Spotify keyboard controls not working

Question

I am on Ubuntu 16.04, I cannot play, pause, go to the next or the previous song in spotify. There are many answers but most are complicated, is there a simple solution that doesn't require a command line?

I have a Logitech bluetooth keyboard.

All I had to do is Close Google Chrome or any browser that had Youtube or any media playing, for my buttons to work with Spotify, then re-open browser — nicmwenda, Mar 04 '20 at 06:00
@digitalextremist Ok I accepted his answer to push it to the top, but I haven't tested it since the answer was posted 2 years after I asked the question. — Lynob, Apr 17 '23 at 10:26
@Lynob very cool of you to do. I actually just provisioned a new workstation and came right back to this to use the advice again :) Nice of you to keep updating this excellent question you asked. — digitalextremist, Apr 18 '23 at 00:06

IvanAK · Answer 1 · 2019-06-20T09:33:21.743

82

Here is another link i have found that help me and its the same solutions as k2shah mention it, but with more details.

Instead of downloading the spotify_control, you use the D-Bus commands. Before you add it as a new keyboard command, feel free to execute those commands.

Play/Stop

dbus-send --print-reply --dest=org.mpris.MediaPlayer2.spotify /org/mpris/MediaPlayer2 org.mpris.MediaPlayer2.Player.PlayPause

dbus-send --print-reply --dest=org.mpris.MediaPlayer2.spotify /org/mpris/MediaPlayer2 org.mpris.MediaPlayer2.Player.Next

dbus-send --print-reply --dest=org.mpris.MediaPlayer2.spotify /org/mpris/MediaPlayer2 org.mpris.MediaPlayer2.Player.Previous

Once you validate the above commands, feel free to add them as Key Shortcut. For Ubuntu, "Settings > Devices > Keyboard" than add (+) and put the name and copy the commands, than put the keyboard shortcut.

TheLink

edited Jun 20 '19 at 09:33

answered Jun 20 '19 at 09:04

IvanAK

951

1

for next/prev worked like a charm, but for play/pause the audio play/pause key shortcut it doesn't work. If I remap it to 'super + ;' or other modifier + non-func key works. Any idea as to why? – Lucas Vasconcellos Czepaniki Sep 13 '19 at 05:24
Check if that map is already taken for something else. – IvanAK Sep 13 '19 at 11:06
3

Worked like a charm! – JavaRunner Jul 15 '20 at 19:14
On ubuntu 20.04 I was unable to set custom shortcuts to those keys since they were already used by other keyboard shortcuts (upon prompt for pressing keyboard combination nothing was happening when I was pressing Play/Stop button, not even the info line). I had to manually unset them using gsettings set command and then I was able to set it up. You can find the ones to unset in gsettings list-recursively (grep the result). – User5468622 Jul 12 '21 at 10:10
On Ubuntu 22 I don't find the + to add custom shortcuts. – ThCollignon Mar 19 '23 at 07:05

Lynob · Answer 2 · 2019-01-01T16:49:31.750

There is a simple solution credit goes to this thread on Spotify forum, Thanks to schuellerf and rszabla. The solution is pretty simple and works on any Linux distribution.

Download this file, extract it and make it executable chmod a+x spotify_control
Place it anywhere you want, I'll assume that it is placed in Downloads folder
Go to settings -> keyboard -> keyboard shortcuts -> custom shortcuts

Add new shortcut by clicking the plus button, I'll override the default play/pause/next and previous keys because I only listen to music on spotify, If you need those shortcuts then assign different ones for Spotify

The command you see in the picture above is for 'play/pause' function

/home/your_username/Downloads/spotify_control playpause

The commands that are available

/home/your_username/Downloads/spotify_control playpause
/home/your_username/Downloads/spotify_control previous
/home/your_username/Downloads/spotify_control next
/home/your_username/Downloads/spotify_control play
/home/your_username/Downloads/spotify_control stop

Please note that you have to do this

/home/your_username/Downloads/spotify_control playpause

Because

~/Downloads/spotify_control playpause

That won't work, at least not in Ubuntu 16.04, unity desktop, the shortcut manager doesn't seem to understand the tilde ~

this worked for me, thx! quick info of my system: ubuntu 16.04 and using an apple (wired)keyboard — mithril_knight, Jan 04 '19 at 18:02
Its work on Fedora 34, but just play/pause command not worked for me? If any have a solution for me please tell me. — Saeed Darvish, Jan 08 '22 at 09:12
I found the solution, This keyboard shortcut set to for two command — Saeed Darvish, Jan 08 '22 at 09:23

score 21 · Accepted Answer · edited May 29 '22 at 01:40

21

The top-voted solutions are about adding a custom key mapping, which is kinda cumbersome, as you have to drop every other binding related to the Play/Pause key.
There's only one binding possible for a key so it means that your Play/Pause key stops working anywhere outside Spotify.

