[UWP] Can MediaPlayer detect when it was played or paused by wired earphone button click

Question

[UWP] Can MediaPlayer detect when it was played or paused by wired earphone button click

Md. Niaz Mahmud 171

I am using MediaPlayer in UWP application. When I play UWP mediaplayer, and press my earphone play/pause button on-off , the media is played or paused. But my icon for play pause is not updated. Yes, there is an event handler MediaPlayer.CurrentStateChanged which is triggered during earphone play-pause and from "PlaybackSession.PlaybackState" argument we can detect whether media was played or paused. But Can we know which action cause this play/pause from any argument? Meaning, I want to know whether media was played or paused by "Earphone Button Action" or not. As, play/pause was not invoked programmatically. I need this because when play or pause action is only invoked only from earphone action I need to perform some different task

Shahzeb Ali 5 Reputation points Student Ambassador

2023-12-13T11:25:07.8+00:00

Universal Windows Platform (UWP) does not provide a direct way to determine the source of a play/pause action, especially when triggered by external hardware buttons like those on earphones.

When the MediaPlayer.CurrentStateChanged event is triggered, you can indeed use the PlaybackSession.PlaybackState property to determine whether the media is playing or paused. However, there is typically no specific information about the source of the play/pause action.

One workaround you could consider is maintaining a separate flag or variable to track the last known state of your media player. Before the state changes, store the current state in a variable. Then, when the CurrentStateChanged event is triggered, compare the new state with the stored state. If the states differ and the new state is "Playing," you can infer that the play action was triggered externally.
Md. Niaz Mahmud 171 Reputation points

2023-12-13T11:30:57.34+00:00

Thank you so much for your response. @Shazeb Ali The problem is if there are multiple media together, while one media is Ended, CurrentStateChanged is triggered and PlaybackSession.PlaybackState is "Paused", then MediaEnded event is triggered. So there is no way to differentiate whether this pause was due to MediaEnd event or Earphone button action. as MediaEnd is triggered after CurrentStateChanged :(

Accepted answer

0 additional answers

Your answer

Shahzeb Ali 5 Reputation points Student Ambassador

2023-12-13T11:25:07.8+00:00

Universal Windows Platform (UWP) does not provide a direct way to determine the source of a play/pause action, especially when triggered by external hardware buttons like those on earphones.

When the MediaPlayer.CurrentStateChanged event is triggered, you can indeed use the PlaybackSession.PlaybackState property to determine whether the media is playing or paused. However, there is typically no specific information about the source of the play/pause action.

One workaround you could consider is maintaining a separate flag or variable to track the last known state of your media player. Before the state changes, store the current state in a variable. Then, when the CurrentStateChanged event is triggered, compare the new state with the stored state. If the states differ and the new state is "Playing," you can infer that the play action was triggered externally.
Md. Niaz Mahmud 171 Reputation points

2023-12-13T11:30:57.34+00:00

Thank you so much for your response. @Shazeb Ali The problem is if there are multiple media together, while one media is Ended, CurrentStateChanged is triggered and PlaybackSession.PlaybackState is "Paused", then MediaEnded event is triggered. So there is no way to differentiate whether this pause was due to MediaEnd event or Earphone button action. as MediaEnd is triggered after CurrentStateChanged :(

Answer 1

Hi @Md. Niaz Mahmud ,

Welcome to Microsoft Q&A!

I want to know whether media was played or paused by "Earphone Button Action" or not.

Currently there is no API in UWP that can achieve your needs.

I also tried looking for related APIs in Win32 but couldn't find any. The feasible technical route is that you need to write your own driver to detect your earphone's events.

Thank you.

If the answer is the right solution, please click "Accept Answer" and kindly upvote it. If you have extra questions about this answer, please click "Comment". Note: Please follow the steps in our documentation to enable e-mail notifications if you want to receive the related email notification for this thread.

Share via

[UWP] Can MediaPlayer detect when it was played or paused by wired earphone button click

0 additional answers

Your answer