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Play/ Pause is completely broken now with 10.13.1

B

BlazednSleepy

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Apr 15, 2012
701
254
I just noticed that the play/pause function is even more broken now than it was with the previous OS version. Specifically with youtube and Vimeo. Some of you may have noticed that the play/ pause function key on keyboard works with videos. Well, it breaks pausing music in the background.

I can no longer use the function key even when closing all apps. The only way to fix this is to completely restart my Mac, but overtime it breaks and stops working altogether. Absolutely ridiculous and a severe oversight on Apple's part for such a simple yet crucial function.
 
Last edited:
Play/Pause work here with 10.13.1.

It's not clear what you mean by: I can no longer use the function key even when closing all apps.
 
auxbuss said:
Play/Pause work here with 10.13.1.

It's not clear what you mean by: I can no longer use the function key even when closing all apps.
Click to expand...

Apologies,

It's a continued problem when watching Youtube or Vimeo videos. Go to youtube right now in safari and watch a video, then try and pause your music. Doesn't work. You'll have to go to iTunes and stop it manually by clicking. And when you try and play the music with iTunes open with youtube in the background, the function keys plays/pauses the youtube video NOT iTunes.

My problem is a continuation of this ridiculous change and it now completely breaks the function key overtime for me.
 
Are you referring to actual keys, or the touch bar? The touch bar on my 2017 switches to whatever app happens to be active, so it works as expected.
 
csurfr said:
Damn. Sorry man, that's crazy. Was it EVER working in High Sierra, or has it been broken since you upgraded? Surely this is something Apple will sort out?
Click to expand...

I just upgraded to High Sierra yesterday. Everything other than this damn change/ bug whatever it is, is working fine. It just doesn't make any sense when music is playing and as I'm about to watch a youtube video I can't pause my music with the function key. it only works on the current youtube video. I have to manually go back iTunes and mouse click the pause button. Even then, the function will not work. I have to completely close out of youtube to get it back. I'm trying to recreate the broken function key that was just introduced for me in 10.13.1. I think Vimeo is causing it somehow.

Really frustrating!
 
I wish I hadn't just sold my Magic Keyboard. I could have used it to try this out and see if my machine did the same thing.

By all intents and purposes the media keys should control whatever app happens to be active in finder.
 
csurfr said:
I wish I hadn't just sold my Magic Keyboard. I could have used it to try this out and see if my machine did the same thing.

By all intents and purposes the media keys should control whatever app happens to be active in finder.
Click to expand...


With your Touch Bar MacBook Pro. How does it function with youtube videos? Does it pause/ play them and keep the music playing in the background?
 
BlazednSleepy said:
With your Touch Bar MacBook Pro. How does it function with youtube videos? Does it pause/ play them and keep the music playing in the background?
Click to expand...

Sort of. I can play YouTube in Safari, and have iTunes playing at the same time, both with audio feeds. The touch bar controls look different depending on which app is active in finder. I'll take two screens to demonstrate.

This first screenshot is from Safari with YouTube playing:

Touch Bar Shot 2017-10-31 at 4.22.19 PM.png

And this one is from iTunes:

Touch Bar Shot 2017-10-31 at 4.22.44 PM.png

So you can see there are subtle differences.

Edit: Yes both audio sources run independently of each other.
 
csurfr said:
Sort of. I can play YouTube in Safari, and have iTunes playing at the same time, both with audio feeds. The touch bar controls look different depending on which app is active in finder. I'll take two screens to demonstrate.

This first screenshot is from Safari with YouTube playing:

View attachment 729779

And this one is from iTunes:

View attachment 729780

So you can see there are subtle differences.

Edit: Yes both audio sources run independently of each other.
Click to expand...


So if you have a youtube video playing, there's no way to pause your music without going back to iTunes?
 
BlazednSleepy said:
So if you have a youtube video playing, there's no way to pause your music without going back to iTunes?
Click to expand...

