include
Skip to main content

I have been using Deezer for a very long time over the course of several different accounts. It has gotten progressively worse for at least 3 years now. I want to know if it’s going to get any better, because I’m on the brink of switching to Spotify. Below are my issues with Deezer for Android. For context, I’m using a Samsung S20+ with no damage or anything with plenty of spare storage and my system software and app version are all up-to-date.

  • Painfully slow search feature. I have Wi-Fi with 30mb upload and 30mb download consistently. The app continually struggles to search ANYTHING. Sometimes it works fine, but usually it buffers for several minutes before returning a result which is sometimes not even what I search for. It never used to do this, it started maybe a year ago or so. I have tried mobile data and that doesn’t help.
  • Low download integrity. I had about 30GB of downloads which I’d say is on the small side for audiophiles like myself. They worked without issue for years until randomly a couple of months ago it deleted ALL of my downloads. This has since happened twice. Another thing it likes to do is show no downloads but I can still see the space is taken in storage, meaning I have to wipe the entire app otherwise it sucks up all my storage by stacking on top of itself.
  • Awful download speed. Frustrated with that first purge of my downloads, I left my phone screen on, charging, overnight to re-download everything. I tried this THREE TIMES. Each time, the downloads failed again and again. It has been 12 months and all my playlists have that green bar maybe halfway or so. Furthermore, every time I open the app the progress is either further or less than previously, which makes no sense. Sometimes, intermittently, random songs in my album playlists refuse to download, which icks me on a level previously undiscovered by human kind. FURTHERMORE, sometimes playlists are downloaded with the green tick, but when I’m travelling and offline, the songs are greyed out (with the green tick) and won’t let me play them. The only solution I’ve found is to play every single song on the playlist consecutively before going out. This is ridiculous, and with playlists with like 100+ songs, impossible. Yes I have considered smaller playlists, that doesn’t work either.
  • Poor download access / Offline mode failure. The last time I tried to access the downloads folder it was way too slow, and this was with the internet connected, when I disconnected my internet I timed it on a watch. 2 minutes and 34 seconds.. When I turned offline mode on it failed to load completely. However, when I turned Aeroplane mode on, it loaded, and much quicker?! This doesn’t make any sense and is a colossal faff. Why should I have to waste my expensive Data when I have access to internet at home or college. I am a student and music keeps me sane, this is absurd. Oh yeah, sometimes offline mode causes the app to bug out entirely and not load anything. When it does load, none of the album art for my downloads appears, just a black symbol; this is a small aesthetic detail but a profoundly annoying one. So yeah, I can’t really access my downloads even when they do work, but accessing them on the “recently listened” area works instantly, but only for the small selection displayed. This tells me the interface is just being stupid and it’s not my files. 
  • App crashes / stops. The app crashes randomly every now and again, I have tried clearing the cache regularly which doesn’t work. It also sometimes stops randomly in the middle of a song, or (my favourite), even though it’s set to not sleep, the music widget just disappears from my control centre and lock screen meaning I have to navigate into the app instead of pressing play on my phone / headphones. It likes to do this when my hands are full or I’m travelling. >:(
  • Sound quality. Deezer is supposed to be the service with the best sound quality. I have noticed a considerable drop-off in quality over the last 6 months in all of my music. I usually have it set to high-fidelity but it has definitely decreased. Throughout my download turmoil I’ve tried increasing or decreasing the quality to reduce the load, but there is no audible difference, just that it’s worse than it was a few months ago. 
  • Sound glitches. Sometimes whilst I’m listening, there is a crackle or snap in the music. It is not my headphones as it does it on all my audio devices. It also does it on both Deezer android and PC. When listening to loud music this is particularly annoying and jarring.
  • Flow. Sometimes it just disappears from my homepage/
  • Buffering. Aside from the downloads, the entire app is laggy and takes ages to load. I was recently in a hotel with WiFi the speed of the Stig (very very quick), and it took just as long as usual to load.

Now that I’ve explained all the important issues, I’d also like to say that I hate how the app looks now. Just my opinions but the whole thing just seems goofy and I hate the fact that it seems like they spent all their resources on a re-design and neglected the face they made the app nigh-on unusable. Most people I know use Spotify but I know 3 people who use Deezer and they are all having similar issues to me. 

This is what I’ve tried to rectify the issues in no particular order except where is logical:

  • Logging out and back in, several times
  • Clearing app cache
  • Clearing app data
  • Changing audio quality settings
  • Using less / smaller playlists
  • Uninstalling / reinstalling the app
  • Using the BETA version of the app
  • Rollback app version (didn’t work)
  • Cleaning out my phone storage (I currently have more than enough free space)
  • Increasing Deezer’s available cache
  • Deleting / re-doing downloads
  • Making sure the app can run on top, and that is set to not sleep
  • Altering system widget settings
  • Searching for bug fixes
  • Using a different account

Nothing has worked, not even slightly.

