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Spotify users across several markets had trouble accessing the music-streaming service on Tuesday (September 29, 2026), with thousands reporting issues on outage-tracking platform Downdetector.
The disruption affected different parts of Spotify for different users. Some listeners couldn't search for songs or open playlists, while others reported problems connecting to the service or loading the app. Some users, however, said music playback continued to work normally.
Downdetector recorded more than 17,000 reports from US users by 10:12 AM ET, although the platform's figures are based on user submissions and do not represent an exact count of affected customers.
Spotify confirmed that it was aware of the disruption and said its teams were investigating the problem. The company did not immediately explain the cause or provide a specific timeline for full restoration.
Reports suggested the outage wasn't identical across all geographical locations. While some accounts described search and playlist failures, others could still stream previously available content. Listeners in the US, UK, and other regions reported difficulties during the incident.
Spotify's official status page did not immediately reflect the scale of the reports, illustrating the difference that can sometimes appear between formal service monitoring and problems reported directly by customers.
For many users, the most noticeable problem was Spotify's search function. Some reported that they could open the app but could not find songs or artists. Others said playlists were inaccessible or that the service returned error messages.
Reports also varied by device and location, meaning the incident did not appear to affect every Spotify account in the same way. Some users said the web version worked when the app was experiencing problems, while others continued to face issues across platforms. At the time of reporting, there was no indication that every Spotify user was affected.
Also Read: 10 Things Ruining Your Sound Quality on Spotify: Here’s What You Need to Know
Spotify had not publicly identified the technical cause of the outage. The company was continuing to investigate as reports came in. For users still experiencing problems, checking Spotify's official status channels and restarting or updating the app may help once a fix is released. Spotify also maintains an ongoing issues board where users can check for known problems.
The outage comes alongside a separate service disruption affecting Anthropic's Claude AI assistant in the US, though there was no indication that the two incidents were connected.
