotify apps to the latest version, as we asked you to do earlier. Also, you should know that Spotify won’t download music while your phone’s screen is turned off, in order to save battery.
So make sure to keep your phone screen on, go to your phone settings and change the time settings of screen lock to a longer time. Also sometimes many users reported, that simply force-closing the app and then disconnecting your wifi and then reconnecting and starting the app over again solves the problem.
If those preliminary solutions did not work for you and Spotify still isn’t downloading music then here are some other additional solutions that you can try to solve the Spotify stuck on waiting to download error.
Spotify song offline download limit
Spotify limits the number of songs you can download offline per device. Earlier the number per device used to be 3333 but recently it was raised to 10000 according to this Android Authority article, so you can now download 10000 songs per device. So the final limit is 10000 per device, i.e., 50000 for 5 devices in one account.
So first check if you have crossed the limit of the number of songs you can download, if yes then delete some songs and make space for the new ones. Suppose you delete 1000 songs, then you can download 1000 new songs again and it will be counted against your 10000 songs download limit per device.
Clear your phone space & memory
Often after using too many apps on our phones, our phone’s limited internal memory gets filled up and needs to be cleared otherwise most apps can’t function properly. Most Android phones these days have a security app, which also has a temporary files cleaner inbuilt, you can use that or you can use 3rd-party apps like Files by Google, Norton Clean or CCleaner. Install these apps and then clean out all your temporary files and app cache. This will surely clear out a lot of space and also a lot of your phone memory.
Alternatively, iPhone users can refer to this link, to learn more about how they also can clear temporary files, browser and app cache from their iPhones.
Reinstall Spotify
If you followed the solution before this one, then you already have cleared temporary files and app cache from your phone, now you should try uninstalling and reinstalling Spotify once. First, log out from Spotify, then uninstall it and then follow the solution above and clear out all the temporary data and then again download Spotify from the Play Store or the App Store and then try logging in again and try to download some music and see if it works now or not.
Use the same Wifi network
Before you mess around with your windows firewall settings, make sure that you are using the same wifi network for your desktop and your mobile, if you are using the Spotify desktop app on any of your desktops or laptops. If your computer is connected to the same network but via ethernet, then remove it and connect it via wifi and then try once. Both your desktop or laptop must be connected via the same wifi network. Both the devices need to be on the same network, in order for Spotify to sync local files.
Change Windows Firewall settings
Often misconfigured network access settings concerning the Spotify desktop app can cause problems with your Spotify mobile app. You will need to change a few settings in the Windows Firewall settings. Here are the steps on you how you can do it –
- Open your Control panel from the start menu and then look for Windows Defender Firewall, if only a few icons are visible, then change the option view-by to ‘large icons’ and then you should be able to find the Windows Firewall option.
- After you find it open it up, then on the left pane look for the option, ‘Allow an app or feature through Windows Defender Firewall’ and click on it.
- Alternatively, you can also directly go this option by just directly searching this term ‘Allow an app or feature through Windows Defender Firewall’ from your Start menu search field.
- Then first click on the ‘Change Settings’ button and then scroll through the list of apps and features and try to find Spotify or spotify.exe.
- If you are unable to find Spotify, then click on the ‘Allow another app’ button below and then navigate to the location where the Spotify app is installed and from there select the exe file of Spotify. You can easily look up the installation directory of Spotify by going to your desktop and then right-clicking on the Spotify shortcut and clicking on ‘Open file location’ and it will show the directory where the spotify.exe file is located.
- Then tick both the public and private options and then click on the OK button below. This will save your settings and now give your computer and phone a restart and see if your Spotify app is downloading music now or not.
Disable Antivirus Firewall
Most people have Antiviruses installed these days and those antiviruses have their own firewalls to protect your computers. It would be wise to disable any antivirus firewall if you have installed on your device, as this might be messing with the proper functioning of the Spotify desktop app or you could just add Spotify as a trusted app and give it the all necessary permissions similar to the ones we gave in the Windows Firewall. Now if you don’t know how to do that you can always head on to your antivirus’s help section or documentation to see how you can perform this action.
Check for Device Firmware Updates
Lastly, you should check and see if there are any updates available for your phone, if yes then surely update it, as some bug in the current firmware version, unknown to you could be causing problems and preventing apps from properly functioning.
