Products · Product
Google Play Music
Raised as a usability problem by 112 people on Hacker News over 14 years (2011–2024), in 82 threads.
No issue was raised by at least 3 people in 3 threads this year.
No issue was raised by at least 3 people in 3 threads in the last 5 years.
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Every issue, all time, most people first
Downloaded songs stop playing offline after leaving service areaUnreviewed
20112026- Downloaded music becomes inaccessible when no internet connection is found2018-08-20
- Songs re-download while connected, and albums fail to download for offline listening2018-07-26
- Adding music for offline road-trip listening is a huge pain, so users resort to caching2015-06-23
Tracks show up duplicated and unclear which are in libraryUnreviewed
20112026- Removed songs vanish from playlists without any notice of what was lost2021-02-15
- Google Play randomly deleted users' uploaded tracks at times2020-12-02
- Tracks randomly disappear from library and reappear, and hidden tracks play on shuffle2020-07-11
Music manager fails to upload; album sorting and track numbers garbledUnreviewed
20112026- Sync app keeps crashing and doesn't upload songs right away2019-05-07
- Uploading and downloading music with official tools is unreliable and hit-or-miss2018-04-04
- Uploaded albums are only partly accepted and iOS playback is horrendous2013-03-02
Exported tracks have wrong file names and censored versionsUnreviewed
20112026- Exported tracks have wrong file names and censored or radio edit versions2021-11-26
- Wrong track swaps to radio edits; the fix tool only works about half the time2020-05-23
- Keeps matching explicit songs to edited versions, forcing repeated manual fixes2014-03-04
Freezes when an ad fails to play, and won't autoplay on BluetoothUnreviewed
20112026- Freezes when an ad fails to play, and won't autoplay on bluetooth connect2019-07-20
- Ads freeze playback and music doesn't restart afterward2018-04-03
- Playback stops on Bluetooth reconnect and restarts from the beginning, forcing users to hunt for their position2013-08-31
Syncing own music library is cumbersome and manualUnreviewed
20112026- Syncing own music library is cumbersome and manual, unlike simpler alternatives2019-04-02
- Syncing music to device requires copying MP3s over WiFi with a third-party program2013-03-12
- Must upload all music first, with no way to manage uploads except folders by hand2013-01-05
Web app takes about 10 seconds to load, with poor playlist managementUnreviewed
20112026- Web app takes about 10 seconds to load and has poor playlist management2020-11-21
- IOS app is terrible and playlist management is hard to use2020-04-14
- Web app became slow and playlist sorting broke after an update2017-08-09
Unreviewed issues were grouped by machine: Claude Haiku labelled each comment as a usability complaint, named what it's about and summed up the problem in a line, and a small model grouped similar problems. Nobody has checked them by hand. Expect mistakes.
The newest 50 complaints
- App turned into a storefront that refreshes a carousel and uses mobile data2024-06-13
- Auto-generated playlists mix genres the user wants kept separate, which annoys them2024-04-25
- Large libraries are painful to upload and hard to keep in sync with a folder2023-04-06
- Clunky export process; purchased albums may be missing from downloads2022-10-28
- Google Play Music was impossible to use with a custom-domain Google account2022-05-17
- Support keeps sending the same generic reset-and-reinstall advice despite reports of broken tracks2022-04-17
- Exported tracks have wrong file names and censored or radio edit versions2021-11-26
- Removed songs vanish from playlists without any notice of what was lost2021-02-15
- Google Play randomly deleted users' uploaded tracks at times2020-12-02
- Queuing behaves inconsistently and confusingly, depending on playlist type2020-12-02
- Voice requests for artists play the wrong similar-named artist, and spelling names fails2020-12-02
- Web app takes about 10 seconds to load and has poor playlist management2020-11-21
- Search returns YouTube videos instead of the user's own uploaded tracks, which is confusing2020-11-12
- App does nothing when opened, forcing user to disable updates and the app2020-10-24
- Typing a song name gives unpredictable results: ads, partial playback, radio, or silence2020-10-24
- User grew confused about where the service was headed and left it2020-09-15
- Buying a single song requires awkward menus and is pushed toward subscription2020-07-31
- Can't find certain tracks easily and unsure why they disappear2020-07-11
- Tracks randomly disappear from library and reappear, and hidden tracks play on shuffle2020-07-11
- Wrong track swaps to radio edits; the fix tool only works about half the time2020-05-23
- IOS app is terrible and playlist management is hard to use2020-04-14
- Playlists don't update and tracks show up duplicated; unclear which tracks are in library2020-01-29
- Playlists randomly reorder songs, making them buggy to use2020-01-29
- Interface not optimized for user; designers' choices make the app frustrating to use2020-01-29
- Interface felt unintuitive and clunky on iOS2020-01-29
- Scroll indicator hidden under top pane and hard to grab2019-10-25
- Play button sits so close to the edge that users keep hitting the scroll bar instead2019-10-25
- Stuck in a loop of errors with support repeating useless suggestions already tried2019-10-14
- Freezes when an ad fails to play, and won't autoplay on bluetooth connect2019-07-20
- Smaller artists lumped together and their songs fail to show up2019-05-17
- Shared songs show errors and uploaded tracks can't be found on other accounts2019-05-17
- Commenter moved music off Google Music, calling its UI terrible2019-05-17
- Sync app keeps crashing and doesn't upload songs right away2019-05-07
- Shows files with blank ID3 tags indistinguishably, forcing a file manager to play them2019-05-06
- Syncing own music library is cumbersome and manual, unlike simpler alternatives2019-04-02
- Podcasts sit in a Reader folder, so browsing feeds can accidentally mark a podcast as read2019-03-28
- Pressing next twice quickly gives random results depending on which request returns first2018-10-31
- Hitting next twice in a row gives random results depending on response timing2018-10-31
- Google Music app is heavy and has very bad user experience2018-10-19
- Very slow, taking tens of seconds to respond to taps with large collections2018-10-15
- No easy way to play an album in the car; minimal menus hide what users want2018-10-15
- Downloaded music becomes inaccessible when no internet connection is found2018-08-20
- Songs re-download while connected, and albums fail to download for offline listening2018-07-26
- Adding songs resets playlist to top; sorting, filtering and playback are unreliable2018-05-17
- App is almost unusable on an airplane, where there is no connection2018-05-17
- Uploading and downloading music with official tools is unreliable and hit-or-miss2018-04-04
- Tracks get added to user's playlists at random without consent2018-04-04
- App refuses to work when user tries to select music2018-04-03
- Ads freeze playback and music doesn't restart afterward2018-04-03
- Upsell overlay reappears every couple of days and can't be dismissed permanently2018-03-22