Tens of thousands of Spotify users around the world reported being unable to stream music on the app, which was hit by several hours of technical problems on Wednesday. Downdetector, which tracks platforms, showed more than 48,000 outage reports for Spotify worldwide on Wednesday afternoon. In the UK, the number of people reporting that Spotify was not functioning peaked at about 1.30pm BST, after problems began 30 minutes earlier. By 3pm, the number had fallen to about 10,000. Two hours later Spotify confirmed the service was up and running again. The streaming platform posted on X at 5.08pm: “All clear – thanks for your patience. Get in touch with @SpotifyCares if you still need help.” Users had said they were able to play music they had downloaded on to their devices, but were unable to view artists or use the search function on the app. Others said the platform was slow or unresponsive. After trying to search for music, Spotify appeared to time out, displaying the message “something went wrong” with a refresh button. Many users expressed their frustration on social media, including that the outage had interrupted their gym sessions or study routines. A spokesperson for the Sweden-based streaming platform said: “Spotify experienced an outage today beginning around 6:20am EDT. As of 11:45am EDT, Spotify is back up and functioning normally.” Earlier, a spokesperson had said the company was “aware of the outage and working to resolve it as soon as possible”, adding: “The reports of this being a security hack are completely inaccurate.” Spotify did not provide further information on what had caused the problem. Spotify, which has more than 675 million users worldwide, told the BBC “the issue with search has been addressed” and it was rolling out an update to its users.
Author: Rachel Hall