Android MediaSessionCompat onMediaButtonEvent not working

Question

I want to be able to detect when the pause button is pressed on my headseat (When no media is played)

I have tried all sorts of receivers and services, but nothing worked. Untill I tested this code I got after removing all the bloat from an very old example.

import android.content.ComponentName
import android.content.Intent
import android.os.Bundle
import android.support.v4.media.session.MediaSessionCompat
import androidx.appcompat.app.AppCompatActivity
import androidx.media.session.MediaButtonReceiver


class MainActivity : AppCompatActivity() {
    private lateinit var mMediaSessionCompat: MediaSessionCompat
    private val mMediaSessionCallback: MediaSessionCompat.Callback = object : MediaSessionCompat.Callback() {
        override fun onMediaButtonEvent(mediaButtonEvent: Intent): Boolean {
            println("WORKS!!!")
            return super.onMediaButtonEvent(mediaButtonEvent)
        }
    }

    private fun initMediaSession() {
        val mediaButtonReceiver = ComponentName(applicationContext, MediaButtonReceiver::class.java)
        mMediaSessionCompat = MediaSessionCompat(applicationContext, "Tag", mediaButtonReceiver, null)
        mMediaSessionCompat.setCallback(mMediaSessionCallback)
        mMediaSessionCompat.setFlags(MediaSessionCompat.FLAG_HANDLES_MEDIA_BUTTONS or MediaSessionCompat.FLAG_HANDLES_TRANSPORT_CONTROLS)
        mMediaSessionCompat.isActive = true
    }

    override fun onCreate(savedInstanceState: Bundle?) {
        super.onCreate(savedInstanceState)
        initMediaSession()
        setContentView(R.layout.activity_main)
    }

    override fun onDestroy() {
        super.onDestroy()
        mMediaSessionCompat.release()
    }
}

This code worked for some time, but did not work in other projects for some reason and after rebooting this code no longer works. I have no reason why it stopped working, but I have tried to get this working for serveral hours and I dont understand why it wont work. Can someone just give me a minimum reproducible example that works or point out what I am missing.

Media button presses are delivered to "last app that played audio" (unless consumed by foreground activity). You might need to play any (even dummy) sound just to register for audio focus, see https://stackoverflow.com/questions/45960265/android-o-oreo-8-and-higher-media-buttons-issue — Pawel, Jun 01 '21 at 21:09
@Pawel Android makes my cry sometimes. Do you know if TTS counts, or if you can make it count? — Blue, Jun 01 '21 at 21:13
Sorry I don't. But if your goal is to run this in activity (so when user has your app open) you can always override `onKeyUp`, filter out media buttons and deliver them directly to your media session. — Pawel, Jun 01 '21 at 21:22

score 2 · Accepted Answer · answered Jun 01 '21 at 21:22

I solved this by simply playing a dummy sound

private fun playDummySound() {
    val mMediaPlayer: MediaPlayer = MediaPlayer.create(this, R.raw.dummy_sound_500ms)
    mMediaPlayer.setOnCompletionListener { mMediaPlayer.release() }
    mMediaPlayer.start()
}

taken from https://github.com/anars/blank-audio

Issue was solved by the solution in Android "O" (Oreo, 8) and higher media buttons issue

Android MediaSessionCompat onMediaButtonEvent not working

1 Answers1