Spotify was down – here's what we know about the outage

Spotify gives us the "all clear"

Good news, Spotify's December downtime is now officially over – with the streaming app posting "all clear" on X and linking to its community thread for the outage.

That's also now reflected in the Downdetector reports, which are almost back to normal – so it looks like we can call this one as over. Time to get the headphones on and finish that pre-holiday work then...

Back to normal?

If you are still experiencing Spotify issues, you're now very much in the minority – which wasn't the case an hour or so ago.

Reports are now down to just over 1,400 in the US (down from a peak of over 33,000 at 9.27am ET / 2.27pm GMT) and almost at a standard baseline of just over 300 in the UK.

Barring any disasters, all we're waiting for now is that official gong from Spotify that it's rolled out a successful fix...

Promising signs...

My Spotify app is now behaving itself and largely back to normal – and it seems I'm not alone.

On Downdetector, the reports have plummeted in the US to just under 6,000, while in the UK it's down to just over 2,400.

There's been no official word from Spotify on a fix, but that could be a matter of time if things continue in this positive direction.

A glimmer of hope?

We're now at over 30,000 reports of Spotify issues in the US on Downdetector and over 9,000 in the UK – Spotify says it's "checking out" the issues, so let's hope it does that quickly.

On the plus side, there's been a small sign of a drop-off in reports in the last 20 minutes or so. That could be a good sign that Spotify's already found a fix, but it hasn't said so officially just yet...

Spotify speaks

We've finally got an official acknowledgement from Spotify that it's experiencing problems – though there isn't much in the way of detail yet.

Spotify has said on X (above) that "we're aware of some issues right now and are checking them out". Sounds like we'll need to stick to offline music for a little while yet, then...

What are the issues?

Like many, you may have opened Spotify today and been greeted by the dreaded three dots above.

This appears to be a server-related issue, as there are a few tell-tale symptoms. Many on Downdetector are reporting that they can't search or stream songs in the app, but that their offline music and audiobooks are playing.

The vast majority of the reports are for the mobile app, although some are saying the desktop app isn't working either.

Hopefully, Spotify gives us an official update soon, but there's still no sign of one yet...

A big outage

Those Downdetector reports are still going in the wrong direction – we're now at over 19,000 reports in the US, with the UK shooting up to over 6,300. It's a global outage, then, so let's hope it doesn't last too long.

There's widespread panic on the likes of X, as many start their morning commutes on the east coast of the US without their usual soundtracks. There's still no official word or acknowledgement from Spotify on the Spotify Status account though...

Error messages and playback struggles

I'm getting the error message above on my Spotify homescreen – and others are reporting similar issues.

Like many, I'm also struggling to play songs that are downloaded for offline listening, while others on Downdetector say they've been logged out and can't log back in.

Right now, there's been no comment on the Spotify Status account on X, but I'll be keeping a close eye to see if that changes...

Spotify is down for many

If you're having issues with the Spotify mobile app you definitely aren't alone – thousands of users are reporting problems on Downdetector.

Right now, over 8,000 people in the US are saying the app is either really slow or unable to play songs, other than those that have been downloaded.

It's a similar case in the UK, where I've have "something went wrong" messages and trouble with playback. Right now in the UK, there are over 3.000 reports and counting.