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

57 answers

Sort by: Oldest
Most helpful Newest Oldest
  1. Anonymous
    2023-04-10T20:45:08+00:00

    Ok well I find this insane. But if you've gotten this far I assume you read about changing the chrome flag (cuz thats the only solution I could find).

    Eddited the flag, I closed, reopened chrome. Nothing.

    Restarted the computer. Nothing.

    Restarted HID service. Nothing.

    Restarted the keyboard... suddenly play pause worked properly.

    Good luck out there.

    Was this answer helpful?

    1 person found this answer helpful.
    0 comments
  2. Anonymous
    2023-06-17T20:45:58+00:00

    Just throwing in my lot. Tried everything in this thread.

    Same for me - holding Windows and hitting play/pause causes Spotify to pause/play at least. But otherwise only the previous/next track media keys work - it's the same whether it's on my keyboard or my mouse assignments. Even with no other apps open (including in the background).

    Hilariously, when I was on Windows 10, I had the opposite problem - play/pause would work, but not skip. New PC now, on Windows 11, and it's just hilarious that it's the same problem, but inverted.

    Really hope a solution comes down the pipeline. I use media keys *constantly*.

    Was this answer helpful?

    1 person found this answer helpful.
    0 comments
  3. Anonymous
    2023-09-21T22:39:03+00:00

    My fix was closing iTunes.

    Was this answer helpful?

    0 comments
  4. Anonymous
    2023-09-27T16:09:32+00:00

    I just solved this problem for myself again. I've had this problem before, solved it, and forgotten the solution.

    For me it was Spotify which hijacked my media keys. Spotify didn't respond correctly, and I'm using multiple desktops, so I didn't know it was running. Once I opened it, I saw it was responding to media keys (play/pause), and once I exited it, YouTube in Chrome began responding again.

    I'd like to say a big f*** off to Spotify for this behavior, and Microsoft also for just generally being so difficult to troubleshoot after all these decades.

    Maybe get out of the vaccine and GM mosquito business and focus on a better UI/UX for the world's leading OS (and yes, I know that's Billy G and his foundation, not Microsoft technically, but it's all the same damned big business club. Don't get me started on Google/YouTube. "Don't be evil" my ****. Oh, it auto-blanked out a-r-s-e. Wow, how PC).

    Was this answer helpful?

    1 person found this answer helpful.
    0 comments
  5. Anonymous
    2023-10-27T14:43:53+00:00

    I was having trouble with this, and none of the suggestions worked. But I figured out that since my audio control keys are also the function keys, Excel was hijacking them. There is a way to lock that ( I must have accidentally unlocked it). Holding down "fn" and "shift/fn lock" fixed my issue.

    Hope this helps someone else. 😊

    Was this answer helpful?

    1 person found this answer helpful.
    0 comments