Xperia XZ Premium - Spotify and Tidal unable to store offline content in SD Card

[Nuno_sf]

In my new Xperia XZ Premium device, both Spotify and Tidal are unable to store offline content in SD Card.

The SD card is encrypted and has more than 120 GB available.

Spotify does not have an option to select SD card for offline content, he should be capable of selecting the location with more storage space available, however he is storing offline content in internal memory with less space available than the external SD card.

Tidal has an option to select SD card, but selecting that option and selecting content to be transferred offline the download process passes very rapidly from track to track and the content is not downloaded. Selecting internal storage and repeating the process the tracks are correctly downloaded. Tidal support provided several options to solve the issue but none of them with success.

This issue is present in my previous Xperia XZ with Android 7, and local Sony support recommended a repair using companion software. I did not perform the repair and the issue is present on the brand new XZ Premium with Android 8.

In my Xperia Z4 Tablet with Android 7 with an encrypted SD card the issue is not present. Spotify and Tidal offline content is being stored in SD card.

The most significant differences from affected XZ and XZ Premium and not affected Z4 Tablet may be that the Z4 is not running two BYOD that are running in XZ and XZ Premium; Vodafone Mobile@Work and IBM MaaS 360. In both affected devices the SD cards are being used for Camera and Android storage (folders under Android containing data).

[CameronT]

Hi @Nuno-sf,

Because these are third party apps you may also wish to seek advise from the application developers in regards to this issue.

You mentioned that your SD card is encrypted, do you have one that is non-encrypted to test it with? Do the applications have permission to access the SD card in Settings > Apps > Spotify/Tidal > Permissions?

[Nuno_sf]

Developers advice:

Tidal; I tried all steps proposed by Tidal support with no success in my Xperia XZ device (delete app cache and data, uninstall app, restart device, install app, check permissions, try again),

Spotify; provided in device image, so I am contacting Sony Support for advice.

SD card encryption:

Briefly after setting up the device and identifying this issue, I performed the following steps with no success:

Copy card data to internal storage (DCIM folder structure),

Disable card encryption,

Format card,

Tidal; clear offline content, delete cache and data, uninstall app,

Spotify; clear offline content, delete cache and data, uninstall updates,

Restart device, install/update and configure both apps.

The issue persisted in both apps.

In my Xperia Z4 Tablet with Android 7 with an encrypted SD card the issue is not present. Spotify and Tidal offline content is being stored in SD card. Z4 Tablet has no BYOD installed.

Apps permissions:

Tidal; curiously the only permission option listed is Smartphone and it’s disabled. There is no option listed for Storage to be enabled.

Spotify: Storage permission was listed as disabled. It’s now enabled, could you please provide next steps for Spotify (as delete cache and data, remove updates, restart device, etc.)? The same Spotify app version provides an option to select internal or external storage in other devices, but in my device this option is not available.

[G_o_W]

hi, 

i just get my XZ premium and i have the same for Prime video, Tidal, Spotify, netflix, but the SD card works perfectly to take pictures, to move files from the phone to the SD Card, seems to be that the problem is the phone, it does not allow us to use this third part app as we supose to do, i'm really dissapointing with this phone due this, what is the meanning to have a SD card slot if we can not use it??

[Cyclocyte]

I realise that this post nearly a year old but I thought I would respond because I had the same problem (with an Xperia XZ but with non-encrypted sd card) and tried all of the things you did without success. Eventually however I sorted this out so I thought it might be helpful to others who experience this:

1.Backed up phone apps and data
2.Backed up SD card data (from other apps)
3.Factory reset phone
4.Formatted the SD card from the phone
4.Restored everything
5.Discovered that Tidal downloads were not backed up so all were lost.
6.In the Tidal app itself under "My collection" > "Settings" (cog) "Download destinations" - set to SD card
7.Re-downloaded off-line playlists - which took weeks at less than 1 Mb per sec!!!
8.Downloaded music is now stored on SD card - SUCCESS!

Note: Not sure which of these actions were critical to solving the problem but I have a suspicion that it may be important to set the download location in the app before attempting to download any music???

[Croluss]

Actually, Spotify just allows users to cache music files not to download to local with a premium plan while Tidal can support downloading music with neither a premium plan nor Hi-Fi plan. If you want to get offline content from them, you have to draw support from a professional Spotify and Tidal converter. Such tools can help you easily download content from Spotify or Tidal for offline use. You can rest assured that no original quality and ID3 tags loss will be caused.