Question Can't stop from playing

[Tafflad]

by sargan » 24 Oct 2025 12:57

Galaxy SE21FE running Android 13
VLC ver 3.6.5

Scenario
I have been listening to music using VLC in the car, all works fine.
I come into house and could be Hrs later I put on headphones to make a phone call for example.

VLC starts playing music from the previous play point.

If I go to active Apps screen ,,, if I do 'close all' VLC just starts itself back up.

At top of active apps screen a mini VLC control bar exists ... I can press pause .... and it stops play, but as soon as I start anything up (eg go to dial a phone call) it starts back up.
It's VERY annoying.

If I turn off BlueTooth it stops playing, but then I can't make headphone-based calls, as soon as I turn BT back on it start auto-playing againn
So far only solution is to reboot phone

VLC support advise it's an Android issue - in that it auto starts BT playing when no call in progress.

 

[VidJunky]

Not sure why this would spontaneously start but there could be several reasons for this behavior. I'm a little surprised to see that your S21 is only running Android 13, I thought it would be on a little higher version but a system update can cause this type of thing (bug). To correct issues related to system updates you can often clear the cache for the device. On your FE device to do this power the phone off>hold the volume up button and power button while restarting>when the Samsung splash screen appears release the power button>hold the volume button until the phone has fully booted>use the volume buttons to navigate and the power button to make selections and choose Wipe Partition Cache>use the reboot option and allow the phone to reboot normally.

The app or its update can cause bugs too. For this there will be two things, well three things, you'll want to do.

First is simply check the app settings. Look for anything that is related to "auto play". The setting may say something about restarting from where it left off or talk about resuming playback when connected, but you'll want to check all of the pages in the VLC app settings and disable anything like this.

The second thing you'll want to do will be to clear the app cache and maybe the app data too. To do this on your FE you'll want to go to Settings>Apps>VLC>Force stop the app>Storage>Clear cache/Clear data. Clearing the data in an app like VLC shouldn't cause you to lose anything. VLC isn't the type of app that generates content, depends on data stored within but clearing data will change any settings you've changed while using the app. It may also cause you to need to sign in again if your app has a personalized account option. An example of a setting you might lose would be if you switched to Dark Mode, it will revert to light mode, things like that.

The third thing would be to uninstall the app and reinstall it on your device. This gives you a really clean and fresh start, clears all settings and unlike an update, a fresh install isn't patching anything but rather installing the full app, meaning less of a chance for corruption.

In this case I don't think your issue is related to another app but for some issues using the phone in Safe Mode can be telling. The general rule is if it happens in SM it's the app itself, the OS, UI or device hardware to blame but if it doesn't there could be a "bad" app causing the issue. I call it a bad app because it's having a bad effect on the device and not that there is virus or malware in the app. Because Safe Mode affects the way the phone behaves it may affect it enough that SM won't tell us much. If you want to try, if for no other reason than just to tell us what you found, you can restart the phone in SM. To do this if you're using the power button for a power button and not a shortcut, Press and hold the power button until the option to restart appears>Press and hold the Power Off option until the option to restart in Safe Mode appears>Tap that and allow the phone to fully reboot. From there do your testing, and if I didn't imply this, test after each of these trials.

Let us know what you find and if any of this worked for you.

 

[Tafflad]

Not sure why this would spontaneously start but there could be several reasons for this behavior. I'm a little surprised to see that your S21 is only running Android 13, .

The phone is set to auto download updates, and it states as up to date.
I did what you said, selected wipe cache, all completed.
Still shows ver 13

 

[VidJunky]

The phone is set to auto dowload updates, and it states as up to date.
I’ll try what you said

What are we on Android 17 these days. I wasn't saying that there was anything wrong with your phone just that I thought it would be a little closer, maybe Android 14. Anyway, that isn't important. Let us know what you find. That's what's important.

 

[Tafflad]

I did try cache rest - stayed on Ver 13 If I try 'software update' it says 'software is up to date'

 

[mustang7757]

What if you long press the VLC app then tap Info>force stop it does it start back up automatically?

 

[Tafflad]

Just tried it ... yes it does start back up, and plays to headphones.
If I turn off BT to the headphones, then it restarts and plays on phone speakers

If I 'force stop' again ... when playing through speakers, then it seems to stay off - Annoying.

 

[Tafflad]

Just tried it ... yes it does start back up, and plays to headphones.
If I turn off BT to the headphones, then it restarts and plays on phone speakers

If I 'force stop' again ... when playing through speakers, then it seems to stay off. The real annoyance is if I open phone app to make a call it often starts playing.

 

[mustang7757]

Look in the settings of the player there are some things to adjust I don't use this app but I can see lot of things to adjust

 

[mustang7757]

Like resume Play audio, change some settings even when connected to Bluetooth are some .

 

[Tafflad]

Look in the settings of the player there are some things to adjust I don't use this app but I can see lot of things to adjust

I turned off detect headphones and resume - but no difference :-(

 

[mustang7757]

How about resume played audio
Change from always to never or ask

 

[Tafflad]

OK have changed it to 'ask' was on 'Always'

 

[Tafflad]

OK ... played music viz BT to headphones. When I stopped using headphones - music stopped

So it seems auto-headphone detect is no longer kicking in.
However after a few seconds it starts playing again on phone speakers.
Did a force stop ... did not restart

Pain though to having to go through the menus to force a stop