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ITunes stop playing when display goes to sleep - Win 10

Anonymous
2018-11-20T01:37:31+00:00

I just discovered a fix to a silly problem that I want to share.  I also want to know why it happens in the first place.

I have a new Lenovo desktop running a fresh install of Windows 10 and newly downloaded iTunes.  The computer is essentially a music server connected to my home theater / home audio system.  The audio is transferred digitally from the PC to the audio system via a Displayport-to-HDMI connection.

This setup was working fine except that iTunes would mysteriously stop after a few minutes.  I wasn't sitting at the computer when this happens. After a bunch of trial and error, I figured out the problem.  In Windows 10, the display was set to go to sleep after 5 minutes.  Not the whole computer, just the display, and while plugged in.  On a desktop, this is silly, but that's the way it was.  It turns out that when the display went to sleep, iTunes would just stop playing.  It didn't crash, it just stopped.  The only fix was to stop and restart iTunes. 

My fix of course is to tell Windows not to put the display to sleep.  This wastes power, but iTunes is happy.  Why does iTunes stop when the display goes to sleep?

I can also force this to happen another way.  If I turn on another speaker zone in the home theater receiver, iTunes stops.  This other zone is recognized by Windows as a separate audio playback device, and it will play through both zones.  But it I switch one of the zones on or off, iTunes stalls.  Perhaps this is a clue.

Windows for home | Windows 10 | Sleep and Power on, off

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  1. Anonymous
    2018-12-03T20:13:10+00:00

    Hi Srimadhwa,

    I can try that when I'm done traveling and back at that computer.  But what will resetting the settings to default do to help diagnose the problem?  I assume it will set the display back to the sleep setting, which will bring back the problem.  How does resetting to default either fix the problem or help diagnosing it?

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  2. Anonymous
    2018-11-20T13:30:53+00:00

    Hi Ken,

    Thank you for posting your question in the Microsoft Community.

    Appreciate your efforts to work on this issue and also to bring this to our notice.

    Please answer these questions to get more clarity on this issue:

    1. Are you aware of any hardware or software changes made to the PC prior to this issue?
    2. Is the issue specific to iTunes program?

    This issue may occur due to some system files and drivers not working as expected or some incorrect settings in the application or on the PC.

    You may also want to lock the PC instead of sleep to check if that makes any difference.

    Alternatively, you may also want to follow these steps to make changes to the power plan settings and see if that helps.

    1. From Control Panel, open Power options.
    2. Click on "Change plan settings" over on the right hand side. Then click "Change advanced power settings".
    3. Under Multimedia settings, ensure that "When Sharing Media", make sure it's set at "Prevent Idling to Sleep".
    4. Click OK and close the power options window.

    Hope this helps.

    Let us know if you got the help you needed by clicking 'Yes' or 'No'.

    Regards,

    Srimadhwa B

    Microsoft Community-Moderator

    4 people found this answer helpful.
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  3. Anonymous
    2018-11-25T16:10:17+00:00

    I checked the Advanced Power Settings for When Sharing Media.  It had already been set to Prevent Idling.  So that was not the cause of the iTunes stall.  It was clearly the display sleeping, which still doesn't make sense to me.

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  4. Anonymous
    2018-11-22T05:38:47+00:00

    Hi,

    Thanks for the reply and updated information. Appreciate your efforts to work on this issue.

    Please make time to follow the steps provided previously and let us know the outcome so that I can help you further.

    Regards,

    Srimadhwa B

    Microsoft Community-Moderator

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  5. Anonymous
    2018-11-20T20:31:42+00:00

    SR, as noted in my original post, this is a brand-new computer with a fresh install of Windows 10 Pro.  So there are no changes to the system.  It's right out of the box. 

    The only program currently running on the machine is iTunes.

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