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Independent Consultant for Online Design, Development and Marketing in Edinburgh, Scotland
Ahh I love Spotify, and I love Spotify Premium even more. Nothing better than plugging in the phone in the car and letting Spotify provide the tunes. I got the Spotify update the other day, finally allowing me to use an external SD card for the spotify music cache. I had some problems getting it to work but thanks to other Spotify users and a bit of fiddling I got working, eventually.
This post should help regardless of what model you are using.
Remove Spotify
You absolutely need to completely remove Spotify from your Android phone. Failing to remove it properly seems to leave a configuration file that messes things up. Some users have actually done a factory reset to fix this. No need, just do all of the following :-
- Uninstall Spotify from your Android packages menu.
- Connect the phone to your PC via USB
- Manually Delete any spotify directories (usually a spotify or spotify2 directory) via your computer
Note: For those that keep getting logged out and/or losing the SD Card setting. It seems there is a hidden xml file in the dbdata folder (which we can’t get access to unless your phone has root access) called spotify_preferences.xml
You need to delete this file before the sd card will save the sd card preferences correctly. Besides rooting your phone and deleting this, the easiest method is to completely factory reset your Samsung. :(
Reinstall Spotify
Re-download Spotify from the Android market place.
Select the External SD Location
Startup Spotify but do not login yet.
Before logging in click the menu button, this example shows the menu button on a Samsung Galaxy S. You get the idea. This is truly an odd place to stick a menu but there it is, I can only assume this was due to the architecture of the program, a cache file needs to exist before the user logs in.
Selecting the menu will bring up two options, select the SD Location option.
You will be prompted to enter the path to the SD card.
Enter the External SD Location for your particular phone.
Locations so far:-
If yours is not listed then go to the next step
Samsung Galaxy S : /mnt/sdcard/external_sd
LG P990 2X : /mnt/sdcard/_ExternalSD
Now login and check the Disk Usage option, it should now change to reflect the space on your external SD card.
Finding the External SD Card Location
If you are not sure what the correct path for the SD location is then try the following :-
- Download Astro File Manager from the market place.
- Connect your phone to your computer via USB and copy any random file to your external SD card ( I suggest a text file with an easy to spot name like i_am_here.txt )
- Disconnect the USB
- Open Astro File Manager
- Now try and find the file you uploaded, the directory will be similar to one of the directories shown in the previous step (i.e. /mnt/sdcard/_ExternalSD)
- When you find the file the correct path to your SD card will be shown at the top of the application.
Please post External SD paths for your phone model below to help others. Thanks :)
Hi Julian,
finally I have Spotify working from my SD card! Thanks for the clear explanation!
Greetz,
Alexander
On My Samsung Galaxy S if I use the external SD I’m still having to login every time I open Spotify. Very annoying. Think I might go back to using the internal memory until the next release.
I had the same problem. The fix is to unistall Spotify and re-install it.
I got it working…however, after syncing all my songs to the external card, they seem to disappear after a while and all my offline playlists are unflagged. Happened twice already.
Anyone with same experience? (Samsung galaxy S 2.2.1)
Same problem but only because it loses the external sd setting. If I put the setting back in my playlists and songs reappear. Very annoying :(
That worked a treat – at last! Thank you :)
Its more than that….I keep getting mesages like “disk Full” ; “SD card Corrupted” (bought a fresh one); phone keeps rebooting etc.
Gave up and synced to internal SD card. No problems anymore.
I read several message on forums that Spotify in combination with Android corrupts SC cards….
I’ve heard about that issue. Reporting of the issue is further compounded by the market being flooded by fake Kingston SD cards (and a few other makes). I’m going to have to move back to the internal as well. :(
Very grateful to you. Thanks a lot for a common-sense solution.
For those that keep getting logged out and losing the SD Card setting . It seems there is a hidden xml file in the dbdata folder (which we can’t get access to unless your phone has root access) called spotify_preferences.xml
We need to delete this file before the sd card will save the sd card preferences correctly. Apparently the Gingerbread update will resolve this, or you can completely wipe your phone and re-install Spotify.
Gingerbread is out (2.3.3) but did not resolve the issue. You need to give the phone a factory reset or get root access to remove this file. Once done however it works a treat :)
Are you taking the Piss £10 a month and your system keeps failing .Reboot your phone…….Wipe your SD card ect why dont you just get the phone to sync with your PC or Laptop VIA A USB ….Yeah Genius I know but come on stop fucking around your stuck in the dark ages whilst people drive past you on WHEELS
Yeah jonny, it is pretty frustrating that they can charge the £10 whilst we sit on our butts trying to work out how to get a poorly written app to work. Why don’t you drop them an email at support@spotify.com and ask for a refund for the time you spend trying to resolve these issues. If you do then be sure to let us know what they say, remember though, be polite ;)
I can’t believe how badly external SD is implemented in Android. Spotify and Beyond Podcast are the programs that store alot od data for me and none of them seems to accept External SD. For Spotify, after following your instructions I set the path /mnt/sdcard/_ExternalSD for my LG 2x and get the message “the file patch does not exist”. I have triple checked this, also in Astro and the card is there and the path is correct. Anyone experieicing the same problem?
