topic Re: Spotify is preventing Windows from sleeping in Desktop (Windows)

Spotify is preventing Windows from sleeping

nicktouchette — Thu, 06 Aug 2020 18:50:10 GMT

Plan

Premium

Country

United States

Device

Desktop, iPhone 11 Pro Max, Macbook Air, Roku w/ Spotify

Operating System

Windows 10

My Question or Issue

When playing Spotify on another device, my Desktop will no longer sleep due to Spotify claiming there is "Background Audio Playback".

I leave Spotify open while i'm away from my desktop, and will stream Spotify from one of my other devices. I just noticed, however, that running `powercfg /requests` on my desktop while I'm playing Spotify from another device shows Spotify as in-use. This entry exists when the UI is active, as well as minimized to the system tray. The entry goes away when I stop the music playback on the other device.

EXECUTION:
[PROCESS] \Device\HarddiskVolume3\Program Files\WindowsApps\SpotifyAB.SpotifyMusic_1.138.558.0_x86__zpdnekdrzrea0\Spotify.exe
Background Audio Playback

When viewing Spotify's UI on the desktop, it shows the green bar that tells me which device I'm using, as well as all the current song info. The only way to fix this issue is by closing Spotify every time I swap to another device.

My question, is there a way to prevent Spotify from behaving this way without having to close it each time? Can this be fixed?

Re: Spotify is preventing Windows from sleeping

HeyImAlex — Tue, 23 Feb 2021 04:46:38 GMT

Having the exact same issue and seem to have solved it with:

```

powercfg /requestsoverride process "\Path\To\Spotify.exe" execution

powercfg /requestsoverride process Spotify.exe execution

```

Where the first path is the one you see in `powercfg /requests`. When I run `powercfg /requests` the offending request still shows up, but I think the rule stops it from actually preventing sleep. You can see the current state of rules with a bare `powercfg /requestsoverride`. With a 1m sleep timer it still took around 3m to actually get to sleep, but it _did_ go to sleep. The second (or first?) rule may be extraneous, but I added both and don't care enough to test out which one actually fixed the problem!

Hopefully my computer will be a little less dusty now 🙂

Re: Spotify is preventing Windows from sleeping

Jofuso — Mon, 01 May 2023 17:46:04 GMT

Would you mind explaining in more detail exactly what you did? Unfortunately I don't know what to do with this information, that seems to be the exact solution I am looking for:

powercfg /requestsoverride process "\Path\To\Spotify.exe" execution

powercfg /requestsoverride process Spotify.exe execution

Thanks!

Re: Spotify is preventing Windows from sleeping

HeyImAlex — Mon, 01 May 2023 17:58:04 GMT

They’re commands you enter into a command prompt. You’ll want to open powershell, probably in admin mode (google “how to open powershell in admin mode” for help here).

Then, you’ll want to run “powercfg /requests”. To “run” a command just means typing (or copy/pasting) it in to the powershell window and pressing enter. The command will run and print some output. In this output should be some path that includes Spotify.exe if it’s actually blocking sleep.

Next you’re going to run those commands from my original post, but replace the \Path\to\Spotify.exe with the path you found in the previous step.

Re: Spotify is preventing Windows from sleeping

Jofuso — Mon, 01 May 2023 18:01:42 GMT

Thanks so much for your rapid and detailed response!

Re: Spotify is preventing Windows from sleeping

Katsy13 — Tue, 17 Jun 2025 16:58:02 GMT

Thank you! I tested only the first one and it didn't work, btw; had to add the second one.

Now I'm a bit afraid that it will put the computer to sleep when I'm actually listening on my PC, because the processes names seem to be the same, but so far it hasn't.