Initially, I wanted to do that, but Ubuntu settings didn't let me create a binding so the key was used/captured by something else on my system. It turned out that Chrome captures hardware media keys by default :)
You can disable this functionality by opening
chrome://flags/
and then disabling
Hardware Media Key Handling feature.

After doing so, your Play/Stop key along with Next and Previous keys are handled by Ubuntu itself again.
It fixed the issue for me. Now Spotify is the one to capture these keys.

This also happens on Firefox, you can access the option in:
about:config
Then, change
media.hardwaremediakeys.enabled to false

edited May 29 '22 at 01:40

Guilherme Orioli

3

answered Jul 09 '20 at 21:47

anadoba

326

3

Worked like a charm! Thanks! – Mark D Oct 08 '20 at 16:35
2

This is it! The media keys are working but captured by chrome even if there is no player/youtube on it – wranvaud Nov 24 '20 at 21:20
2

This solution works for all chromium browsers, including Brave. Thanks! – ekl1pse Jul 08 '21 at 16:15
It also worked for me! Thanks – Patrick Barattin Sep 02 '21 at 12:33
This worked for me. – Terry Oct 19 '21 at 07:20
1

It works, thanks ! Too bad we have to choose between Spotify and Chrome... – adxl Mar 16 '22 at 15:28
WHAT. A. NINJA. I have been looking for the easy solution to this forever. THANK YOU. Do not care to have Brave / Chrome media controls at all, so glad to pull that support. BAM. – digitalextremist Apr 17 '23 at 00:07
Accepting this answer as everyone on this thread seems to agree that this is the best answer. I haven't tried it personally, as this answer was posted 2 years after I asked the question. – Lynob Apr 17 '23 at 10:25

score 7 · Answer 4 · answered Nov 25 '19 at 08:06

7

All i had to do in Fedora is sudo dnf install playerctl

Anyway, it works in Ubuntu, no idea why such a basic functionality is missing here.

answered Nov 25 '19 at 08:06

Aiphee

938

score 6 · Answer 5 · answered Jun 12 '20 at 19:43

6

Considering the Aiphee Answer on ubuntu or Debian this works!

sudo apt install playerctl

Package info: utility to control media players via MPRIS https://packages.debian.org/buster/playerctl

answered Jun 12 '20 at 19:43

Victor Espinoza

161
1
1

1

Now you can add custom shortcut like playerctl play and first available player will play. I tested youtube + spotify. – Adrug Jan 05 '22 at 14:06
Doesn't work for me. After install I did playerctld daemon then the command playerctl -l returnd spotify. I've started Spotify, played a song, and tried Ctrl-Right Arrow to get next song, it didn't work. Am I missing smth ? – ThCollignon Mar 19 '23 at 06:54

score 4 · Answer 6 · answered Jun 10 '19 at 17:36

If you don't want to download a file and keep it around (for whatever reason) you can just assign the key to the command that's run in the file

I set up a new custom keybind

Name: Spotify Play/Pause

Command:

dbus-send --print-reply --dest=org.mpris.MediaPlayer2.spotify /org/mpris/MediaPlayer2 org.mpris.MediaPlayer2.Player.PlayPause

for the other commands just replace the PlayPause with Stop, Next, or Previous

score 0 · Answer 7 · answered Nov 22 '20 at 10:39

You can call the D-Bus command directly.

Open System settings
Go to Shortcuts -> Custom Shortcuts
Select Edit -> New -> Global Shortcuts -> D-Bus Command ( the button is at bottom )
Set name : Spotify-Next
Bookmark Trigger: set shortcut by Your choice
Bookmark Action:
- Remote application: org.mpris.MediaPlayer2.spotify
- Remote object: /org/mpris/MediaPlayer2
- Remote object: org.mpris.MediaPlayer2.Player.Next

For Previous use org.mpris.MediaPlayer2.Player.Previous

For Play/Pause uset org.mpris.MediaPlayer2.Player.PlayPause

You can test it with Call button More is

here

Thanks to IvanAK .

Spotify keyboard controls not working

7 Answers7

Linked