watchOS 9 breaks Spotify streaming on Apple Watch

watchOS 9 has a bug that breaks Spotify streaming on Apple Watch. Many users have reported the issue on Spotify’s community forums, and the company is aware of the issue. Spotify has suggested users to not install watchOS 9 until Apple issues a fix.

For users who have already upgraded to watchOS 9 on their Apple Watch, Spotify has recommended a workaround.

Spotify issue with watchOS 9

The issue was reported 2 weeks ago while watchOS 9 was still in beta. The bug was in the release candidate version too. Spotify acknowledged the issue and posted the below message in a new thread on its community forums:

Apple WatchOS 9 introduces a bug that will cause Spotify streaming on the Apple Watch to stop working. We encourage Spotify Apple Watch users to not install the WatchOS 9 update until Apple implements a fix. Users already affected can instead download their content to their Apple Watch and listen offline or stream from their phones.

The workaround suggested by Spotify requires users to simply download the content on their Apple Watch, which should allow the music playback to work fine in offline mode. An alternate solution is to just stream music directly from your iPhone, if downloading music to your Apple Watch is not an option.

Spotify has also sent the above-quoted message to its users via email, informing them about the issue. We have not heard any update from Apple so far. It is unclear whether the recently released watchOS 9.1 beta fixes this issue or not. We will update this post as we find out more.