iTunes locking up Media keys

Question

iTunes locking up Media keys

Hello,

I never wrote in a Forum but yeah here I am searching for help regarding iTunes:

When I have iTunes opened on my PC (Window 10 20H2 Build: 19042.746) I can't use the Mediakeys to control any other application beside iTunes (eg. Firefox, foobar2000 etc.).

I tried the Script MediaKeyProcessing but that disabled the Media keys entierly for the time iTunes was open.

I also tried deactivating full Keyboard control in iTunes but that did nothing either. (Also tried in combination with the script tho)

The Main reason I want this to work is, that a friend of mine wrote a small tool that sends the Metadata to the System Media Transport Controls (aka that thing in Windows 8/10 that shows the Title, Artist and stuff when you press Play / Skip).

The final goal beign full control over iTunes via SMTC. But for that I need a way to reroute the Media Keys to the Application instead of iTunes claiming them.

Thank you for your answers.

Chris

Windows, Windows 10

Posted on Feb 12, 2021 3:17 AM

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Answer 1

Feb 12, 2021 8:56 AM in response to turingtest2

Hi tt2,

Thank you for your answer!

We already tried a lot and I kinda found a fix for it, altough it's a bit rough.

I made an AutoHotkey script which captures the Mediakeys (Play_Pause, Next, Prev) and Sends them again. In addition to that it also Sends Volume_Down and Volume_Up without delay so the smtc is invoked and iTunes responds accordingly.

Note that iTunes still completly overtakes the Mediakeys. Controlling any other application while iTunes is open is still not possible.

But for the time being, this works perfectly fine for me.

You can see it in action here: https://youtu.be/WiB0Y0y4e6o

Chris

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Answer 2

turingtest2

Level 10

278,015 points

Feb 12, 2021 4:15 AM in response to TheShadowghost

Hi Chris,

Sorry to hear that MediaKeyProcessing doesn't do what you want of it. Perhaps after telling iTunes to ignore the keys your other code has to actively acquire a connection to them. Not something I've ever looked at but it would seem there are some foundations here: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/uwp/audio-video-camera/system-media-transport-controls.

tt2

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Answer 3

turingtest2

Level 10

278,015 points

Feb 12, 2021 9:09 AM in response to TheShadowghost

Your linked video is marked private, but I'm glad to hear you've got a workaround. 🙂

tt2

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iTunes locking up Media keys

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