This is similar to an older issues I found in the forum, but it was old didn’t seem to be resolved.
I have a new Samsung S24+ running Android 14 with a fresh install of Symfonium using Plex as my media provider. The bug is that after closing Symfonium, the app will pop up a media control notification into my notification bar. I can swipe it away and after an unspecified length of time it will pop back up. Sometimes it’s 5 mins, sometimes its a few hours, but it always comes back. No other apps on my phone (music or other) have this behavior.
I have tried a handful of things. Under the “Playback” > “Automatic Actions” in Symfonium I have turned every option off. I have left Bluetooth off. I have tried force closing the app. Despite these tests, the notification always returns.
I’ve uploaded a debug file via my username. Please note that through the duration of this debug file generation, I didn’t once manually open the app. It just kept popping up as a notification.
Logs:
Upload description: kingliam
Additional information:
Screenshot 1: Please note that I didn’t listen to any music yesterday using Symfonium but still got 46 notifications.
Screenshot 2: Here is the media control notification. There is always a little spinner in the middle that just spins and spins until I swipe the notification away.
Reproduction steps:
The behavior seems to be random. Something is waking the app despite it being closed (and even force closed with bluetooth off).
This is Android behavior when enabling session resuming.
Update to 11.4 that have the spin stuff fixed, but to prevent the media session to stay when the app is paused / killed you need to swipe the session a little then the cog then do not enable pin media session.
Hi,
Sorry for “hijacking” this post but I thought it wasn’t necessary to create a new one.
On my smartphone, Symfonium also appears on the notification bar several times. I swipe it to close but after a while, there it is again (there’s no cog wheel or something).
Also, it only shows what I’m (was) listening.
The only way I found for it to not happen, is force close the app (which doesn’t make any sense).
Just to chime back in here. I’ve done some extensive testing the last couple weeks across many different popular audio/music apps and, to echo @Kurt’s point, Symfonium is the only app that has this notification popup behavior on my phone.
@Tolriq you mentioned this is “Android behavior when enabling session resuming.” I will mention that a number of Android phones including all newer Samsung phone’s don’t provide any setting options for disabling session resuming. Sadly these settings were removed a couple years ago.
The only workaround I have found to date is to hold the “play” button in Symfonium which clears the current queue and prevents the persistent popup notifications.
All things said - this is a beautiful app and I seriously LOVE it! Thanks for all the hard work you have put into making this such a beautiful experience.
Yes but that is not a proper workaround since you would loose the playlist you were hearing. Force close the app isn’t either but at least, when we open it, we can resume we’re we stopped.
I don’t know why this happens, but I can list here the music apps (and video, if needed) I use and/or used (but not anymore) and with which this behavior doesn’t happen.
I’m not saying that Symfonium is bad, not at all, in fact, I like it a lot but there must be something triggering this situation (and the issues when casting, at least, to a Android TV box).
Symfonium provide support for session resuming, Samsung kill the app then restart it because of that, on restart the queue is loaded and the session is visible.
This is normal and wanted behavior.
The fact that Samsung decided to remove something from base Android is a Samsung issue, but I’m pretty sure swipe or long press will show the cog to configure pinning of media session or not.
Else you need to contact Samsung to fix this.
Thanks Tolriq, I appreciate your responses. It may be a Samsung issue, but I guess the question is: Why does this behavior only happen with the Symfonium app? This constant popup behavior doesn’t exist with Spotify, Youtube Music, Plexamp, Soundcloud, or any other music app I’ve tested. This is the only app on my Samsung device that behaves this way.
Symfonium use all the latest things and support everything from every API level so as said session resuming.
I don’t know what other apps support or not, all I see is the logs, Samsung restart the app so the queue is restored so the session is up to start playback. That is how things are supposed to work.
Android offers a way to change the behavior, if Samsung have removed that then complain to Samsung instead of making me repeat the same thing over and over ?
No one is complaining; just telling you what happens.
This is not some kind of attack to your app. In my opinion, feedback is always precious for every dev, and it’s not the kind of: “wow, what a great app”; “Best app I ever used”, etc.
We paid and keep using your app because we like it and want to support your work.
Only that.
@kingliam, like me, found this situation strange since it doesn’t happen with any other app so, and I think i can speak for him, the intention was to understand why this happens and because you could haven’t be aware of it.
