Thousands of Spotify subscribers have been left unable to listen to music on the service due to an ongoing outage.
Spotify is the most popular music streaming service on the planet. Subscriptions start from £11.99 a month, which grants unlimited access to over 100 million music tracks and playlists. Spotify also boasts 6 million podcasts and thousands of audiobooks.
However, most of that content remains inaccessible to thousands of Spotify subscribers today.
An unknown glitch, which seems to have hit the service around 3pm BST, has Spotify fans unable to stream to tracks via an internet connection. While some Spotify are unable to play anything via the web browser, or mobile apps — others claim that songs will begin o play as normal, but pause after 10 seconds.
Songs and albums downloaded to your device for offline viewing continue to work, but music that isn’t stored locally will not play.
Spotify has acknowledged the ongoing troubles… but failed to provide a timeline for a fix, or an explanation of the cause.
We’re aware of some issues right now and are checking them out!
— Spotify Status (@SpotifyStatus) April 16, 2025
“We’re aware of some issues right now and are checking them out!,” a spokesperson for the music streaming service shared on X, formerly Twitter.
Spotify also shared an update on its website with a few more details. It reads: “We’re seeing reports from users that the app isn’t loading properly or that they’re experiencing playback issues.
“Others report that they’re having issues accessing the Support site. This seems to happen both on mobile and desktop devices.”
If you’re one of the lucky ones still able to access the Spotify Support website — despite the outage, then it’s possible to subscribe to updates to the error. Spotify will send a notification when the error has been found and fixed.
According to service status website Down Detector, problems with the music streaming service kickstarted on Wednesday afternoon, and more than 50,000 in the United States of America have flagged issues. In the UK, Down Detector data shows over 20,000 Spotify subscribers have reported problems with the service.
As well as the outage blocking Spotify users from playing music within Android, iPhone, iPad and other tablet apps — the website and integrations with smart assistants like Amazon’s Alexa smart home gadgets also appear unresponsive.
Despite the slew of Spotify subscribers who are unable to stream their music, disappointed users posting on X are taking the outage with a sense of humour.
reopening spotify every 5 minutes just to be disappointed again pic.twitter.com/mF0bqO4l0u
— 𝘤𝘩𝘭𝘰 .ᐟ (@nyannchlo) April 16, 2025
the fact my music just stopped because spotify is down.. i didn’t realise this was possible pic.twitter.com/TJgzRw3WAM
— 𝐃𝐈𝐎𝐑𝐆𝐀𝐁𝐈 (@diorgvbi) April 16, 2025
Oh man, I was just bitching how I can be on 5G+ but can’t get a song to load on Spotify.
Now it makes sense
— Above the Best ⚡️🚁🛩️ (@thedooberhead) April 16, 2025
spotify is down pic.twitter.com/cHHcIhoD51
— music struggles (@musicstruggles1) April 16, 2025
Other users report the platform is slow or unresponsive.
In February, the Sweden-based firm announced its user numbers had hit a record high of 675 million globally, a rise of 12% over the last year.