Common Spotify errors Follow

There's a number of reasons you might experience problems when using Spotify. This article covers common issues and fixes that might help you if your workout is no longer in sync with the music or you are experiencing other playlist issues.

You can also visit the Spotify page for "ONGOING ISSUES" reported in their community (not related to MOWL®). You can also read " Understanding the Spotify connection" to learn how we communicate with the Spotify App.

What to find in this article:

1. "Crossfade", "Automix" and "Gapless Playback"
2. The music starts delayed with 1-2 seconds
3. Missing Songs
4. Shuffle Activated (songs play in random order)
5. An older version of a playlist is being played
6. Songs are looping or not loading during a workout.
7. Playlists nots available for import
8. Missing internet/wifi

1. "Crossfade", "Automix" and "Gapless Playback"
If the music and your workout are becoming progressively more and more out of sync with each other the problem is most likely related to your "crossfade" settings on Spotify.

Crossfade eliminates the silence between tracks to make the transition between songs seamless. In order for the music to stay in sync with the workout when you use our platform, crossfade has to be set to 10 seconds exactly in Spotify. You must also disable both "automix" and "gapless playback" (only on mobile). Learn how to set crossfade in Spotify for desktop and mobile.

2. The music starts delayed with 1-2 seconds

We communicate with Spotify  using the Spotify API. When you start a workout in the MOWL® App, a command must go from us to the Spotify´s servers that handle the request and they then communicate with your Spotify App. This is normally done within a fraction of a second, but can take as much as 1-2 seconds if the Spotify servers are slow to respond. (source: Spotify)

To understand why it happens randomly you need to understand that Spotify has 788 million monthly active users (as of September, 2026). They all use different parts of the Spotify's playback API features. Most of these users send requests (listen to music) in the morning and after work in the afternoon until early evening. This collides with the time where most MOWL® users do their workout. Other issues can be different updates on Spotify that temporarily (sometimes days, weeks) causes the response to be slow).

How to solve it?
We cannot solve it as it does not happen in the MOWL® App and secondly because the delay is not a "fixed" time delay. The best thing you can do to minimize it, is to always have a song playing in Spotify prior to starting your workout. That makes the "handshake" from Spotify Servers to your Spotify App much quicker. 
 

3. Missing songs

If you notice that the intensity of the song is way off compared to the intensity of the current interval it might be because a song has been removed or isn't available in your region.

Songs are added to Spotify by different labels that own the rights to the music. A label might decide a song should only be available in some regions or to remove it entirely from the Spotify library. If you want to check the playlist is complete before your workout, you can enable "show unplayable songs" from your Spotify settings. Songs that have been removed will now appear on the playlist in dark grey.

4. Shuffle activated

Do you use shuffle on Spotify? If shuffle is activated, Spotify plays the correct playlist but the tracks play in random order. Make sure shuffle is deactivated.

5. An older version of the playlist is playing (or different song start playing)

If an older version of your playlist is being played even if the playlist is updated/changed, then it is likely caused by "cache" files on Spotify. The solutions is to clear the cache in the Spotify settings:

tep 1: Open Spotify at the device where you have the problem. Then click your profile in the top right corner and choose "settings".

Step 2: Scroll to the bottom of the settings and you will find "clear cache". Once your clear them all files saved for faster handling in Spotify is deleted. Please note that new cache files will be generated upon usages, so you might want to repeat the process once in while.

6. Songs are looping or not loading during a workout.

This is likely caused by the "video" function in Spotify. The video play option was introduced at Spotify in 2025. If a playlist contains a song with a video and video play is active on your device, then it will cause the playlist to loop or not load when you reach that song. This happens only when Spotify runs in the background.

Here is how to fix it:

• Open Spotify and click your playlist. You will see a small video player icon, if one or more of your songs have this option.
• On the right side you need to click "switch to audio"
• This is a global setting so it is not something you need to do on all songs.

7. Playlist not available for import

If your playlist is not visible in the import window in the Session Designer it might be because:

• Your playlist needs to be set to public.
• Your playlist contains files stored locally on your device (you have to use music from Spotify).
• You're trying to use a collaborative playlist (we don't support collaborative playlists).
• You need to "add playlist to profile" (see images 1 below). You can set Spotify to do this as default in your settings (images 2)

Image 1 - "add to profile"

Image 2 - "set to default in settings"

Still having issues? Have a look at your privacy settings. If you allow cookies, your playlists might not be available for import on 3^rd party software like MOWL®. If you enable "Privacy" it solves the issue for future playlists but MOWL® will still have issues importing the playlists you created before you enabled "Privacy". To import old playlists, recreate the playlist after enabling "Privacy".

8. Missing internet/wifi

If the internet/wifi disappears while running a workout the workout and the playlist might become out of sync. The workouts on the MOWL® platform run offline when you hit play, but Spotify is a bit more complex.

If the connection is temporarily lost during a song you won't immediately notice the connection issue because the current song always plays to the end, even if the connection is lost. But if this happens Spotify skips the 10-second crossfade between the current song and the next song which causes the workout and the playlist to become out of sync by 10 seconds. 

The best way to make sure that this doesn't happen is to make the playlist available offline before you start your workout. Go to Spotify to make the playlist available offline.