Trouble playing a song in Google Music player

Question

Is there any way to start playing a song in Google music player app from my app? I am trying following code, but google music player only opens the search results & does not actually play the song.

    Intent intent = new Intent();
    intent.setAction(MediaStore.INTENT_ACTION_MEDIA_PLAY_FROM_SEARCH);
    intent.putExtra(SearchManager.QUERY, "It's my life");
    intent.setFlags(Intent.FLAG_ACTIVITY_NEW_TASK | Intent.FLAG_ACTIVITY_CLEAR_TOP);
    intent.setPackage("com.google.android.music");
    activity.startActivity(intent);

The documentation for INTENT_ACTION_MEDIA_PLAY_FROM_SEARCH says following - An intent to perform a search for music media and automatically play content from the result when possible.

So, according to documentation, it should be able to play the song. But, it only opens the search results and does not play it. Any ideas what I am missing here?

Thanks for any help you can offer.

Any message like "couldn't prepare instant mix please try again" from google music? — Karioki, Dec 30 '14 at 14:49

score 2 · Answer 1 · answered Jan 05 '15 at 21:23

2

Argh, finally figured it out by getting a heap dump of the Play Music process. You need to add

intent.putExtra("queryComplete", "It's my life");

and everything will work. The value has to be the same as the SearchManager.QUERY extra.

answered Jan 05 '15 at 21:23

Tavian Barnes

12,477
4
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118

score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Dec 24 '14 at 04:48

0

I found one way to do this.

Intent intent = new Intent();  
intent.setAction(android.content.Intent.ACTION_VIEW);  
File file = new File(YOUR_SONG_URI);  
intent.setDataAndType(Uri.fromFile(file), "audio/*");  
startActivity(intent);

answered Dec 24 '14 at 04:48

Elango

412
4
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True, this works if you have the path to the file on the device. But it won't work for All Access music for example. – Tavian Barnes Dec 24 '14 at 05:22

score 0 · Answer 3 · answered Dec 30 '14 at 13:14

0

Intent i;
PackageManager manager = getPackageManager();
try {
i = manager.getLaunchIntentForPackage("com.google.android.music");
if (i == null)
     throw new PackageManager.NameNotFoundException();
i.addCategory(Intent.CATEGORY_LAUNCHER);
startActivity(i);
} catch (PackageManager.NameNotFoundException e) {
}

answered Dec 30 '14 at 13:14

Dhru 'soni

1,024
7
23

This just launches the main activity of the app right? – Tavian Barnes Dec 31 '14 at 18:13

Trouble playing a song in Google Music player

3 Answers3