 

I’ve long since become fed-up with Deezer, the only reason I haven’t moved app is because I don’t want to have to remake all my playlists and I’m worried some songs won’t be on Spotify. 

 

Please, how, if at all, can I fix some of these issues?

Are they happening for lots of people?

Is Deezer improving the app or are Android users doomed to Spotify forever?

 

:(

I can comment only on the search slowness. It is slow lately. It was improved when the re-designed app was available but lately it is slow. 

Hi,

I am experiencing many issues on Sonos as well.

Slow to browse, many times unable to open page.

Always skipping songs.

Many albums disappeared.

For example when i browse Heart discography albums like " bad animals", "brigade" didnt apprear. But when i choose top tracks, song "alone" which in "bad animals" is there.

To be honest, i am very disappointed.

The solution provided always remove and add accoumt but the problem is stil there.

I’m having the same issues. I used to love Deezer, and have converted many friends to it from Spotify. But in it’s current state I can no longer conscionably recommend this platform to anyone. Slow, buggy, constant crashes. If this is rectified in the next month or so I will be going back to Spotify. 

Having a horrible experience with Deezer and Musicast. Deezer does not seem to care. Still have my Spotify account. As soon as Spotify starts hi Res I am ditching this Deezer crap show.

Unfortunately, I’m on a very similar boat. Deezer’s Android app is perhaps the worst out of all the music streamers.

  1. I cannot reliably download music in the background.
  2. The downloading takes forever!
  3. Chromecasting will eventually disconnect from the app. The music still playing, but the app isn’t showing that.
  4. Shuffle is hit or miss.
  5. A lot of time the “Mixes inspired by” section has no words, just the album art and the boxes where the text is supposed to go.
  6. Overall app feels heavy and slow.

I love Deezer and really want to stay as a premium user. I still recommend to friends, but the Android app doesn’t get any better and these issues make the daily use really painful. Desktop/web app is wonderful. I so wish it was the same on mobile.

I forgot a new one: the scrollbar doesn’t seem to show up on playlists anymore.

Account cancelled!!!

Goodbye Deezer… Hopefully we meet some day when you care enough to sort out your issues.

Unfortunately, I find the exact same thing and worse.

I am running it on a Sony NW-A306 and genuinely had been blaming the problems on the player. I hate listening to low-quality music on my old iPhone XS but the Deezer app is astonishingly less laggy and glitchy on the phone compared to Android. 

The simplest tasks take ages. I am away from any Wi-Fi far more than I am able to access it as, well duh, it’s a portable music player so Deezer’s download/offline mode seemed ideal and, again, on iPhone it works like a dream but the Sony/Android version is unremittingly awful much of the time. 

  • Starting the app: Slow and fails 3 out of 5 times, often requiring a restart of the player
  • Navigating the app: Slow, laggy and unresponsive and often crashes it. It has driven me to utter despair on many occasions
  • Playlist navigation: On a Sony NW-A306? Dear Lord. The screen size and Deezer simply are not compatible. Playlists are horrendous on that device with Deezer. Scrolling is impossible and the UI just does not work.
  • The UI… Just, the UI is horrendous for Deezer in Android. Nuff said.
  • Downloading: Stops and starts regardless of Wi-Fi connection and often needs nudging to get it to remember to actually do it. 

I don’t know whether this is a Sony-specific issue with Deezer or not but I am seriously at the end of my tether with it and considering Tidal instead - not to mention the non-Android-specific issues of the Deezer catalog being less complete (especially for left-field electronic artists) but the continuing appalling issue of Deezer not fixing the catalog for artists with the same name. How is it still possible that so many artists on there have catalogs mixed with other totally unrelated artists? It’s not hard! I am not a programmer but there are so many ways around that issue on databases. How about a prompt asking which artist we mean? Or separating homonymous artists completely by genre? Anything except what it is now. 

Been having exactly the same issues. The biggest frustration is the constant buffering, on th ephone app, on desktop, and recently playing through the browser as well - I’m on my home wifi, everything else streams fine. I’ve set the audio quality to the lowest setting to try and improve things, no such luck. Contemplating cancelling my subscription if it doesn’t come right soon, this isn’t worth paying for.

I’m sorry to hear this. I wonder why one Android user has these problems and another does not. The Deezer app on my Android phone doesn’t have any buffering issues.

Reply


TERMS OF USE DEEZER COMMUNITY SITE