Troubleshooting

What you see, then the cause and the fix. Statuses are explained in How syncing works; plan limits are on Plans and billing.

A playlist is dimmed with an orange icon

The card is dimmed, with an orange "not updating" icon (a circle with a slash) next to the name: the playlist is not being updated.

You cannot open it. The playlist is over your plan's quota, usually after a downgrade. Playlistation keeps the oldest playlists active up to the limit and disables the rest. Delete a playlist you no longer need, or upgrade; disabled ones come back as soon as a slot is free.

You can open it. The playlist is parked for something only you can clear: your plan cannot evaluate any of its filters (a playlist whose only filter is Energy, after moving to the Free plan), a filter holds a value Playlistation cannot evaluate, or your Spotify connection is gone (next section). Open the playlist and edit it, a filter or even its name: there is no save button, every edit is saved at once and puts it back into the update rotation. Upgrading to a plan that can evaluate the filters also unparks it.

I was signed out and my playlists stopped updating

Spotify refused Playlistation's access to your account: you removed Playlistation from your Spotify apps, changed your Spotify password, or your consent lapsed. Only you can restore it, so the app signs you out everywhere and parks your active playlists.

Sign in again with Spotify. That is the whole fix: your parked playlists are reactivated and an update is queued for each. If you removed Playlistation from Spotify's "Manage apps", accept the consent screen again. If one playlist stays parked, open it and edit it once.

A song I liked is not in my playlist

Open the playlist and find the track under the Excluded tab of the track list: it shows each filter's value and whether it said In or Out. The usual causes:

• It has not synced yet. Liked Songs are read at most once an hour, and a playlist is refreshed about every 6 hours on the Free plan, every hour on Plus, every 30 minutes on Pro.
• It is older than your plan monitors. Only your most recent likes are read: 1,000 on Free, 3,000 on Plus, 50,000 on Pro. The Playlists page warns you when your library is larger.
• The playlist is full. Spotify playlists cannot hold more than 10,000 tracks. When more match, the most recently liked ones are kept and the playlist page says how many were left out. Tighten the filters or split it.
• Spotify has no audio analysis for it. Tempo, Energy, Danceability, Positiveness, Acousticness, Instrumentalness, Liveness and Speechiness read Spotify's audio features; a track without them never matches these filters.
• Its language is unknown. The language is detected from the lyrics and can be missing, for an instrumental for instance. A track with no language never matches an Is one of Language filter and always matches an Is not one of one.
• Its artists have no genre. Spotify tags genres on artists, not tracks. When no artist carries a genre, an Artist genre filter cannot match.
• A filter is being ignored. On the Free plan, a premium filter is marked "This filter is disabled because it is only available for premium users" and skipped, as is any filter past the plan's count. A skipped filter neither includes nor excludes anything.

Tracks I added by hand disappear

A smart playlist's tracks are rewritten at every update to exactly the set that matches its filters. Anything added in Spotify is removed at the next update, and duplicates are collapsed to one copy. Keep hand-picked tracks in a regular Spotify playlist, or widen the filters.

I renamed the playlist in Spotify and the name came back

A name changed in Spotify is kept until you edit the playlist in Playlistation, which sends the app's name and description to Spotify again. Rename it in the app instead. See Edits made in Spotify.

The playlist says Syncing or Waiting for first sync for a long time

Waiting for first sync means the first run is queued; First sync… and Syncing… mean it is running, and the page updates live. Playlists are updated in turns, so one can wait up to your plan's interval before its next run, and a temporary Spotify failure is retried. Well past your interval, edit the playlist to queue a fresh run.

I deleted the playlist in Spotify

Playlistation notices at the next update, or during a nightly check, and archives it: it disappears from your Playlists page and stops counting toward your quota. To remove a playlist cleanly, click Delete at the top of its page in the app and choose Remove from Playlistation or Delete everywhere; see Deleting a playlist.

The language of a track is wrong

The Language filter is experimental: Spotify provides no language, so it is detected from the lyrics through other sources. When those are unavailable, the artist's usual language is borrowed until a real detection replaces it, which is wrong for an artist who sings in several languages. In the track list, click the flag icon on the track's Language line, Report an incorrect language, and send the right one. Reports are reviewed by hand.

Local files and podcasts

Playlistation reads only your Liked Songs, so saved podcast episodes are never read. A local file in your Liked Songs has no Spotify artist behind it: artist and genre filters cannot match it, and the library stats skip its artists.

Still stuck? Write to us through the in-app chat or the portal described in Giving feedback, with the playlist name and what you expected.