Spotify Goes Down: Users Report Widespread Access Issues

UPDATED: Spotify was experiencing widespread technical problems Tuesday, with users complaining of access issues across its app and website.

User complaints about Spotify began to spike at around 1:10 p.m. ET, according to monitoring site DownDetector.com. It was not immediately clear what caused the technical problems. In the U.S., the issues reported were concentrated in New York and Los Angeles.

Among the errors encountered by users was a message saying that their username and password were incorrect. Another one, which displayed when Spotify users tried to launch songs on the company’s site, said, “We’re all mixed up. Refresh this page or try again later. It may take some time to get things up again.” On Spotify’s mobile app, users saw a message saying, “You’ve been logged out. Log back in to start listening.”

“Something’s not quite right, and we’re looking into it. Thanks for your reports!” the Spotify Status account on Twitter posted at 1:22 p.m. ET. A little more than an hour later, the company indicated that the technical problems had been resolved, with Spotify Status tweeting, “Everything’s looking much better now! Give @SpotifyCares a shout if you still need help.”

Spotify acknowledged that many customers were “having problems logging in and reaching customer support.”

Also Tuesday, Discord, the chat, voice and video-communications service, reported an issue that caused message failures for several hours.

Spotify is the industry’s biggest music and audio streaming service. As of the end of 2021, the company reported 406 million total monthly active users (which includes 180 million paying subscribers). The company has been in the headlines recently because of a backlash over its exclusive $200 million-plus deal to distribute Joe Rogan’s popular podcast, which has included COVID misinformation and instances of Rogan using the N-word (episodes that Spotify has since removed).