Spotify is the most popular platform for listening to streaming music that we can find throughout the network. Through it we can access practically all the existing music for free (with ads) and 100% legal. Over the years, this platform has evolved to become the best one. And surely more than one accompanies you in your day to day, whether at leisure or at work. However, we may occasionally encounter some problems when using this program, such as, for example, that it has suddenly stopped being heard.
If we are trying to listen to music on Spotify , and for some reason this program is not heard, it can be due to many reasons. It can happen that there is a configuration problem with our computer, that the program has been silenced for some reason and even that the servers are down.
Below we will explain how to identify the cause why Spotify is not heard and how to solve these problems.
Isolate the problem
The first thing we must do is isolate the problem to find out if the fault is in our computer or it could be the Spotify server. The first thing we must do is access the Downdetector website to check if Spotify is working correctly or there may be an error in the servers because of which it is not working.
If the servers are working correctly, then the problem is already in our computer. Anyway, we can check it by trying to play music on another device (for example, on our smartphone) to see if it works on it.
Check if the problem is with the application or the PC
Spotify offers us two ways to listen to music on the PC. The first of them is through the application (either Win32 or UWP), and the second through the website. The most normal thing is to use the Spotify desktop application, since it is much more complete than the website.
If we are listening to Spotify from its application and this has stopped working for us, the first thing we should look at is if the Spotify web player works, being able to isolate the problem much better. If the web works correctly, then the problem is in our application.
If Spotify does not work from the web, then the problem may be in the sound of our computer. We must check that we have the speakers turned on , that we have a volume high enough to hear it well, and very importantly, make sure that we have chosen the appropriate output device.
If the other sounds do work on your computer, the next step will be to make sure that the Spotify app is not muted. If there are other applications that do not work, then we should try to update the Windows sound drivers, and even test whether the sound works with other speakers, or headphones.
Check that Spotify is not muted
It may happen that Spotify does not sound on our computer because the application has been silenced. Windows 10 allows us to easily mute applications individually so that they stop ringing so as not to disturb.
We may have muted the app ourselves, or it may have been muted automatically. The latter can happen, for example, when we change the audio input or output source of the PC to use it with other programs, such as Skype. In this way, the program ensures that the music does not interfere with our call. But unfortunately, you forget to remove the silence once we finish the call.
Therefore, we must ensure that the Spotify application is not muted by opening the Windows 10 volume mixer. If the application appears with the prohibited icon on the speaker, it will be muted. If not, it should work normally. If it is muted, just click on this icon to remove the mute.
Clear Spotify cache
As we play music, Spotify keeps an enormous cache of data on our computer. This allows us to listen to previously listened to songs without having to download them again, saving traffic and releasing load from our PC.
It may happen that the cache has been corrupted. And the truth is that Spotify does not offer any option of its own to delete it, free up space and solve these problems. Therefore, we must do it manually.
We must open the main window of Spotify and, with the keyboard shortcut Control + P, open the preferences of this program. At the bottom of the whole, within the advanced options, we will find a section called “Storage of offline songs”.
We must look at the location that appears here registered, since it will be where the program will save the entire cache.
Once this path is pointed out, we close Spotify and then what we must do is navigate to that location from the Windows file explorer to delete the contents of the folder manually.
Once the contents of the folder have been deleted, we open Spotify again and the program will start to work with the song cache clean.
Reinstalling Spotify can fix problems
If all of the above has failed and there is no way to get the sound to work in Windows 10, then it may happen that it is the application that has been corrupted. In that case, what we must do is uninstall the application completely from our computer and reinstall it.
If we are using the Win32 application, we can try to install the new UWP from the Microsoft Store, a version that is identical to Win32, but with important security and performance improvements. This application can be downloaded from here:
In case the app that gives us problems is the UWP, what we should do is uninstall it from our computer and download the latest version from the same link to the Windows 10 store.
Although we should have done it before, we must also restart the computer (a complete restart, do not turn it off and on) so that, if there is a problem with our operating system, it can be solved.
