Play/Pause Keys No Longer Working, but All Non-Media Function Keys Do

Question

Play/Pause Keys No Longer Working, but All Non-Media Function Keys Do

Hi,

I am using an Apple Magic Keyboard with the Touch ID and Numeric Pad on a Mac Mini M1 (16GB) running macOS Sonoma 14.0.

Lately, the play/pause (and fast forward/rewind) keys have not been working, but all of the other function keys (mute, sound up/down, spotlight search, etc.) work fine.

I do not remember when exactly it stopped working, but it was before I upgraded to Sonoma when that came out. Previously it would work fine (play/pause would work with YouTube, for example). More importantly, I use this key for my online classes because I can take notes in Word and pause the lecture if I need to without having to use the mouse to switch over to the browser, pause the video, and then switch back to Word. It makes it so much faster and easier.

I am using Google Chrome, but the same problem exists in Firefox as well as Safari.

I've searched through dozens of different forums on here with the same problem and tried almost all of the solutions, even booting into safe mode, which made no difference. I also tried my old Apple keyboard (I go through them fast, as I am a writer for work + school), and the same thing: all the other buttons work, but not the media keys.

Does anyone have ANY suggestions? Like I said, I've gone through tons of forums and tried solutions: enabling full keyboard access in Accessbility, made sure Slow Keys and Mouse Keys is off, made sure correct layout is selected (all as suggested here If your Mac doesn’t respond to key presses - Apple Support). I even uninstalled WhatsApp and Spotify as some users said those messed it up, though those apps are almost never open (and they were installed well before this started happening). Also tried adjusting settings in Chrome as suggested by others to no avail, but like I said, it doesn't work in Safari or Firefox either. And again, I already tried booting into safe mode.

So I am at a complete loss as to what to do. Restarting doesn't change anything, even temporarily. Clearly this is a very widespread issue and has been for quite a while based on forum posts.

Thanks for any assistance you can give.

Mac mini, macOS 14.0

Posted on Oct 23, 2023 5:04 AM

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Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

Filmmaker_Matt Author

Level 1

8 points

Oct 26, 2023 6:55 PM in response to Filmmaker_Matt

Update: SOLVED

Finally solved it. I made a separate user account and the keys worked fine.

So I erased the hard drive entirely and reinstalled everything with Time Machine. Now the keys work perfectly! (though I had to enable Hardware Media Key Handling in Chrome under chrome://flags/). Now I can play/pause YouTube and my school lectures, even if I'm typing in Word.

So, if anyone else is experiencing this problem, just see if it works in a separate user account and if it does... just reinstall everything with Time Machine.

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Answer 2

Nov 27, 2023 2:51 PM in response to Shareef Yousef

Well this took over my life as I tried to figure it out. Long story short, quit Music app, delete this file, and re-launch.

~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.Music.plist

The actual cause of the issue was the previously mentioned "Updating Cloud Music Library". That apparently locked up something in Apple Music that stops is from responding to ANY controls in the background. It doesn't even send data to any background service (hence why it shows up as a generic "Music.app" in control center). One other tidbit that led me to believe it's a Music app issue was that even bluetooth controls weren't being passed to the Music app. Once that plist is deleted, launching the app, it comes up empty. A simple drag of all the folders/files in ~/Users/Music repopulates it. The only thing that doesn't get repopulated is the "history". So custom playlists will need to be re-created and all the play counts are gone.

Small inconvenience compared to recreating an entire user account.

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Answer 3

Oct 26, 2023 5:42 AM in response to Filmmaker_Matt

Looking back, it does not seem that you have tried the keys on the same system but on a different user account. Did you? And what was the result? This is necessary to determine if the problem is system wide or limited to your account. In the latter case, reinstalling or updating the OS is not likely to help.

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Answer 4

Oct 26, 2023 6:57 PM in response to Luis Sequeira1

This was a good idea. I had made a separate volume on the hard drive and tried that, and it worked fine. But after your comment, I just enabled the guest account, switched over, and it worked.

So I reinstall everything with Time Machine. Now it works fine as it did before. No idea what went wrong because all of the programs and system settings were carried over.

