Spotify experienced a partial service outage on May 12 that prevented users from streaming songs and podcasts, causing the player to load endlessly for many [1, 2]. User reports of playback problems began around noon Eastern Time that day [2].
The outage triggered tens of thousands of user complaints on Downdetector, reflecting widespread disruption across the platform [1]. Spotify’s official @SpotifyStatus account on X acknowledged the problem, tweeting, "We're aware of some issues right now with the app and are checking them out!" and confirming they were investigating the cause [1, 2].
While the outage affected a large number of users, it did not appear to be a total platform failure. Some users were eventually able to stream audio after experiencing delays, indicating a partial rather than complete service disruption [2].
The root cause of the outage remains unknown. However, it does not seem linked to major cloud providers such as AWS or Cloudflare, as those services reported no issues during this period [1].
Spotify continued to monitor the situation following the user reports and public acknowledgment made on May 12, aiming to restore reliable service as quickly as possible [1, 2].
