topic Re: Spotify stops whenever Windows plays a notification sound in Desktop (Windows)

Spotify stops whenever Windows plays a notification sound

Denis-Bowden — Fri, 03 Jan 2025 04:36:25 GMT

G'Day from Australia,

I use Spotify on my Windows laptop and it stops playing whenever Windows gives a notification (e.g. it plays a ping and gives a message when I receive email). Has anyone else come across this problem and found a fix for it?

I have read through all similar discussions that I can find (and done google searches) and anything I found all list the standard, unhelpful steps that don't fix the problem (e.g. turn your computer off, then back on. Reinstall spotify etc.). None of those things fix this ongoing problem and I can't find any setting in the Spotify App or Windows system settings that fixes this problem.

Plan

Premium

Country

Australia

Device

Operating System

Windows 11 Business

Re: Spotify stops whenever Windows plays a notification sound

OscarDC — Fri, 03 Jan 2025 16:50:37 GMT

Hey @Denis-Bowden,

Thank you for reaching out to the Community and welcome.

We appreciate the research you made before posting this behavior. We understand that the reinstall process may be an overlooked step, but it can be helpful in getting rid of any cache that might be causing trouble. So to start investigating this issue, would you mind confirming if you've already performed a clean reinstall of the app? If not, we'd recommend following the steps mentioned in this article to see if it makes any difference.

If the issue persists, would you mind checking if the Web Player has the same behavior?

Lastly, and if the issue persists, include in your next response the Spotify version you're currently running.

We'll be waiting for your response.

Re: Spotify stops whenever Windows plays a notification sound

sc00ber1 — Sat, 25 Jan 2025 04:39:16 GMT

I can also report this issue with Spotify windows app on windows 11

Re: Spotify stops whenever Windows plays a notification sound

enfuego444 — Fri, 07 Feb 2025 20:29:19 GMT

I was experiencing this same issue and tried all of the standard Google suggestions and nothing worked. I can confirm that uninstalling and reinstalling resolved the issue even though I was skeptical!

Thanks OscarDC!

Re: Spotify stops whenever Windows plays a notification sound

dueweke — Thu, 13 Mar 2025 15:00:55 GMT

I have done all of the above suggestions multiple times and nothing has worked. constantly pushing play on Spotify when it pauses is infuriating. MS Office and Teams send multiple notifications an hour for meetings, messages, emails... Sometimes Spotify won't pause, most of the time it does. I wish it would just keep playing.

Re: Spotify stops whenever Windows plays a notification sound

OscarDC — Thu, 13 Mar 2025 21:23:07 GMT

Hey Folks,

Thank you for your messages.

@dueweke we're glad to know that everything is working fine now, thank you for sharing your resolution.

On another note, if the previous process didn't work for you @dueweke, we'd recommend disabling hardware acceleration by clicking the 3-dot menu on the top left corner of your screen and selecting: Help > Troubleshooting > disable hardware acceleration and Restart

Keep also in mind that we don’t recommend having any active VPN while using the app as it may affect its proper behavior. If you have one activated, turn it off and restart your app to see if it makes any difference.

Lastly, if the issue persists after this, we'd also recommend clearing any entries which contain Spotify from the host files on your computer. To do so, you can follow the instructions mentioned in this post.

Hope this helps. We'll be waiting for your response.

Re: Spotify stops whenever Windows plays a notification sound

IronSamVane — Mon, 25 Aug 2025 20:37:49 GMT

I'm having the same issue on Windows 11- Teams notifications causes Spotify to stop playing, very obnoxious.

I've reinstalled the app and disabled hardware acceleration.

Is there a debug setting that will capture exactly why the player stopped?

Re: Spotify stops whenever Windows plays a notification sound

Dessi — Sat, 30 Aug 2025 09:18:50 GMT

Hey @IronSamVane,

Thanks for reaching out and for the info!

Another thing we'd recommend is checking Windows' communications and notifications settings and try adjusting them to see if that makes a difference:

Right-click the speaker icon on your taskbar.
Select Sounds.
Go to the Communications tab.
Select "Do nothing" from the options.
Click Apply and then OK.

You can also open Notifications and Actions, under the "Notifications" section scroll down to "Get notifications from these senders" and temporarily turn off notifications from Teams and any other apps that may cause this to check if that helps.

There might be a way to capture the app's behavior into a log file, but it's also worth trying to troubleshooting the issue so let's give that a shot.

Let us know how it goes.

Re: Spotify stops whenever Windows plays a notification sound

IronSamVane — Wed, 24 Sep 2025 19:39:05 GMT

Today when a Facebook Messenger alert pops up on my android phone, Spotify stops playing on my work laptop. I don't have Spotify actively running on my phone, and the Communications tab is set to "Do nothing".

Re: Spotify stops whenever Windows plays a notification sound

IronSamVane — Wed, 24 Sep 2025 20:15:40 GMT

Closed the Spotify app on my laptop and fired up the Web player, and the problem persists.

Re: Spotify stops whenever Windows plays a notification sound

Eni — Wed, 24 Sep 2025 22:01:12 GMT

Hey there @IronSamVane,

Thanks for getting in touch about this here in the Community.

First up, we suggest that you make sure the Spotify app is not running in the background on your phone. If you can see your phone in the Connect list on your PC, that's most likely the case.

Also, we'd recommend heading to your phone's settings > Apps > Spotify > Battery or background activity > and set it to Restricted.

Keep us posted on how it goes.

Re: Spotify stops whenever Windows plays a notification sound

IronSamVane — Thu, 25 Sep 2025 18:16:22 GMT

I set the background activity to restricted, force quit the app, and I'm still having my desktop player stop when notifications are popping up on my phone.

