Black screen bug hits Spotify on iPad; Search in ‘Add to playlist’ menu also broken for many

Spotify users on iPad are dealing with a frustrating double whammy right now. A black screen bug that started cropping up after the recent app update has made the Now Playing View nearly unusable, and if that wasn’t enough, the search function when adding songs to playlists has stopped working properly too.

The black screen issue seems to have hit iPad users hard after updating to version 9.0.90 of the app. When you tap on the Now Playing bar or cover art to pull up lyrics or check your queue, the screen just goes dark. The app basically freezes up, leaving you without access to basic controls like repeat, shuffle, or the ability to see what’s coming up next. Your music keeps playing in the background, but you’re stuck staring at a black void.​

Reports about this started flooding in on r/truespotify. Users with iPad Air and iPad Pro models both seem affected. Some folks reported the issue starting Friday after the update, with the problem showing up whether they were trying to view lyrics or access the Now Playing screen.

The complaints kept rolling in through the weekend, with people posting about getting stuck with black screens and broken functionality on X as well.

Even Spotify has acknowledged the problem on its community forums, noting that users are experiencing this across different iPad models.

Spotify has labeled the issue as “under investigation” on their community support page. For now, closing and reopening the app might temporarily fix things, but that’s not a real solution.

A Reddit user shared a workaround that involves using Stage Manager to resize the Spotify window to iPhone proportions, which seems to dodge the bug.​

But wait, there’s more. The search bar when you’re trying to add a song to a playlist is also broken for tons of users, even on Android devices. When you type in the search field to find a specific playlist, it just doesn’t filter anything. This is particularly annoying if you’ve got hundreds of playlists to scroll through.

People on r/truespotify noticed this starting around the same time, with the bug affecting users even after they tried clearing cache or reinstalling. Some folks reported the search function completely stopped working when trying to organize their music.

There’s even video proof that you can watch below:

Hopefully, Spotify pushes out a fix soon, because right now, users on various devices, especially iPads, are left with a pretty rough experience.