Music stops playing on MS Surface when screen turns off.

Anonymous
2012-12-20T21:34:16+00:00

I have a Microsoft Surface. I have my mp3's in my default Music folder. When I play an album, a song will play but it will not play the next song if the screen has turned off. I always need to hit the power button again to turn the screen back on in order to play the next song. This makes this device useless as a music player as I have to turn it back on every few minutes. Often the song will start skipping as well when the screen turns off. This is for the Music app but also any other music playing apps I've tried such as Music Info. And please don't tell me this is by design. It is not by design. It's a bug. It would be nice to know when this will be resolved. Playing an MP3 is a basic function that should just work out of the box. It really can't be that hard. If a $30 mp3 player can do it I sure expect my $700 tablet to.

Windows for home | Other | Music, photos, and video

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  1. Anonymous
    2013-09-25T21:36:31+00:00

    Tried the above option. It didn't work when I tried it with Pandora. I just set the screen to dim to 0% when sitting for more than a minute. That can be accomplished in the advanced settings of the power mode.

    In desktop mode:

    • Right click on Power Icon in the lower right corner Tray.
    • Select "More Power Options"
    • Click "Change Plan Settings" next to the only plan offered.
    • Click "Change Advanced Power Settings"
    • Expand "Display" option.
    • Expand "Dimmed Display Brightness"
    • Set to 0% for both.

    I really think Msft would just have to add the option to "Turn Off the Display" just like it exists on a computer.

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  2. Anonymous
    2013-08-08T15:11:41+00:00

    What worked for me is:

    • Search: Sound: Settings
    • Go to the desktop Sound app.
    • Click on the device, properties
    • Advanced tab
    • -unclick "allow applications to take exclusive control of this device"-
    • You will have to to this for all your devices as they are on

    This also prevents windows 8 from lowering sound when you open up another app (e.g. Skype), so may be slightly annoying in some instances, but at least music continues as screen goes black after 2 min!

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  3. Anonymous
    2013-06-23T13:52:43+00:00

    I am seeing this with various Windows 8 devices (I have a Surface Pro, a Dell PC and HP Laptop) with all the music apps I have used - the Win8 Music app, Zune, Pandora, I-Heart-Radio, etc. Screen goes to sleep, music stops. Screen wakes up, music resumes. I tried setting the PC to never sleep, so it only the screen that is sleeping.

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  4. Anonymous
    2013-02-25T09:03:30+00:00

    I have the Surface Pro with iTunes installed and I don't have this problem.  With iTunes, the music will continue to play after the screen times out.  This happens whether or not the keyboard is attached.  If I have the keyboard attached, I can flip it back away from the screen and I can still listen to music when the screen times out.  This works great when on a plane.

    The only time the music stops is if I flip the keyboard over the screen which then puts the Pro to sleep as designed. 

    I haven't tried with music in the Music folder.  I will test this soon.

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  5. Anonymous
    2013-02-25T04:01:47+00:00

    As a more effective work around I can recommend using Start-P to switch to second screen only if you have a keyboard attached. Start-P again will restore the display.

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