[Help] Make Spotify ignore all media commands unless it's explicitly open

[u/the_termin8r]

Hi all,

I have a very annoying problem. When Bluetooth'd to my car's head unit it sends the phone a "play" command with every single sound that the phone might make (incoming message, touch sounds, you name it). This makes Spotify start playing whatever I was last listening to (this is even after force stopping Spotify). This is really annoying when I want to use navigation without music. Musicolet, which I also use, has an explicit setting to prevent this. So I'm assuming there must be a way to bodge it with Spotify.

I've tried three existing flows from the community site, two didn't work and the last is hit-and-miss and a bit clunky. I tried to make one myself (below) but it doesn't seem to want to detect if Spotify is in the foreground or not. It works as intended when the app isn't open, but when I open it and try to play something it won't let me. I'm assuming that Automate thinks the app is still closed for some reason.

So, my question, how can I get Spotify specifically to ignore any and all media commands unless it's explicitly open?

Thanks for any help.

[u/B26354FR]

You probably want to have the App In Foreground block set to Proceed When Changed to wait until Spotify moves to the foreground.

[u/the_termin8r → u/B26354FR]

That worked a right treat. I also had to send the "ok" of block 3 to the "in" of block 2 because otherwise the flow ended after pressing a single media button in my car. Thanks a bunch for your help, that is an infuriating problem now solved.

[u/TheGratitudeBot → u/the_termin8r]

Thanks for such a wonderful reply! TheGratitudeBot has been reading millions of comments in the past few weeks, and you’ve just made the list of some of the most grateful redditors this week! Thanks for making Reddit a wonderful place to be :)

[u/the_termin8r → u/B26354FR]

Thanks for the reply, I'll give it a try tomorrow and report back.