Spotify Lossless Is Rolling Out to Sonos Users, But the Android App Keeps Crashing

Spotify Lossless is gradually rolling out to Sonos users, but Android users are reporting app crashes on some WiFi networks.

Spotify Lossless is rolling out slowly to Sonos users today, but it’s a bit of a mixed bag. While many users are pleased with what they’re hearing, users on Android report that the Spotify app is crashing on some WiFi networks.

Notably, users on Reddit report that there’s not really a noticeable difference in sound if you’re just playing music in the background. But if you’re wearing headphones and “focusing” on listening, “the higher dynamic range is noticeable.”

“I’ve been able to listen to music ~20% louder than I normally would without the track getting muddy from compression,” said one Redditor.

But as is often the case with higher bitrates, some people can hear the difference quite easily, and others can’t. Those who can seem very pleased with the sound they’re getting, particularly on high-end Sonos speakers.

Meanwhile, Sonos has confirmed there’s an ongoing issue with the Spotify app on Android. Spotify also acknowledged the issue and confirmed that the app “becomes unresponsive, freezes, or crashes when connected to certain WiFi networks.” The issue doesn’t occur when using mobile data.

The problem for Android users isn’t universal, but it appears to be affecting quite a few users, especially those on Samsung Galaxy and Google Pixel devices. Spotify indicates that engineers are actively working on a fix.

But the temporary fix is obvious, given that the issue is specific to WiFi networks: using mobile data only for the time being should alleviate crashes.

Some users also suspect that the problem is related to Chromecast-enabled devices, which could explain why the problem goes away when WiFi isn’t connected. Regardless, since Spotify and Sonos have both acknowledged the issue, hopefully a fix will be rolling out soon.