Stop Windows from Muting Spotify when screen turns off

[Eds89]

Hi,

Does anyone know if it's possible to stop Windows from muting third party apps, such as Spotify, when your screen goes to sleep?

My XPS 13 can play spotify back without issue from the desktop app, and after 2 minutes on battery, my screen turns off and mutes the audio. If I move my mouse to turn the screen back on, I can hear it again, and it has continued playing in the background, so it's definitely only muting the audio not stopping playback.

Cheers

Eds

[Eds89]

Have done some reading and it sounds like this is because my new XPS 13 9360 supports connected standby.

Great idea in theory, terrible in practce.

I hate store apps, and it just breaks my desktop apps for streaming audio!

Is Spotify likely to make their desktop app compatible with this?

[Sebasty]

Hi @Eds89!

This is a pretty odd thing which I haven't encountered, but some have.
It might have to do with power saving settings. I am on High Performance plan.
Search for Power Options, and when you find them, there's one link to open the more advanced options. I as example have set "turn off hard disc after" to 32 minutes and also disabled the USB selective suspend.
I guess High Performance plan might be worth a try, for it favors performance, allowing devices and everything run at their optimal/highest speed. It will, of course, drain the battery a little more.

Other methods I've seen people use is allowing dimming the screen to an absolute minimum with never allowing the screen to go off.

Let me know how it goes!

[Eds89 · Accepted solution]

Ok it's definitely due to connected standby in Windows 10, also know as Modern Standby.

I put in a registry hack to disable this feature (Sleep state S0), and now it works as expected.

When S0 is enabled, there is no access to other sleep states or "high performance"/"Battery saver" power plans, only balanced and custom plans.

In this scenario, you can change very little on the plan. You cannot use other states like sleep, or hibernate.

Once S0 is disable, all of thos features return, and when the screen turns off, audio continues as normal.

Why Windows goes into connected standby when the screen turns off, I do not know, but it is very frustrating.

Is there some way to open a ase with Spotify directly to see if they are planning to support modern standby, or if they plan on releasing a store app that works correctly with this?

[Sebasty]

It seems to be a very new feature as well, intended for "modern applications only that are registered can send a limited amount of network traffic at a scheduled interval."

You should post an issue to the Ongoing Issues board (under Help) about this. Seems that Spotify is not used to that kind of feature.

[Eds89]

Well connected standby has been around since Windows 8, and has undergone some changes in Windows 10, which itself has been around for a couple of years.

I will post there, in case it is something they can fix in the app, as it would be good to have the best of both worlds!

Cheers

Eds

[tomek2000]

I'm also having this issue with a new XPS 9360.

Even the new Windows Store Spotify app exhibits the same behaviour.

Can you please do something about this so that I can listen to Spotify without worrying that my screen will shut off and the music will pause after 3 minutes.  My current work-around is to use Edge to play Spotify.

[AndreTehGiant]

Hey guys. This is not something that should be solved with a registry hack. Connected standby (modern standby) is a *feature* that enables your device to play music while using minimal power. By disabling it you revert to 1999's means of listening to music.

This feature is already integrated in microsofts own music player groove. You can "turn off" your device while continuing to listen to music and the battery consumption is almost zero. Much like you would turn off you phone. Imagine the music stops playing anytime you put you phone back into your pocket.

This is a feature that is really missing from spotify and for a paid service, that is pretty disappointing. Thus, I suggest you comment in this thread https://community.spotify.com/t5/Live-Ideas/Desktop-Music-playback-in-Modern-Standby/idi-p/1728692 and also leave an appropriate review in the microsoft store which makes the developers realize the impartance of this feature when it comes to customer satisfaction.

Again: the hack defeats the purpose of connected / modern standby and makes the devices unusable for other every-day tasks, since now, everytime you close the screen, your device stays on or you have to jump from hibernation back to normal when you are moving from meeting to meeting or when you quickly want to check something. A tablet is not a desktop!

[AndreTehGiant]

BTW the solution is not a solution, but merely a workaround that effectively renders your ultra-book or tablet more or less useless for the intended purpose (moving quickly form taks to task and carrying it a round on battery all day to sporadically take notes, read and look something up, see my comment below). Spotify needs to fix this. Thanks for the workaround though 🙂

[crabby0910]

Turn the power saving screen and sleep to 1 mins and 5 mins. minimize the spotify app and wait after 1 mins for screen to sleep...then spotify will continue to play while screen is off... using windows 10 home and lenovo yoga 520 here!

[meahtenoha]

Just wanted to be sure this thread was aware of our update in this idea at the end of last year:

https://community.spotify.com/t5/Closed-Ideas/Desktop-Prevent-Windows-from-sleeping-when-Spotify-Pre...

We’ve been exploring many ways of enabling customers to play music while the screen is off. Most of the solutions we had explored involved preventing Windows from being able to turn the screen off, which would result in a much higher degree of battery use—something that we don't want to do.

The good news is that a fix for this is in the Windows 10 Fall Creators Update. With this update playback on Spotify can continue while the screen is off to conserve your battery power. While you might not have this update yet, you can update Windows manually by going here: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/4028685/windows-10-get-the-fall-creators-update. The music will, however, stop when your computer goes to sleep. You can control the sleep settings in the Power & sleep settings. 

Please know our Desktop teams take your feedback very seriously and they’re excited to help fix this issue for you all. Thanks for continuing to bring us your Spotify Ideas.