Play/Pause button not functioning on Media Apps using MacBook Air

I had this problem too before and it seems the WhatsApp application blocked the play/pause button since it plays a media or notification. I tried to deactivate the "Play sound for notification" on Settings --> Notifications --> WhatsApp and it works, the play/pause button functioned well.

The notification from WhatsApp still has sound since the "Sounds" setting on WhatsApp application still active.

Hope it can solve the problem.

Since my last post, it seems that the WhatsApp MacOS App seems to block the Play/Pause/F8 button functionality, particularly if you've just played back a message. If you fully close down WhatsApp, the Play/Pause/F8 button seems to start working again in MacOS Music app.

This issue seems to be caused by WhatsApp as indicated in the previous responses. To resolve this you need to disable WhatsApp from accessibility access and then add Spotify.

-> Go to System Preferences

-> Privacy and Security

-> Accessibility

-> toggle WhatsApp off then add Spotify and toggle on

Overnight, without me changing anything, my play/pause stopped working for the Music app and the AppleTV app on Sonoma but it was working for the Podcast app and when watching YouTube videos via Safari.

I went into Music and under the Account menu I went into Authorisations and chose to authorise my machine. It was already authorised so this just re-authorised it without affecting the number of authorised devices. I then went into AppleTV and re-authorised this machine there.

Now, after re-authorisation, the play/pause buttons are working as expected.

I've submitted a bug report to Apple using the Feedback Assistant app with diagnostics from when the play/pause wasn't working and then again from when it started working again.

The need to re-authorise the computer (even though it's not lost authorisation) is a long-standing bug with Apple that they really need to get round to fixing. If it needs to be periodically re-authorised then at least tell me, don't just randomly stop certain features from working.

This is the actually helpful answer. Not sure why it's not at the top having 20x more votes compared to the featured one.

Anyway - I've had to manually add both WhatsApp and Spotify to the list of Privacy & Security/Accessibility list, only to find that both were ON. Flipping WhatsApp off helped.

I had the exact same behavior, restarting would fix it but then suddenly the play/pause buttons stopped working with Spotify.

I thought it had something to do with the Apple Music app, but I just confirmed that closing the WhatsApp App immediately fixed this. In my case, though, I did not play any WhatsApp audios, so maybe notifications are getting detected as media playing?

Guys you are missing the actual truth here. If Apple Music is the only program that is open, that is what the F8 key will control. If more than Apple Music is open, lets say WhatsApp or Sonos and you do something within those programs that uses the Play/Pause function on your computer, the macOS moves the control of the F8 key to that program and it no longer controls Apple Music. If you then close all programs that could use the F8 key, the key moves back to Apple Music. Nothing was "fixed" in the above replies.

It happens to me when i have my Sonos app open. Once i close it everything starts working again.

I just had this issue happen to me. Found this post but i dont use WhatsApp. What seems to work for me was I just turned the keyboard off and on in my Bluetooth settings and it started working again.

True! Thanks for the tip. When i close WhatsApp on Ventura, my Play/Pause Button works again!

I had a similar issue, I tried to follow the fixes mentioned but I ended up uninstalling WhatsApp on my machine and that did the trick for me.

There is definitely a problem, perhaps since the latest update? My play/pause (F8) button has always worked perfectly and suddenly out of nowhere, it's stopped working. Restarting the iMac seems to cure for a short period, but it soon stops working again. So frustrating as it's one of the most used features on my keyboard!!

True! Thank you very much! I had the same problem and its was because of the WhatsApp

Hi, I found that this issue is not happening in the beta app of Whatsapp, I roundup all the possible issues, reinstalling, clean install from the web and not from the AppStore and never solved the problem, I just donwloaded the beta app from the web and the issue is gone for me, also they updated the app UI and notification sound, is nice and pleasant to use.

Hope it works for you!