Here’s why Spotify users had playback issues overnight

Spotify users in Australia – and across the globe – had problems with the streaming service overnight.

They could only play songs already downloaded to their devices, which indicated the problem was with the streaming service itself.

In many cases, the songs cut out after a few seconds, with the app showing an error declaring, “the current track cannot be played.”

Internet outage tracker Down Detector showed more than 6,200 reports of issues, including from Australia, as well as the US and UK.

Spotify has 300 million users worldwide.

The problem was faced by both free and paying tiers although the problem did not extend to its podcasts.

Spotify took to its customer care Twitter account, saying “We’re aware of some issues right now and are checking them out! We’ll keep you posted.”

After 90 minutes, it declared, “Good news! Everything is good to go and looking happy.”

Good news! Everything is good to go and looking happy. Still having issues? Give @SpotifyCares a tweet.

— Spotify Status (@SpotifyStatus) August 19, 2020

The problem was that the company forgot to renew its TLS certificate for the *.wg.spotify.com host name.

Service resumed after it was hastily renewed.

Spotify tech problems are rare but last month (July), Spotify, Pinterest and Tinder were rendered unusable for several hours due to a code change by Facebook.