Nope. The touch bar is contextual, so I have to have iTunes in the foreground for the buttons to change to that app. Let me try something...

Ok, when I expand the touch bar by hitting the little less than symbol there on the right side (in my previous screens), I get this:

Touch Bar Shot 2017-10-31 at 4.31.38 PM.png

Those three media keys ALWAYS control iTunes no matter what app you have in the front in finder. I just had safari playing a YouTube video and it kept going with iTunes in the background starting/stopping.
 
csurfr said:
Nope. The touch bar is contextual, so I have to have iTunes in the foreground for the buttons to change to that app. Let me try something...

Ok, when I expand the touch bar by hitting the little less than symbol there on the right side (in my previous screens), I get this:

View attachment 729784

Those three media keys ALWAYS control iTunes no matter what app you have in the front in finder. I just had safari playing a YouTube video and it kept going with iTunes in the background starting/stopping.
Click to expand...


Interesting. So you can pause/ play the music with youtube active by just expanding the OS function keys.

I'm wondering if Apple is somehow trying to streamline all Macs keyboards to function similarly to the Touch Bar MacBook pro's by being app specific. It clearly doesn't work on a regular keyboard though. Or it's just a terrible glitch.
[doublepost=1509494371][/doublepost]I've narrowed it down to either Vimeo or Final Cut Pro X causing this broken function key problem.
 
I have this too - after updating to 10.13.1 it paused and unparsed exactly once then refuses to do anything, MBP or external keyboard, previous/play-pause/next keys all dead... :-(
 
groovyd said:
Is working fine for me. I can pause music while a youtube is playing.
Click to expand...

Are you using safari?
[doublepost=1509495307][/doublepost]
simonsi said:
I have this too - after updating to 10.13.1 it paused and unparsed exactly once then refuses to do anything, MBP or external keyboard, previous/play-pause/next keys all dead... :-(
Click to expand...

Thanks for replying. Absolutely ridiculous that this is a problem. I don't remember such a simple yet crucial function ever being broken and I've been using Mac's for over a decade.
 
BlazednSleepy said:
Are you using safari?
[doublepost=1509495307][/doublepost]

Thanks for replying. Absolutely ridiculous that this is a problem. I don't remember such a simple yet crucial function ever being broken and I've been using Mac's for over a decade.
Click to expand...

I don't even have a video or any other content playing, Safari is open but no video
 
Agree on this. This is the most useless "feature" that happened with High Sierra. I can't control my iTunes with media keys. It doesn't control Safari video windows occasionally so I just do not understand, what does the media keys do at all from now on.
Keyboard media keys on High Sierra = useless.
 
I have seen this behavior also, will have to see if this new update is still broken. Seems you're not alone!
 
I just upgraded to High Sierra on my 2015 Macbook Pro. I use it in clamshell with a wired mac keyboard. The media keys stopped working. All I could find as a solution is "it is google chrome causing problems" but the extensions it mentions I do not have installed. It drives me nuts since I use iTunes all day long to control my music and am having to phyiscally flip back and forth to the app about 500+ times.
 
calisurfboy said:
I just upgraded to High Sierra on my 2015 Macbook Pro. I use it in clamshell with a wired mac keyboard. The media keys stopped working. All I could find as a solution is "it is google chrome causing problems" but the extensions it mentions I do not have installed. It drives me nuts since I use iTunes all day long to control my music and am having to phyiscally flip back and forth to the app about 500+ times.
Click to expand...

It's a dreadful and frustrating change that seems like a huge oversight on Apple's part. For me though, everything works if I'm using Chrome (I hate chrome). I use Safari and that's what completely screws me over with watching youtube videos and wanting to pause my music.

I really hope Apple is aware of this bug/ oversight and they fix it soon.

In the meantime, please submit feedback to their support page. I doubt they read these forums.

https://www.apple.com/feedback/macos.html
 
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