Play/Pause and stop media keys not working

Anonymous
2022-01-24T02:02:23+00:00

Hi everyone,

So I've got a weird problem, and I haven't found anyone else with the same issue.

For some reason the play/pause and stop media keys on my keyboard (K55) aren't working. If I test it on keyboardchecker.com it says MediaPlayPause and MediaStop, so the keys itself do work. I've tried it with both Spotify and VLC, and it they not do anything. Other keys like previous track, next track and volume controls work fine. It's just the play/pause and stop keys that don't work. Nothing happens.

Anybody got any clue as to what's going wrong here?

Windows for home | Windows 10 | Input and language

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  1. Anonymous
    2022-02-04T12:46:47+00:00

    Unfortunately, I'm out of ideas and I'm very sorry Martijn. Maybe somebody in the community has better suggestions for you.

    I have been experiencing the same issue and found this other thread: https://linustechtips.com/topic/1405036-keyboard-playpause-key-only-works-when-win-key-also-pressed/

    This happens to me exactly: if I press the play/payse button together with the Windows Key, it works.

    Unfortunately, the thread doesn't yet have any solutions.

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  2. Paulo GM 72,640 Reputation points Independent Advisor
    2022-01-24T02:55:06+00:00

    Hi Martijn, I am Paulo and I'd like to help.

    If you have a browser open, maybe it is hijacking the media keys that's why it doesn't work on Spotify and VLC. Try to close them and see if it works.

    If not, try to set it to disable on your browsers and see if it would make a difference.

    Enter this if you have Chrome:

    chrome://flags/#hardware-media-key-handling

    If you have Edge:

    edge://flags/#hardware-media-key-handling

    If still not working, try the following

    Close all apps before performing the below steps.

    • Press the Windows key + R, type Services.msc and hit Enter.
    • Then, locate for Human Interface Device Service from the list and look for the status of this service whether the service is started or stopped.
    • If the service is stopped, then click on the Human Interface Device Service and click on Start.
    • If the service is already started, then click on Restart to restart the service.
    • Relaunch the Spotify/VLC and see if the media key would work

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  3. Anonymous
    2022-10-14T18:21:53+00:00

    Similarly to others, Win + Play/Pause worked for me. Very strange.

    In my case, MS Teams was the issue. My best guess is it got hooked on a gif or some other element. Restarting Teams fixed it for me.

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  4. Anonymous
    2022-10-18T08:45:56+00:00

    I just discovered (via this thread) that this problem is caused by Teams for me: I had the problem just now; stopping Teams make play/pause work again; and starting Teams again didn't make it come back.

    And I'll see whether the incorrect behavior comes back after receiving an incoming call in Teams.

    (And it is good to know the Win+Play/Pause workaround works.)

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  5. Anonymous
    2022-10-20T09:35:42+00:00

    I get intereference from Microsoft Teams.

    With the answer from "Paulo GM" I managed to isolate the issue. Thank you man. :D

    They have a "call" sound that can be activated sometimes. Very annoying.

    Fixed by restarting Teams.

    I use the LogiG app to put set the buttons, on keyboard and mouse.

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