Can’t turn it off

[IppMilo]

I can’t turn off Spotify on my phone. It just keeps playing and playing. Even if you hit pause. The app never closes and there is always a song open. And it will randomly start playing.

This happens when I use my phone with wired earphones. Apple no longer makes regular earphones. They only make blue tooth enabled ones. So I have no choice but use them.

But I shouldn’t be forced to listen to Spotify when I am trying to do something else. I tried everything. Other than just deleting the app altogether, what can I do to turn it off?

Plan

Free/Premium

Country

Device

(iPhone 8, Samsung Galaxy 9, Macbook Pro late 2016)

Operating System

(iOS 10, Android Oreo, Windows 10,etc.)

My Question or Issue

[Alex · Accepted solution]

Hi there @IppMilo,

Thanks for reaching out about this in the Community.

The best thing to do in this case is:

•  Force quit the app every time you stop listening to music on your phone. This way it won't start automatically the next time you connect your headphones.
• Turn Off Hand off and Siri Suggestion - iPhone has a feature called proactivity that can automatically remembers apps that you commonly use as specific time or specific behaviors. This means that recently you plugged in your iPhone to play music with Apple Music, which recorded this behavior on the iPhone. How to turn it off?

1. Disable the Handoff feature on iPhone, go to iPhone Settings -> General -> AirPlay & Handoff -> Switch off Handoff

2. Disable the Siri Suggestion feature on iPhone, go to iPhone Settings -> Siri & Search -> Switch off Suggestions in Search, Suggestions in Look Up, Suggestions on Lock Screen

• Run a clean reinstall of the Spotify app following this Guide.

Note that this issue is related primarily to the way the headphones interact with the phone and not so much with your music app, as this is happening with Apple Music as well.

Let us know if that helped.

[IppMilo]

Thanks for walking me though this step by step. Let’s hope it works!

[IppMilo]

Part of the problem is Spotify won’t  force quit. It appears to force quit. It disappears from the screen. But it will turn itself on randomly anyway. 

Also, there seems to be no way to close the last song played. It stays there on pause ready to go.

I’m trying to work on GarageBand but barely a minute goes by and Spotify comes on again. That causes GarageBand to freeze.

Oops, there it goes again. Spotify just came on again!

[IppMilo]

I even disabled Wi-Fi and Bluetooth and Spotify is still turning itself on. How is that even possible!

[IppMilo]

It also says only downloaded songs will play when offline. I have zero downloaded songs. I pressed clear downloads to be double sure. But it still turns itself on.

This is making less and less sense.

[Yordan]

Hi @IppMilo!

Could you share a short screen recording which shows the app's behavior in action? That way we can get a clear understanding of what's happening on your end.

Cheers!

[IppMilo]

There is nothing visible on my phone screen related to Spotify. It is just the music playing in the background. However, I’ve found an imperfect solution. I’ve logged out of my Spotify account. This is inconvenient to my family members cause now they can’t use it either.

The problem somehow stems from Apple forcing iPhone owners to use only Bluetooth enabled earphones. Spotify contributes to it by forcing users to keep a song cued up on pause.

I thank you for your attention to my problem.

[Jeremy]

Hi @IppMilo,

Thank you for your reply and confirmation.

Can you explain what you mean with "This is inconvenient to my family members cause now they can’t use it either"? Are you using the same account as your family members? If so, this can be the issue since every family member should have their own account. You can read more about it here. if someone is playing  Spotify on a different device with the same account and then the user connects their BT headphones, playback can switch to the other device.

In this case we recommend that you:

• Log out everywhere
• Remove and 3rd party apps
• Clean reinstall

Let us know how it goes so that we can continue to assist you if you need us to 🙂

Take care!

[IppMilo]

The music coming on is always the last song I listened to on my phone. My wife and daughter use my account but I’ve never heard their music come though my phone.

The inconvenience is having to log on and off every time I use Spotify to avoid the problem. But it’s better than the alternative of not being able to use my phone for other things.

If I reinstall will I lose my playlists?

[Eni]

Hey there @IppMilo, 

Thanks for getting back to us.

No worries, if you reinstall the app you won't lose your playlists. You'll only have to re-download your content.

On another note, could you let us know if this happens with a different mobile device too?  

Also, we'd like to know if this happens when you use the speakers instead of the headphones. 

Keep us posted.