Samsung app doesnt give controls for music

[Thestigmach1]

I have a Samsung note 20 5g and gear s3 watch. Both are up to date and spotify is up to date. I have a constant problem where the controls in the app and notification bar are gone. I cannot pause or skip music. The only way to stop the music is to force kill the app but that doesn't fix it when reopened. Only restarting the phone as a whole fixes it.

[Alex]

Hey @Thestigmach1,

Thanks for reaching out about this in the Community!

Can you clarify if the issue is with the lock-screen widget controls on the phone, the controls on the watch or the Spotify app when it's open on your phone. As soon as we get a better understating of the issue, we'll do our best to help find a solution.

It would be helpful to include some screenshots of the issue.

Cheers.

[Thestigmach1]

It is with all of those. It doesn't show anywhere that music is playing even though it is. Only way to make it stop is to close the app. Sometimes that doesn't even make it stop and I have to restart the phone. Today it has started launching the app randomly without me asking for it. Music is playing when I took that screenshot.

[Eni]

Hey @Thestigmach1, 

Thanks for the clarification. 

First up, it's well worth running a clean reinstall to get rid of any cached files that might be causing trouble. This one is more thorough than the usual one. Also, we suggest that you reinstall the app on your smartwatch to ensure it has the latest version installed. 

Additionally, it's a good idea to exclude the app from any Battery optimization software that might be active on your smartphone.

If after following those steps you're still having this issue, could you let us know if you're using an SD card? 

Lastly, we'd like to know if this started happening after a specific event such as an update either of Spotify or the OS of your phone.

Keep us posted on how it goes.

[Thestigmach1]

I have uninstalled and reinstalled the app on both watch and phone twice before coming here. I moved it to never sleeping apps in battery settings will report back with any changes. It seemed to be after an app update, it then went away after the app updated several times in a week, now is back with this current version.

[Thestigmach1]

I have noticed that if my watch is not connected to my phone it seems to be OK. As in the app will not respond, I turn off Bluetooth, and the app immediately responds.

[Vasil]

Hey @Thestigmach1,

this is why we wanted to clear things up in our initial post and get a better understanding where the issue appears.

If the app behaves as expected when it's running standalone on your phone without any other devices connected to it, then most likely whenever you connect a bluetooth device (such as your watch) something must go wrong in terms how the two communicate with each other, especially concerning audio playback.

It would be best if you can manage to correlate any issues you experience with devices connected. Depending how the Android ROM of your phone is configured, routines can run in the background that initialize an audio playback app, which in most cases would default to Spotify. This can cause compatibility issues.

[Thestigmach1]

I didn't know this was happening in the first post, which is why I didn't mention it. I have even factory reset the phone and watch trying to fix this. Are saying there's something factory that would cause this? What should I look for?

[Vasil]

Well, a first step would be to really confirm if whenever your watch isn't connected the app behaves as expected and issues only arise when you connect the watch.

It could be that when your watch is connected, it takes over audio playback control. You could see if your watch has the option to pause, skip, etc and if that works.

[Thestigmach1]

When the app is acting up it doesn't work on the watch either. I haven't used my watch for the past few days and have had no problems. Will be using the watch for the remainder of the week so will report back with what I find.