Spotify Goes Silent: Millions Affected by Global Outage — Here’s What We Know
For millions of people around the world, a morning without music felt unusually quiet. On Wednesday, April 16, Spotify—the world’s largest music streaming service—experienced a widespread outage that left users unable to stream music, search songs, or access playlists across both mobile and desktop platforms.
The issue began around 6:20 a.m. EDT, with users quickly flooding social media and outage tracker sites like Downdetector. At its peak, the outage saw more than 49,000 user reports, with the bulk coming from the U.S., Canada, and parts of Europe.
What Went Wrong?
While Spotify hasn’t provided a detailed technical explanation, they were quick to acknowledge the disruption on their official @SpotifyStatus account on X (formerly Twitter), saying:
“Something’s not quite right, and we’re looking into it.”
Users reported a range of issues—from being unable to log in or search for songs, to entire playlists refusing to load. Those with offline downloads were able to continue listening, but the majority of Spotify’s streaming services were temporarily unavailable.
How Long Did It Last?
The company resolved the issue within a few hours, with normal service resuming around 11:45 a.m. EDT. In a follow-up message, Spotify confirmed that everything was back up and running, thanking users for their patience. Importantly, they also clarified that there was no security breach involved, quelling rumors of a hack.
Social Media Reacts
In true internet fashion, users turned frustration into humor. “Spotify being down during my gym session is basically a hate crime,” one user joked on X. Others shared memes of people forced to sit in silence on their commutes or relive the horrors of FM radio.
A Reminder of Spotify’s Reach
Spotify currently serves over 675 million users, including more than 263 million premium subscribers. An outage of this scale is rare—and it highlights just how deeply integrated the platform has become in people’s daily routines.
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As of now, all systems are running smoothly. For those who rely on Spotify as the soundtrack to their lives, it’s business as usual again. But for a few quiet hours this morning, the world remembered what silence sounds like.