Hi!
Are you sure that the path shouldn’t be: /mnt/sdcard/external_sd ?
That’s the path I’m using…
Hi!
On my Samsung S2 I used the folowing method to make it work:
1. Under ‘settings’: Clear saved data.
2. Logout(change user)
3. Using the ‘howto’ on the top of this page. “Select the External SD Location” .
Thanks John, I’m using the first Galaxy, perhaps it differs.
Appreciate your comments :)
Oh…. were you replying to Ollie? Oops.
I guess, if not wiping the cache and offline files First, Spotify will crash(or behave odd), because of the link to ‘old’ offline files….agree?
that works for me ;-)
SGS2
[...] [...]
Thx! Helped me a lot =)
Don’t need to remove Spotify from the phone on LG Optimus 3D P920. Just clear cached data with Spotify, logout and then enter the new path: /mnt/sdcard/_ExternalSD
Yeah, works on mine too, thanks.
I had to try it a couple of times, though – the first time it just made a folder called “_ExternalSD” on the internal SD! Deleting the cached data, logging out and trying again sorted it.
Hi there
I was very excited about finding this page, thanks for putting it together. Just wanted to report that when I tried to do this with my Samsung Galaxy S2 / I9100 but the offline files kept disappearing. Moving back to internal SD card now and will report back on how that went.
Cheers
Reporting back as promised. Yup, moving back to the internal SD card helped. No issues with that. I guess Spotify need to work on this to make it properly compatible with external SD cards in Android :(
Hi!
Thank you for informing me what the official Spotify-site couldn’t manage to include in its own FAQ. I think this will be an error that alot more people are going to be having in the future with the increase in portable memory.
I have the Samsung Galaxy S2 and changing the path to
“/mnt/sdcard/external_sd” worked like a charm so now I got my 32GB SDHC-card online=D
Once again, thanks for the information!
//Alexander
Glad it helped you Alexander!
I’ve read all the comments and on my Galaxy S I still cannot get it to recognize the path “/mnt/sdcard/external_sd”. I have a rooted phone and have followed all instructions…back to fiddling. Anyone else?
I got it to work with my S2. You just have to go to the Spotify settings, clear the cash. Then choose log “out/change user” in the spotify settings. Then start spotify, press menu and choose SD and enter the path I typed below. Then log in, and it’ll probably work fine like it did for me.
Remove the “/mnt/” you typed, and only type in “sdcard/external_sd”. Then it worked for me!
Had a fully functional Galaxy S2 with spotify and a 1000+ song syncronized offline. I think my trouble began with a Spotify update (anyone else?)!? Then it stored on my internal card wich I hated, having a 32GB external card too!
I get the “…disk is almost full..” report having at least 20Gb left on the card. And how much i try reinstalling/wiping it can´t sync more then 100 songs at a time, having to restart the phone to continue the sync. I can see in the file manager that i have spotify folders both on the internal card as well as the external even when I try directly when installing to remap to /external_sd!
When closing Spotify it lags a lot (didn´t do before the update!), and when I try to log out, it shuts down and can´t be restarted – and when I restart the phone it doesn´t need to be logged in, so probably it doesn´t logout at all!
A lot of words but I´m quite tired of this app….and I still wan´t it to work!
it seems to me i aint the only one with this problem. i am a proud owner of a samsung galaxy s2 with a 32gb sd card. i did exactly as the instruction said, even factory reset my phone. the offline playlist is beeng stored in the external memory but every time i log out of spotify or restart my phone all my offline playlist are unmarkt. how can i fix this issue?? i dont wanna synk every time i start spotify!!!!
Please Spotify, just work!!! I want my 3333 offline songs like you promised! I’ll never figure out how to fix this, I understand about 10% of all the technical terms in this thread… I don’t even know what rooting means :/ And I have SCHOOL. I don’t have time for this! I need to get a job Spotify. You fix!!! Grrrr…
Wipe the phone Hanna, probably your best option. Full factory reset.
For my Galaxy S I needed to input the path with a trailing slash like: /mnt/sdcard/external_sd/. Hope this helps anyone with troubles. Julian, thanks for the guide.
Thanks Dennis!
Droid Bionic
32 GB sd
/mnt/sdcard-ext
Awesome, cheers Mike!
