[iOS] Tracks sync very slowly

Thread: 1513

Status: Unresolved


Syncing tracks for offline use, on iPhone is extremely slow.

Additional information

From original topic:

"The mobile Spotify app is extremely slow to sync songs and usually stops after 20-25 songs. This has been happening for weeks if not months.

I have a blazing fast cable connection: 100Mb download speed + backup 8Mb download DSL. I've tried on these 2 connections + a 20Mb DSL connection at work and I have the same issue. Wifi signal is 5/5 on both iPhones and bandwidth tests are good.
Friends of mine living where I live (Strasbourg, France) don't seem to have the same problem. I can only think that it might be related to my account."


Please provide this additional info when you reply:

  • Which device(s) are you using? Please be specific, i.e. iPhone 4S, iPad 3 WiFi only, iPad 4 3G
  • What version is your iOS? I.e. 5.1,6.0.1,etc.
  • What quality are you syncing?
  • On which device(s) is syncing slow?
  • On which device(s) is syncing fast (or "regular" speed)?
  • If your tracks are syncing slowly, what's your average sync speed?
  • How many tracks, approximately, are you trying to sync?
  • Are you syncing over WiFi or 3G?
  • Do you know and can you confirm how fast your down- and upload speeds are on your WiFi network?
  • (Optional, for privacy reasons) In which country are you located?
  • Are you syncing local files or Spotify tracks?
  • If you are trying to sync local files, could you try only syncing Spotify tracks. Is this slow?
  • Please provide a couple of examples of playlists or tracks that are slow to sync.
  • On the "slow" device, did you:
    reset the cache of your Safari app?
    un- and reinstall the Spotify app?


2013-01-10: We still have people looking into this and we need your help to provide more specific data

2013-01-16: Anyone having any kind of connection issue should have a look at the connection troubleshooting tips

2013-01-29: We have reports of this issue being resolved for users with an iPhone 5, on iOS 6.1. Please try updating your device to iOS 6.1 and let us know if that changes anything. When you reply, please include your iOS version.

Hey guys we're going to close this thread as it's been getting very posts. If you continue to have trouble please start a new thread in the iOS board and we will investigate. Thank

Music Fan

When I switched my router to b only i did notice sync speeds were quicker on my iphone 5....Now takes about 10mins to sync a 10+ track album. 


It'll take 30+minutes to sync an album on either G or N.


iphone 5 and experiencing the same issue. Not to mention stream is not very good but sync can take forever. This is not a service I will continue to pay for.


I've set my router to B instead of default B/G/N. You can't expect your average user to know how to change these settings on their router though and this is not a feasible solution. Definately different sync speeds. still not worth paying for though.


No other settings were modified when switching from b/g/n to b.

Not applicable



I have the same problem - extremely slow synch onto my iPhone 4s. It synchs a track or 2, then just "freezes". 


Is there any solution for this yet?


Surely there is a way to synch playlists using a USB cable plugged in? 


Very frustrating!




further to this, I have tried connecting to an airport express wifi running on a 5Hz n network and still experience extreme slowness. How is it that when I set my router to the slowest (b, supports up to 11mbps) that I am getting two tracks a minute yet when i'm connected to the latest 5 Hz n network that I wait up to 5 min for 1 track to sync?


Ok, I think I figured out the issue! Your right, it is port related. I use the same exact Netgear router at home as we do at work, so that is why the issue seemed like it was happening everywhere. I tried out sync at another location with a different brand router. Lo and behold it works just as I had come to expect. 


So I tinkered with my routers port triggering settings and made sure port 4070 was opened. I also turned on UPNP and enabled DMZ for my phones address. Well, no one wants to have to enable DMZ, so I turned that off and it still worked. 


I did some reading and Spotify uses a wide range of ports for communicating with peers. My upnp log said that port 50584 was being forwarded, but i'm not sure if that could change. So I am going to leave UPNP on for right now, even though it is kind of a security hole rather than turn it off and manually forward a specific port. 


Long story short, try enabling UPNP on your router, or at least try manually port triggering 4070 and 50584 (TCP and UDP).


EDIT: I ruled out UPNP. Seems like port triggering 4070 both UDP and TCP by iteself does the trick. Weird because it used to work like a peach untile the last couple of months. Oh well. I'm syncing an album every 3 minutes or so now. Much better. 




I have a Netgear router and ipod touch 5th gen and syncing is very slow as well. Is this possibly an issue with Netgear.

I bet it is. Try enabling port triggering on port 4070. It's in your routers advanced settings.

Hi redcarpet. I tried all the settings you suggested and still the same issue. only get good speeds when running wifi on b as previously mentioned. when checking the upnp log there is no ports being accessed by my iphone5 IP address.

I am however a Netgear cable modem as other users seem to be having issues with netgear.
*edit* But i did also try this over an airport express and still experienced slowness.

Are you double NATing? Your cable modem might have a built in router and firewall making it an issue.

Sorry guys, false alarm. It's still slow. I just tried it at home and it seemed faster, but I have no idea if it actually was or if it was just my perception. So I tried turning off wifi again and seeing how it went on LTE. No doubt, the LTE was lightning fast, so the issue persists. 


I read another thread that said that Spotify is working with Apple on the sycn issue, and that we should be watching the app store and it was dated about 2 weeks ago. So there's that. 

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