GoKawiilUpdate 1:30 p.m. ET: Spotify says the issues have been resolved. Original story below.
If you’re having trouble accessing Spotify this afternoon, you’re not alone. The streaming music service has confirmed an ongoing issue causing some listeners to be kicked off their subscription.
According to reports aggregated by Downdetector, Spotify’s problems began just before 12 p.m. PT on Wednesday. Affected users say they are unable to
Interestingly, Spotify users say their Spotify Family plan has reverted to Spotify Basic, kicking people out of their accounts altogether. Some individual Spotify Premium subscribers also say they’ve been downgraded to Spotify Basic. Some Spotify Basic users say their accounts have been downgraded to “Free” and are hearing ads in between songs when they shouldn’t be.
In a post on social media today, Spotify confirmed the problems: “We’re aware of some issues right now and are checking them out.”
On its website, Spotify elaborates:
We’ve received some reports about Basic plans users who noticed they’re getting ads and their accounts appear as Free on the mobile app, but the account overview does show they’re Premium. We’re currently investigating this behavior.
That explanation doesn’t appear to capture the entirety of the outage, though, as explained above. The problems seem to affect more than just Spotify Basic subscribers.
If this Spotify outage is pushing you to consider your subscription, you can check out Apple Music for $10.99 per month and you might even be eligible for a free trial.