I can’t believe I cannot get Spotify to store on the external SD of my Galaxy S2 after the most recent spotify update (Oct?).
It used to do it, and in the app it says I have 32Gb free (set the external sd address to /sdcard/external_sd/ ) but it then just eats up the internal USB memory whenever I sync it!
What have they done?? I’ve cleared the cache inside the prog, done full resets on the login window, uninstalled/reinstalled about 5 times, it just won’t put them in the place where it says it has 32Gb free!
Rod
Sighs – ok, if this happens to you,
- clear the cache internally in the spotify app
- log out
- do a full reset of spotify
- uninstall spotify
- unmount the external SD drive
- reformat the external sd drive
- download spotify again, install, and set the sd location as above to /mnt/sdcard/external_sd/
then it will work and load the songs on to the sd card.
Why does it have to be so hard, Spotify?
Rod
Rod, well done for resolving this and many thanks for coming back with your solution . Hopefully Spotify will eventually rewrite this app, I live in hope.
Thank you Sir!!!
Finnaly it works on my LG optimus 2X.
;)
Thanks a ton! This was exactly what I was hoping to be able to achieve! After this it leaves me with no need to acquire an external mp3 player which saves me alot of effort and €€!
what about for my motorola droid x? anyone get it to work on that? anyone know the right path?
http://pansentient.com/2011/04/how-to-sync-your-local-music-with-spotify-mobile/
Terrific paintings! That is the kind of information that are supposed to be shared across the internet. Shame on Google for now not positioning this post upper! Come on over and discuss with my website . Thank you =)
Mmmm, that doesn’t appear to always work.
I also made the error of installing Spotify before reading forums and my Galaxy S2 internal memory was chosen as the auto destination, which incidentally slowed down the basic functions of the phone such as swipe open and call answering.
Followed the instructions above I un-installed Spotify, factory reset the phone, formated SD card, re,installed and adjusted SD location – I can now download 91 tracks before memory is shown as full and I have to set up all my POP3 accounts and other preferences.
As I’m old enough to remember typewriters and ribbons I am unable to get the S2 / Spotify marriage made in hell to budge. Time to call a grandchild for help….
add: using a 32GB Lexar card which shows as 2% used in Spotify’s settings when the error message “memory full” appears.
I have a Samsung Galaxy Ace and the external SD location is:
/mnt/sdcard/
However, I was having the same problem, and kept getting a message saying that my disk was full even though I have a 32Gb card. On checking Spotify Disk Usage it confirmed that I was correct and that the disk was nowhere near full (only 5gb used space). This was also confirmed on the phone itself and yet Spotify kept telling me it couldn’t sync my tracks because the disk was full. I also was unable to install an app (the name of which I can’t recall) because it said disk full. Yet, I was able to install further apps with any problems.
I followed all of the steps above, erasing the cache, uninstalling, unmounting, copying a text file over to confirm drive and it is copying to the exact location that it had installed to prior to me going through these steps.
I’m about to start syncing to again, and fingers crossed it works but I seriously doubt it, since no changes have actually been made other than uninstalling and re-installing.
P.S. I’m running Android Gingerbread 2.3.5.
Just as I suspected. After all that, it says that I’ve run out of disk space even though I now only have 2gb on the disk which leaves 30gb available. I’m at a loss.
So I might have found the answer to our S2 external SD card issue, well I didn’t find it but I found elements on other forums that added up to an answer.
Firstly you need a totally blank SD card, deleting all folders via a USB cable will NOT work, unbelievably removing the card and formating it on a PC will also NOT work, somehow a folder titled LOST remains. The SD card has to be formated by the handset as below.
This is the path I followed and had success with.
Settings – applications – manage applications – spotify – clear data – uninstall
Settings – storage – unmount sd card – format sd card
My files – external_sd – hardware menu (non visible button bottom left on white fascia) – more – settings – set external SD as home directory – (also useful to tick show hidden files).
Market place – install spotify – before logon hit hardware menu (see above) – select SD location – /mnt/sdcard/external_sd/ – then logon.
Doing the above has for the first time allowed me to use 3.3GB of the external SD and there are no logon issues with spotify it opens from the icon without having to logon each time.
Hope that helps.
Thank you for your help, Jess. Unfortunately it still doesn’t work for my SGS2. I’ve done every step of your solution, but it saves the songs automatically on my internal memory.
Lets see how Simfy handles this problem :P
Ok. No idea why but it works now. I wanted to sync my music again this morning and suddenly: it starts syncronising it on my external sd card. Thank you very much for your help :)
Thanks!
It works, but i have a problema. The offline list is gone every time y restart my Galaxy- I need to sinc every time…. I don’t know why