Spotify turns itself on in very different situations - Samsung Galaxy S20 / S21

[Luki27]

Plan

Premium

Country

Poland

Device

Samsung Galaxy S20/S21

Operating System

Android 10/11

My Question or Issue

For some time now, spotify has been turning on by itself on the Samusng galaxy s20 and later also in the s21 (I switched to s21 - I made a copy of the phone). It happens very accidentally when running various applications. The music starts playing immediately after it is turned on. It often happens spontaneously at night at 4.30 :(. I don't know what to do. Did anyone have a similar problem? Of course, I installed the application from scratch, deleted all settings, etc. Continue without changes.

[anzaah]

I woke up today before alarm clock. Turned today's alarm off. And boom -- spotify started to play loudly !

To be more precise it continued to play song that I was listening yesterday, this is allways the case for me.

[anzaah]

About two days ago my S21 offered new update. Didn't install it right away:

- First cleared Spotify cache then uninstalled Spotify

- Then allowed system update to proceed

- After succesfull update I installed Spotify

I have tried my best to repeat this original Spotify "miss lauch" but now two days without problems!

Can't say if this is a solution yet. I'll let You know if the problem comes back.

[anzaah]

Problem came back... Search applications and typing launched music

[Gryshu]

Same problem here. 

Starts on samsung s10+.

Few day ago bought new s22ultra.

I transferred all data from s10+ and on new phone problem remains. Randomly starts playing after lunching bank app game etc.

I've been searching a lot and no one seem have any solution.

[anzaah]

Unfortunately this problem was not solved and today I cancelled my Family Premium subscription.

Feeling actually bit sad I switched to Tidal.

[CarlosE]

Hi everybody,

Thanks for your replies.

In this case, we recommend that you check if you have the Samsung Device Care app installed (Settings > Device Care). If so, adjust the settings in order to exclude Spotify from any optimization. Since the Device Care app optimizes the device's performance by managing tasks and clearing cache and info, its functions may generate conflicts with Spotify.

Also, we suggest that you go to the Spotify settings and toggle off the option "Connect in background". Once you do that, restart your device and tell us if this works.

We'll be here standing by. 

[Soulsearcher]

I replaced my Samsung alarm clock with a Google one. Only a brief experience, but would seem to have helped the problem.

[Alex]

Hey @Soulsearcher,

Thanks for sharing what worked for you in the Community!

Other users will find this helpful. 

Cheers.

[Ilsu]

Same here with Samsung Ultra s22. When looking for an app, spotify starts automatically every time.

[Yordan · Accepted solution]

Hi everyone,

Thanks for your inputs so far!

Our teams have continued to investigate this and found out that this can be triggered by other 3rd party apps that try to initialize music playback - one example is the fitness app "Polar Flow", which has special notification access, allowing it to launch Spotify automatically.

Could you please search your phone's settings for "Notification access" (it should be under Apps > Special access > Notification access) and disable the notification permissions for Polar Flow or any other app you might assume would want audio playback control and please report back the results to us, including any other apps you've found were causing this.

Thanks again. We'll be on the lookout for your replies.

Cheers!

[_0nlzoatn-i2y]

I've been having the same problem, and I'm also using Polar Flow. I revoked it's 'notification access' as suggested above, which does indeed seem to have fixed the problem. I'll update if it comes back

[Soulsearcher]

Hey. I also have Polar Flow running, but I haven’t tried Yordan’s suggestion yet. Searching the program menu also launches Spotify, at least sometimes. Similarly, restarting the phone. Thanks to the moderators, this discussion is now clearly going in the right direction.

Edit. now I did try this:

"search your phone's settings for "Notification access" (it should be under Apps > Special access > Notification access) and disable the notification permissions for Polar Flow audio playback control"

Seems to work.

[DalhousieGuy]

Well, Yordan,

I'd love to say THANKS and mark your post as THE SOLUTION....but, sadly:

1. Your post is not dated. (Friday? What year and month?)

2. Spotify's code is so feeble that it lets OTHER apps control it?

3. Your post names ONE possible offending app (I've never heard of, much less own) and you expect me to go on a wild goose chase TESTING (which Spotify's personnel should have done/BE DOING) to find out A) how to fix their lame code or B) publish an inclusive list of EVERY APP ON THE PLANET that might be doing this.
Sorry, Bud. For NOW, Spotify stays banished from my phone!

[Soulsearcher]

I agree with the previous author. We are at the source of the solution, but it is unresolved whose code is wrong. Polar Flow only launched Spotify, not other players. I hope you will go through this case between Spotify and Polar.

[Alex]

Hi folks,

Thanks for your replies.

@_0nlzoatn-i2y and @Soulsearcher, glad to hear that what @Yordan has suggested helped out.

@DalhousieGuy, thanks for your feedback on this. I'll do my best to answer your questions. 

1. The post date - If it says only 'Friday' it means it was posted Friday this week. In a few weeks the post date will automatically switch to the standard date format YYYY-MM-DD. 

2 and 3 - There are multiple apps which interact with each other, the phone's OS or system apps. As a music player app, Spotify can be used to play music from other apps like fitness apps/ alarms/ calendars etc. As there are countless new apps coming out every day that can use and integrate the Spotify API, we can't say for sure which app will gain control over Spotify or other apps/ settings on your device. This is why @Yordan has suggested the manual management of permissions, notifications and access.

Hope this makes sense. Let us know if the issue returns or you have more questions.

[Stusi85]

I had the exact same issue with the Polar Flow and my Google Pixel 5. The Polar Flow App has two backround services, one to forward notification to the Polar watches and another one for music control. As soon as I removed the permissions for the music control service all problems were gone.

For Google Pixel 5 with Android 12 and likely all other Pixel Phones you have to 

1. Device settings

2. Notifications

3. Device & app notifications

4. Here you should find the two Polar services. Both are named "Polar Flow" but with different icons. Deactivate the one with the speaker icon and all problems should be solved.

[Vurch]

Turning off polar flow notifications worked for me as well. HOWEVER, it seems it doesn't matter which one of the two polar flow notifications you disable. In my case disabling either one will do the trick, as long as both of them aren't enabled the same time.

[V1nny]

Thanks! This has actually worked. My polar watch added music controls in the Xmas update. Just followed this solution and turned off polar access (I never use the watch for music controls anyway) restarted my phone and it didn't start playing Spotify for the first time in months. Now let's hope it stops the random 2-3am starts too! 

[Soulsearcher]

Is it enough to just block music control in Polar settings, either in the clock or in Flow? I did both, but someone could try Polar settings before Android settings.

[Stusi85]

I had music control and notification in Polar Flow deactivated by default but this didn't prevent Spotify from starting. Only when I revoked the permission for the music control within the Android settings Spotify behaved as expected.