Spotify promises fix for Mac glitch causing excessive writes on hard disks & SSDs

"We've seen some questions in our community around the amount of written data using the Spotify client on desktop," the person told Ars Technica. "These have been reviewed and any potential concerns have now been addressed in version 1.0.42, currently rolling out to all users."

The glitch has reportedly been in the Mac, Windows, and Linux versions of the app since at least June though, and can affect a machine even when the app is idle and not caching any music locally. Leaving the software open for over a day can generate up to 700 gigabytes of activity, Ars noted.

While the issue might not be immediately noticeable on unpatched systems, it could cause serious problems for people running Spotify on SSDs, which can only write so many times before they cease to work. The Mac Pro and all of Apple's modern MacBooks use SSDs, and the technology is an option on iMacs.

A dedicated desktop client has been one of Spotify's smaller advantages over Apple Music, which is mostly mobile-oriented and can only be reached on Mac and Windows systems through iTunes — software burdened with several other tasks. Spotify also has mobile apps and a desktop Web interface.