Spotify fails to respond to media buttons while out of focus after moderate runtime.

[Penultimatum]

Plan

Premium

Country

USA

Device

PC

Operating System

Windows 10

My Question or Issue

Spotify seems to be having this bug for me where if I press a media button on my keyboard while Spotify is not in focus, it doesn't respond and then something else goes awry such that when I press any media button or try to do anything using Windows Explorer via the keyboard (e.g. press Win key, or alt+tab), it doesn't do anything unless I try again ~5 seconds later. This only started happening today.
This issue does not occur 100% of the time. It seems to occur only after Spotify has been running for a bit (not sure exactly how long).
I haven't tested it with another music source (e.g. YouTube) yet, but I'm guessing it's a Spotify-specific issue because when I closed Spotify and tried to restart it just now, it said "Spotify is not responding" even though I'd full closed it. It ended up having 4 background processes running. I killed 1, then a 2nd one which killed the other 2 remaining ones. Restarting Spotify after that has fixed it for now, but I'm expecting it to do the same thing after some time again.

[Alex]

Hey there @Penultimatum,

Thanks for reaching out about this in the Community!

In this case it's a good idea to run a clean reinstall of the app. This includes clearing all app data and cache. Follow the exact steps from this Spotify Guide.

Since your PC is having issues with the app freezing and closing the app it might also be beneficial to run a general cache clearing app.

Keep us posted on how you get on with this.

Cheers.

[Penultimatum]

Hi Alex,

I wanted to give it a few days before replying as to whether this has worked. Since uninstalling and reinstalling the Spotify Desktop app, I have no longer experience crashing. However, I have noticed that the media buttons still tend to not work when Spotify is out of focus.

A recent example is: using the Play/Pause button on my keyboard does not do anything until I tab back into Spotify and then press the button. If I tab out, the button works for a bit. But I then experienced the same issue again about 10 minutes later. I'm not sure if the "reset" in button behavior is caused by time elapsed, a song switch, or something else possibly specific to the other apps I'm using (at the time, primarily File Explorer, Firefox, and MS Outlook).

[Jeremy]

Hey there @Penultimatum,

Thank you for your reply and confirmation.

Can you let us know which version of the app you have?

It would also be great if you can send us a recording so that we can have a closer look directly from your end.

We'll keep an eye out for your reply.

Cheers!

[jabendroth2]

I'm seeing the exact same issue.  I just reinstalled spotify as suggested in this thread, but the play, pause, and seek buttons on my keyboard no longer work unless spotify was the last window in focus.  They worked great before the last update.  All of the UI changes in the last update really suck.

[CarlosE]

Hey @jabendroth2,

Thanks for posting on this thread.

Just to confirm, did you make sure to follow the exact steps in the guide that @Alex shared above? It's important to follow every step to ensure a clean and full reinstall of the app, making sure all corrupted and cached files that might cause trouble get removed. We also suggest downloading the app again from the Microsoft Store.

If the issue persists, could you let us know which keys you're using?

We'll be on the lookout.

[jabendroth2]

That seems to have worked. I previously reinstalled using the version downloaded from the web and not the windows store. The windows store version doesn't have the issue. Thanks.

[CarlosE]

Hi there @jabendroth2,

Thanks for trying and keeping us posted.

We're glad to know it was sorted out with the Microsoft Store version. That's the best option to run on Windows as it's specifically designed for it.

If you have any questions or need a hand with anything else, we'll be right here.

Have a great week 🙂