Re: Spotify stops whenever Windows plays a notification sound

Eni — Thu, 25 Sep 2025 21:47:35 GMT

Hi @IronSamVane,

Thanks for getting back to us.

Just to confirm, has this always happened or did it start happening after a specific event such as an update?

On another note, what you can also try is to disable "Device broadcast status" in the app settings on your phone by going to Playback > Listening controls. This prevents the app from sharing its activity with other apps which might help avoid interruptions.

Lastly, would you mind checking if the same happens if you switch to Offline mode on your desktop app temporarily?

We'll be waiting for your reply.

Re: Spotify stops whenever Windows plays a notification sound

IronSamVane — Tue, 30 Sep 2025 20:33:15 GMT

I can't change Device broadcast status as it's greyed out, and clicking it gets "Setting unavailable on the device you're listening on"

I couldn't tell you if this started happening after a recent update.

I can tell you this happens when multiple devices show up connected to my account: https://developer.spotify.com/documentation/web-api/reference/get-a-users-available-devices

Sometimes force quitting the Android app stops the behavior, but it eventually pops back up.

Offline mode prevents this behavior.

Re: Spotify stops whenever Windows plays a notification sound

Ivelina — Wed, 01 Oct 2025 07:51:54 GMT

Thanks for the response @IronSamVane.

It's worth mentioning that there were previously other users (in this thread) who reported that the Device broadcast status setting was greyed out for them. What fixed this was an app update, so would you mind giving Spotify on your phone a clean reinstall as well which will ensure you're using the latest version? You can check the steps here.

As you've mentioned that this behavior happens when multiple devices show up connected, I also recommend logging out of your account everywhere from the Account Page, as well as removing additional devices from the list (Connect picker) to avoid connecting to them by mistake: Click on the three dots next to the device you want to remove > click Log out of this device.

Lastly, switch on Local device visibility in the Spotify mobile app Settings > Apps and devices in order to let the app only see devices that are currently on your Wi-Fi network.

Keep us posted!

Re: Spotify stops whenever Windows plays a notification sound

IronSamVane — Fri, 03 Oct 2025 17:42:39 GMT

Removing/reinstalling the Spotify app on my phone worked to return the Device broadcast setting, and it's been set off.

Today, after multiple stops, I set Spotify to Offline mode on my laptop, and verified via the web API ALL players are closed, and It's still stopping playback from notifications on both the laptop (teams) and phone (facebook messenger) and I absolutely do NOT use facebook or messenger on my work laptop.

The communication settings is set to Do nothing.

The error report log doesn't capture WHY it's stopping:

17:23:09.085 I [/f:299 ] Found 0 collection items out of 0 checked that need to be indexed (0ms).

17:23:09.085 I [/f:301 ] Completed a full check of the collection index.

17:23:14.539 I [/f:38 ] Prefetch: key prefetched for track: spotify:track:62Rd0gRjPyWl487N4DCXzf (file: 035b15f71e604571f44e7ed216aa682b7979bc93)

17:23:15.552 I [/f:2312 ] Update! reason: cached-key-provided, flags: 0x00

17:23:17.554 I [/f:1147 ] Pause track (playback_id 4ef05eff4b651b7c43d92d8aa8df8f85)

17:23:17.554 I [/f:625 ] Attempting to update play state from "playing" to "pausing"

17:23:17.557 I [/f:365 ] Playing music set to 'false'

17:23:17.557 I [/f:173 ] Scheduling emission of signal.

17:23:17.669 D [/f:352 ] Unmapped output 'Headphones'

17:23:17.672 I [/f:165 ] Emitting signal.

17:23:17.681 I [/f:168 ] Device coordinator was set offline

17:23:17.681 I [/f:507 ] Updated connection type from 5 to 5

17:23:17.717 D [/f:742 ] put state error: http client error 'http_error_forced_offline'

17:23:17.816 I [/f:625 ] Attempting to update play state from "pausing" to "paused"

17:23:17.816 I [/f:771 ] updateInternalDriverToPaused: _is_processing_audio now false

17:23:31.105 I [/f:233 ] ConcurrentCollector ran mark cycle for 16.073ms, total: 7061.533ms.

This is maddening, and I'm ready to drop my Spotify Premium subscription.

Re: Spotify stops whenever Windows plays a notification sound

OscarDC — Fri, 03 Oct 2025 19:24:14 GMT

Hey @IronSamVane,

Thank you for keeping in contact and for the info shared.

To continue investigating this behavior, if you installed the app from the official website, we'd recommend installing the version available in the Microsoft store (or vice versa) to see if it has the same behavior.

Also, it would be great if you could have someone log in with their account on your laptop - such as a friend or a family member, to see if the issue persists.

Lastly, would you mind confirming if the affected laptop is a work/school computer? We ask this as those devices may have restrictions set by the administrator that could affect the proper behavior of the app.

We'll be on the lookout.

Re: Spotify stops whenever Windows plays a notification sound

IronSamVane — Fri, 10 Oct 2025 16:54:07 GMT

Found the root cause of the issue- this only happens when my bluetooth headphones are connected to both the work laptop and desktop. When my desktop plays an alert sound for messenger (and pops up on my phone at the same time), Spotify stops on my laptop. Disconnecting the headphones from my desktop stops the behavior.

Volume Priority for System Notifications

sjr300 — Thu, 12 Mar 2026 23:29:05 GMT

When listening to Spotify and Windows notifications are received, the system volume overrides the Spotify volume to ensure PC sounds are prioritized. However, this can be frustrating as it lowers the Spotify volume unexpectedly.

Suggested Change:
Add an option to Spotify's settings or behavior to prioritize Spotify volume over system notifications, except for critical system alerts (e.g. low battery, system error). This would allow users to enjoy uninterrupted music playback while still receiving important system notifications."