Spotify hijacks bluetooth headphone commands intended for another app.

[themountinman]

Plan: Premium

Country: US

Device: Moto Z

Operating System: Android 8.0

My Question or Issue

I'm new to Spotify premium, and have found that it downloads huge amounts of data, and I can't use the internet at work. So, until I can download my Spotify library, I've been using the PI music player with my own music. The problem is everytime I hit pause, next, or previous on my bluetooth headphones, the Spotify app launches. I had to uninstall Spotify before PI would receive the commands.

Is there anyway to stop the Spotify app from intercepting those commands when the app isn't running? Not a big fan of bully apps.

[xoholo]

Hello mountinman,

Thanks for reaching out to the community!

You should try force stopping Spotify

Settings > Apps > Spotify > Force stop

Let me know if it worked!

🙂

[themountinman]

I did, repeatedly. After, pressing pause on my headphones would immediately
restart Spotify, resuming play of the last song it was playing. The music
app I was listening to was still running, but the music was not getting to
the headphones.

I theorize that the Spotify app sets some configuration flag that causes
the 'pause', 'next', and 'back' bluetooth commands to launch Spotify. To
get rid of the behavior, you have to remove the app. I could be way off
base, and I'm hoping someone here can provide the answer. If not, I'd
rather buy the music and own it than be limited to Spotify as my only
practical music source. This is the same kind of **bleep** that makes me avoid
Apple.