I can confirm that there is no cog in the Samsung media session. Swiping just removes the media session (until it reappears because something is played), and long press leads to a menu where you have the option to “remove”, but it seems that is the same as swiping.
You can press on “Media Output” (button in the top right of the media session) to get more configuration options, and there is a cog then, but it only allows you to set “wifi speaker playback preference” and display infos about the media output app - which seems to be this one judging from the icon, although my phone has a newer version: Media and Devices - Applications sur le Galaxy Store
Yeah, those control cogs don’t exist for media playback on Samsung devices. You probably don’t like Samsung phones now haha I guess we can add this to the list of things to write them about
Also, just echoing @Kurt - definitely not attacking, just trying to inform you and understand what’s going on. I do love this app and want to keep supporting it.
In any case just for future context, I will mention that session resuming is definitely implemented and fully part of Spotify, Soundcloud, Plexamp, etc. It works great without any constant popup on Samsung phones. This is definitely a weird bug.
I get the same thing. I can select a down arrow that gives me the option to remove or cancel. I select remove and it goes away, but but returns later. I have tried everything to get rid of that notification, but nothing works.
And the “workaround” a user told here, is not a truly workaround (“hold the “play” button in Symfonium which clears the current queue and prevents the persistent popup notifications.”). If we do that, we will loose our progress.
This doesn’t happen with any other app i use. With Poweramp, for example, i select “play all” (randomly) and when i want/need to stop listening, i just press Pause and close the app.
If i do the same with Synfonium, it keeps appearing on the notification list; the only way for it to not happen, and to not loose the progress of the playlist, is to fc the app, which doesn’t make any sense.
This is an issue from Android;
This is an issue from Samsung;
Not being able to cast flac files to an AndroidTV is an issue with the chromecast version (even it working flawlessly with every other app).
…
I really like this app, which is why I bought it right away, but it seems that even with the same or similar feedback given by users, there is a reluctance to accept it, try to find the cause, and solve it.
It is always the fault of the OS, the smartphone brand, or an OS service. Which is a shame.
(And here’s another comment that could go to the thread where people make fun of what users say…)
Long time no see, still waiting for your adb logs so I can show you the evidence that you refuse
I mean you uninstall a patch from Chromecast on the Android TV box, to fix a crash of said Chromecast app, but it’s somehow the fault of the app? Despite the app working fine with all the other Android TV of the world ?
All I can see is the logs and logs shows what happens. You are free to not believe the facts and not understand what is an API and how things works when using all the latest Android APIS and libraries to allow more advanced integrations, but that does not changes the actual facts.
It’s funny that from all that i said (like others), you only mention the Chromecast situation.
No, i’m not a developer and i don’t understand nothing about it nor APIs but just find strange that, on both situations, the issues only happens with your app.
And again, here’s another comment that could go to the thread where people make fun of what users say…
Because I’m still waiting for your logs, that strangely you decide not to provide. And you bring that to the discussion here.
You see your logic works both ways, that’s the fun part of it, you just completely ignore the part that don’t suit your narrative.
All the apps on your device works with that device except Symfonium so it’s Symfonium’s fault.
Let’s admit this way of thinking is actually valid then when we reach the other side of the equation :
Symfonium works on all Chromecast devices except a very specific Chinese Android TV model with a specific version of Chromecast app.
We must admit that this way of thinking is actually valid too no?
So it’s 50/50 without a way to decide right?
Now we add a very little change to the equation, we remove a faulty patch on that faulty Android TV model and suddenly it start to work.
So we remove a bug on Android TV and then it works.
According to you: It’s still Symfonium’s fault because?
According to me: You remove a bug in a different software then it works then obviously the issue is on the different software. (And well that’s actually according to everybody in the world when you know that all Symfonium’s do is calling an API endpoint with a well know API surface)
In my case it has nothing to do with Chromecast or a TV. It’s a notification that appears on my Samsung A51 phone. I don’t want it there when I’m playing a song, nor do I want it there when I close Symfonium. Holding the play button removes it from the app, but it’s still there on the notification screen. I was using Plex with my TrueNAS server. This is so much easier to setup and use, but this notification is bothersome. That said, I still love the app.
Yes he talked about another example of OEM side issue, but prefer to blame me
Samsung does not have the option to disable Media Session pinning. So each time Samsung restart the app because the app support media resumption, it shows the session.
I do not have a Samsung to try to workaround their mess.
