topic Re: Media Keys Don't Work in Desktop (Linux)

Media Keys Don't Work

12173268984 — Sun, 14 Oct 2018 22:33:46 GMT

Plan

Free

Country

USA

Device

(Desktop PC)

Operating System

Debian with Unstable Updates

My Question or Issue

The Media Keys Play/Pause/Next/Previous on the keyboard don't work with the Spotify Application.

The Media Keys work with other applications in Linux such as Clementine and also work with the Spotify Application in Windows just fine. I would think it should be easy to make the media keys work just like they do in Clementine and other media applications in Linux.

Re: Media Keys Don't Work

ArtGravity — Mon, 22 Oct 2018 23:29:52 GMT

I just noticed this today. This is very odd, because the media keys had been working fine for me in both the Debian packaged version, and the snap version, which I have been using essentially since its release. (I removed the Debian version almost immediatley after switching to the the snap version as it was clearly ready for daily use.)

Re: Media Keys Don't Work

gumbeto — Wed, 24 Oct 2018 20:18:27 GMT

Same here, with version "1.0.92.390.g2ce5ec7d-18". I reverted to "1.0.89.313.g34a58dea-5" and the media keys work again, so this looks like a regression on spotify's part.

If you installed spotify with snap, you can rollback to the previous version with "snap revert spotify".

Re: Media Keys Don't Work

ArtGravity — Wed, 24 Oct 2018 20:41:09 GMT

Confirming that "snap revert spotify" restored media key functionality and rolled between the version numbers mentioned below.

wrote:
Same here, with version "1.0.92.390.g2ce5ec7d-18". I reverted to "1.0.89.313.g34a58dea-5" and the media keys work again, so this looks like a regression on spotify's part.

If you installed spotify with snap, you can rollback to the previous version with "snap revert spotify".

Re: Media Keys Don't Work

12173268984 — Fri, 16 Nov 2018 15:49:16 GMT

I've tried the snaps for Spotify in the past and they would not run on Debian, but the .deb would.

There is one alternative I found which is to use Deezer and instal the Deezer MediaKeys Reloaded extension for Chromium.

Re: Media Keys Don't Work

ArtGravity — Thu, 25 Oct 2018 21:58:12 GMT

That's news to me, since I've been running Spotify as a snap on 64 bit Debian Stretch without issue since the snap version debuted.

@12173268984 wrote:
I've tried the snaps for Spotify in the past and they would not run on Debian, but the .deb would.

Re: Media Keys Don't Work

Tangram — Mon, 29 Oct 2018 19:44:05 GMT

Same here with 1.0.92.390.g2ce5ec7d on Ubuntu.

Re: Media Keys Don't Work

gumbeto — Fri, 02 Nov 2018 16:00:49 GMT

Snap updated spotify to 1.0.93.242.gc2341a27-15 here and the problem persists in that version.

Re: Media Keys Don't Work

ArtGravity — Fri, 02 Nov 2018 17:54:46 GMT

@gumbeto wrote:
Snap updated spotify to 1.0.93.242.gc2341a27-15 here and the problem persists in that version.

Confirmed as I had used 'snap revert' to get my media keys working again, and they were broken today. I had to run 'snap revert' to restore functionality.

Spotify, please get the devs to fix this regression before rolling out another snap and breaking the media keys again.

Re: Media Keys Don't Work

pachulo — Mon, 05 Nov 2018 19:14:38 GMT

I'm also experiencing this problem with the snap in Ubuntu 16.04, but not with Ubuntu 18.04...

Re: Media Keys Don't Work

mexicano — Tue, 06 Nov 2018 01:49:05 GMT

I have this problem too, in snap version on Ubuntu 18.04, used to works before

if it matters I'm using premium and version 1.0.93.242.gc2341a27.

Re: Media Keys Don't Work

RadthorDax — Tue, 06 Nov 2018 16:31:49 GMT

I no longer seem to have the old snap revision on my machine, and spotify wont let us outright specify a revision to install. Is there anything I can do to get hold of a working version?

Re: Media Keys Don't Work

ArtGravity — Thu, 15 Nov 2018 16:48:19 GMT

The problem persists in snap 1.0.93.244.g1e3a05e7-18.

Reverting to snap 1.0.89.313.g34a58dea-5 restores functionality.

*Please* fix this regression so it stops breaking the media keys.

Re: Media Keys Don't Work

gumbeto — Thu, 15 Nov 2018 19:22:08 GMT

Confirm.

I pay for spotify, surely others with the same problem do to, so could we please get a response from someone at Spotify?

Re: Media Keys Don't Work

navnav — Sun, 02 Dec 2018 18:53:39 GMT

I also had the same problem with a recent update, but I've just managed to fix it!

If you remove spotify via snap: 'snap remove spotify', and then install via apt-get (instructions here: https://www.spotify.com/uk/download/linux/) that fixes the media keys issue.

The version that was installed via apt-get, for me, was version 1.0.80.480.g51b03ac3.

With this solution, you won't enjoy the benefits of snap updating your software automatically, but TBH, I prefer it that way.

Re: Media Keys Don't Work

ArtGravity — Sun, 02 Dec 2018 20:00:52 GMT

@navnav wrote:

If you remove spotify via snap: 'snap remove spotify', and then install via apt-get (instructions here: https://www.spotify.com/uk/download/linux/) that fixes the media keys issue.

That workaround installs an even older version of the application than the most recent one where the media keys still work (1.0.89.313.g34a58dea-5). Unfortunately it doesn't actually solve the problem of the media keys being broken in recent versions of the software.

Hopefully this issue exists in the dev team bug tracking system and is getting the attention it needs.

Re: Media Keys Don't Work

ArtGravity — Mon, 03 Dec 2018 23:26:56 GMT

The snap updated to 1.0.94.262.g3d5c231c-9 and the media keys *still* don't work!

Re: Media Keys Don't Work

gumbeto — Tue, 04 Dec 2018 10:22:06 GMT

Unfortunately it looks like these forums are just a way to keep us talking to ourselves and pretend that's support

Re: Media Keys Don't Work

geca — Thu, 13 Dec 2018 19:17:35 GMT

Just updated ubuntu 16.04 today and media keys stopped working... Been searching around for more than an hour until I found the thread. The installed version is 1.0.94.262.g3d5c231c-9

Could not find the previous .deb version, anyone knows where to find it? It's really bad not being able to use the media keys!

Re: Media Keys Don't Work

valentin_neacsu — Sat, 15 Dec 2018 00:30:48 GMT

I was able to download a copy of spotify-client_1.0.89.313.g34a58dea-5_amd64.deb (the last unaffected version) from one of the 2 below mirrors: