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Lynob
Asked: 2018-12-30 05:45:42 +0800 CST

Spotify keyboard controls not working

  • 772

I am on Ubuntu 16.04, I cannot play, pause, go to the next or the previous song in spotify. There are many answers but most are complicated, is there a simple solution that doesn't require a command line?

I have a Logitech bluetooth keyboard.

keyboard shortcuts shortcut-keys spotify key-binding

7 Answers

  1. Here is another link i have found that help me and its the same solutions as k2shah mention it, but with more details.

    Instead of downloading the spotify_control, you use the D-Bus commands. Before you add it as a new keyboard command, feel free to execute those commands.

    Play/Stop

    dbus-send --print-reply --dest=org.mpris.MediaPlayer2.spotify /org/mpris/MediaPlayer2 org.mpris.MediaPlayer2.Player.PlayPause

    Next

    dbus-send --print-reply --dest=org.mpris.MediaPlayer2.spotify /org/mpris/MediaPlayer2 org.mpris.MediaPlayer2.Player.Next

    Previous

    dbus-send --print-reply --dest=org.mpris.MediaPlayer2.spotify /org/mpris/MediaPlayer2 org.mpris.MediaPlayer2.Player.Previous

    Once you validate the above commands, feel free to add them as Key Shortcut. For Ubuntu, "Settings > Devices > Keyboard" than add (+) and put the name and copy the commands, than put the keyboard shortcut.

    TheLink

    • 75
  2. Best Answer

    There is a simple solution credit goes to this thread on Spotify forum, Thanks to schuellerf and rszabla. The solution is pretty simple and works on any Linux distribution.

    1. Download this file, extract it and make it executable chmod a+x spotify_control
    2. Place it anywhere you want, I'll assume that it is placed in Downloads folder
    3. Go to settings -> keyboard -> keyboard shortcuts -> custom shortcuts

    enter image description here

    1. Add new shortcut by clicking the plus button, I'll override the default play/pause/next and previous keys because I only listen to music on spotify, If you need those shortcuts then assign different ones for Spotify

    enter image description here

    The command you see in the picture above is for 'play/pause' function

    /home/your_username/Downloads/spotify_control playpause

    The commands that are available

    1. /home/your_username/Downloads/spotify_control playpause
    2. /home/your_username/Downloads/spotify_control previous
    3. /home/your_username/Downloads/spotify_control next
    4. /home/your_username/Downloads/spotify_control play
    5. /home/your_username/Downloads/spotify_control stop

    Please note that you have to do this

    /home/your_username/Downloads/spotify_control playpause

    Because

    ~/Downloads/spotify_control playpause

    That won't work, at least not in Ubuntu 16.04, unity desktop, the shortcut manager doesn't seem to understand the tilde ~

    • 37

  3. The top-voted solutions are about adding a custom key mapping, which is kinda cumbersome, as you have to drop every other binding related to the Play/Pause key.
    There's only one binding possible for a key so it means that your Play/Pause key stops working anywhere outside Spotify.

    Initially, I wanted to do that, but Ubuntu settings didn't let me create a binding so the key was used/captured by something else on my system. It turned out that Chrome captures hardware media keys by default :)
    You can disable this functionality by opening
    chrome://flags/
    and then disabling
    Hardware Media Key Handling feature.

    After doing so, your Play/Stop key along with Next and Previous keys are handled by Ubuntu itself again.
    It fixed the issue for me. Now Spotify is the one to capture these keys.

    This also happens on Firefox, you can access the option in:
    about:config
    Then, change
    media.hardwaremediakeys.enabled to false

    • 17

  4. All i had to do in Fedora is sudo dnf install playerctl

    Anyway, it works in Ubuntu, no idea why such a basic functionality is missing here.

    • 7

  5. Considering the Aiphee Answer on ubuntu or Debian this works!

    sudo apt install playerctl

    Package info: utility to control media players via MPRIS https://packages.debian.org/buster/playerctl

    • 6

  6. If you don't want to download a file and keep it around (for whatever reason) you can just assign the key to the command that's run in the file

    I set up a new custom keybind

    Name: Spotify Play/Pause

    Command: 

    dbus-send --print-reply --dest=org.mpris.MediaPlayer2.spotify /org/mpris/MediaPlayer2 org.mpris.MediaPlayer2.Player.PlayPause

    for the other commands just replace the PlayPause with Stop, Next, or Previous

    • 3

  7. You can call the D-Bus command directly.

    • Open System settings
    • Go to Shortcuts -> Custom Shortcuts
    • Select Edit -> New -> Global Shortcuts -> D-Bus Command ( the button is at bottom )
    • Set name : Spotify-Next
    • Bookmark Trigger: set shortcut by Your choice
    • Bookmark Action:
      • Remote application: org.mpris.MediaPlayer2.spotify
      • Remote object: /org/mpris/MediaPlayer2
      • Remote object: org.mpris.MediaPlayer2.Player.Next

    For Previous use org.mpris.MediaPlayer2.Player.Previous

    For Play/Pause uset org.mpris.MediaPlayer2.Player.PlayPause

    You can test it with Call button More is

    here

    Thanks to IvanAK .

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