Spotify is one of the best digital music and podcast streaming app. A couple of reasons for this are its audio quality, easy user interface, and vast catalog. Most of all, it offers both free and premium tiers. Like many of you, I use Spotify daily. While the app works fine a vast majority of the time, the recent updates to the Spotify desktop app are causing a lot of issues. One of the most common errors reported by users is the Spotify application is not responding. In fact, there are quite a few long forum threads on Spotify community forums going back a couple of years. This error can appear at any time and crashes the application.
The good thing is, fixing this error is quite easy. Here’s how.
Step to fix ‘Spotify application not responding’ error
When Spotify is not responding and crashing, follow the methods given below to fix the error.
- Clear Spotify user files
- Install media feature pack on Windows 11
- Exclude Spotify in Windows Defender
Before following any of the steps listed above, restart your computer. Restarting helps unlink and unlock files related to the application and helps you fix the problem.
1. Clear Spotify user files
Oftentimes, corrupted files in Spotify’s user and temp folder can be the problem causing Spotify to not respond. Follow the steps below to clear the Spotify user and temp files:
- Close Spotify.
- Open Run with the Windows key + R shortcut.
- Type %appdata%/Spotify/Users in the Run window.
- Click Ok.
- Open the user folder inside it.
- Select all the files & folders in the Spotify folder with Ctrl + A.
- Press the Delete key on your keyboard.
- With that, Spotify user and temp files are deleted.
Important note: After deleting the files, you might have to redownload all the offline music.
After deleting the cache and temp files, close the File Explorer window and launch Spotify. It should open normally.
2. Install media feature pack on Windows 11
If essential codecs or media feature pack is missing from your computer, it will stop Spotify from working. To fix the problem, follow the steps below to install the media feature pack on Windows 11.
- Open Settings on Windows 11.
- Go to Apps > Optional Features page.
- Click on View features.
- Find and click on Media Feature Pack.
- Click on Install.
- The media feature pack will be downloaded and installed on Windows 11.
- Close Settings.
- Restart Windows 11.
After restarting, launch the Spotify application it will work normally.
Important note: If you cannot find Media Feature Pack in the Optional Features window then it is not available to your computer. You can skip this step.
3. Exclude Spotify in Windows Defender
There is a chance that Windows Defender is actively blocking the Spotify application and causing it to get stuck and show the not responding error. In that case, explicitly excluding it in Windows Defender will fix the problem. Here’s how to do it.
- Press Start.
- Search and open Windows Security.
- Click on Virus & threat protection.
- Click on the Manage settings link on the right panel.
- Left-click on Add or remove exclusions option.
- Press the Add an exclusion and choose File.
- Go to the Spotify folder (%appdata%/Spotify).
- Select the Spotify exe file and click on the Select File button.
- With that, Spotify is excluded in Windows Defender.
- Restart Windows 11.
You can now use Spotify without any hiccups. If you want, you can also exclude Spotify in Windows Firewall.
Wrapping up
As you can see, while the problem appears big, it is pretty simple to fix it. If the above problems did solve your problem then the issues might be severe and you have to reinstall the Spotify application. While it is an inconvenience, all it takes is a couple of minutes.
I hope this tutorial helped you fix the Spotify not responding error on Windows.
If you are stuck or need help, send an email, and I will try to help as much as possible.
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