Spotify Experiences Widespread Service Disruption on September 29

Spotify, the popular music streaming service, experienced significant technical difficulties on Sunday morning, affecting thousands of users worldwide. Reports of issues began surfacing around 10:45 a.m. ET, according to Downdetector, a platform that monitors online service outages.

By 11 a.m. ET, the number of user complaints had surged past 9,000 and continued to climb to over 15,000 by 11:35 a.m. ET, as per Downdetector’s data. Users attempting to access Spotify on desktop were met with error messages such as “Something went wrong,” and were unable to play songs or albums. Similarly, the mobile applications of Spotify were unresponsive for many users.

Downdetector noted that the issue was not isolated to the United States but was also reported by users in Canada and other regions worldwide, indicating a widespread disruption.

Reacting to the outage, the Spotify Cares customer-service account on X, formerly known as Twitter, acknowledged the issues at 12:15 p.m. ET. “We’re aware of some issues right now with the app and are checking them out,” stated the company in their post.

In response to individual user complaints, Spotify Cares recommended reinstalling the application, logging out, restarting devices, and then logging back in as potential troubleshooting steps.

This is not the first time Spotify has faced service interruptions. In March 2022, users similarly faced login issues due to incorrect username and password prompts, which were eventually resolved after approximately 90 minutes.

As of the latest company report, Spotify boasts 626 million total monthly active users, with a notable increase of 11 million from the previous quarter. Out of these, 246 million are Premium subscribers, which marks an addition of 7 million in the second quarter. Financially, Spotify reported a historic net profit of €274 million on revenues of €3.81 billion, reflecting a 20% growth year-over-year.

Later on Sunday, Spotify announced that the issue had been resolved, as indicated by a decline in user complaints, and confirmed this via a message from the @SpotifyStatus account on X, stating “Everything’s looking much better now.”