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

Locked Question. This question was migrated from the Microsoft Support Community. You can vote on whether it's helpful, but you can't add comments or replies or follow the question.

0 comments No comments

57 answers

Sort by: Most helpful
  1. Anonymous
    2023-11-16T00:14:09+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

    may God bless your soul, it actually worked <3

    Was this answer helpful?

    3 people found this answer helpful.
    0 comments No comments
  2. Anonymous
    2023-01-31T23:52:48+00:00

    Same issue for me. When Teams is running, play/pause either will not work or will cause Teams to ring like I am calling someone. Quit Teams and play/pause goes back to normal.

    Was this answer helpful?

    3 people found this answer helpful.
    0 comments No comments
  3. Anonymous
    2022-11-09T10:54:12+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.

    Exactly same for me

    Was this answer helpful?

    3 people found this answer helpful.
    0 comments No comments
  4. Anonymous
    2022-11-02T11:13:13+00:00

    Hi Leonardo

    Thank you

    With your shared link, I got to know it was because MS Teams' play/pause button did not work. I closed it from the task manager processor as well, and now it started working.

    Was this answer helpful?

    3 people found this answer helpful.
    0 comments No comments
  5. Anonymous
    2022-11-01T08:03:13+00:00

    This fixed it for me also!

    Have a Logitech MX keyboard.

    Was this answer helpful?

    3 people found this answer helpful.
    0 comments No comments