Thanks for the suggestion!

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Answer 5

Oct 26, 2023 5:30 AM in response to Filmmaker_Matt

Update 10/26: so creating a second volume, installing Sonoma 14.1 on it, and booting up to it.... the play/pause and other media keys worked fine!

So... what is the best solution for the primary volume that doesn't involve completely wiping and reinstalling everything? I assume wiping and reinstalling from a Time Machine backup would probably result in the same issue?

FYI, I uninstalled tons of programs, none of them made any difference. Every program I currently have installed has been there since I first got the computer.

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Answer 6

Mar 10, 2024 2:07 PM in response to Filmmaker_Matt

You don't have to delete the plist file, just the part of the preferences that is interfering. You can delete parts with either XCode or the defaults program. If you don't delete "media-folder-url" and "library-url" then you won't have to re-import your library. I deleted almost everything else, not some things that looked like user ids for Gracenote etc. And then the PLAY, FF, and REW keys worked.

If you have XCode, just open "~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.Music.plist". You can delete items one by one to see which is the naughty bit.

In Terminal:

defaults read com.apple.Music

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Answer 7

Nov 28, 2023 7:56 AM in response to Shareef Yousef

Use Xcode to open com.apple.music.plist and update "doesStoreSupportCloudMusicLibrary" to 2. Only issue I've seen is it'd revert back to 1 on next launch. Must be a setting within the Music app that sets that, but signing out of my iCloud account in Music keeps that bug from reappearing.

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Answer 8

Oct 23, 2023 8:10 AM in response to Owl-53

P. Phillips wrote:

All Functions like F1, F2, F6, F7, F8, F9, F10, F11 and F12 have never functioned since macOS 11 to and including macOS 14

All the above Functions are passed off and Controlled by the Builtin functions of the Display ( monitor )

That makes sense for the brightness keys, and maybe the volume, but not the play/pause key...

It looks like you may have set "Use F1, F2 etc as standard function keys" in System Settings->Keyboard.

If that is the case, then to have them work as media keys you need to hold down the Fn key.

FWIW, I see no problem using these keys at all, in Sonoma or any of the previous versions.

And the play/pause still works on Safari. I can switch to another application and pause the video playing in youtube in Safari, no problem.

I wonder if the OP has some software that is intercepting the key presses somehow.

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Answer 9

Oct 24, 2023 1:51 AM in response to Luis Sequeira1

Bizarre. I have a 2017 Intel 15" MBP and I'm sure all the keys work on that that (or touch bar I should say), though I haven't upgraded it to Sonoma.

But this issue on my Mac Mini existed well before I installed Sonoma. I'm not quite sure when, but nothing significant has changed - same keyboard (I even tried my old one), same monitors, I haven't reinstalled macOS or done anything.

The keys are not set to use as standard, because 1) the volume up/down/mute, Spotlight search, do not disturb, etc. all work fine, and 2) the media keys still don't work when pressing the Fn button.

I've even uninstalled tons of software in case that could be interfering. But, I'd have thought all of that would have been disabled when I booted into Safe Mode, where those keys still didn't work.

The keys do not work in anything. Chrome, Safari, Firefox, Music, VLC, YouTube, Spotify (which I have since uninstalled), nothing.

I purchased a third-party wired keyboard on Amazon that will be here today. I'm not too confident it will work, but it's worth trying. I'm also going to disconnect all of my external peripherals - Thunderbolt 4 dock, second monitor, Time Machine HDD, external SSD, speaker, everything except the essentials. I will report back later, but I'm not too hopeful. Give how many people are having this issue based on google searches, it's bizarre that Apple hasn't acknowledged it or fixed it (for apparently years). I mean, I'm using an Apple brand keyboard, not some knock off.

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Answer 10

Nov 28, 2023 7:45 AM in response to Shareef Yousef

Welp, that didn't last long. A restart of the Music app and the issue is back to "Updating Cloud Music Library" and controls stopped working. Deleting the plist fixes it again, so filed a bug with Apple. Seems to be an issue with it creating the plist with a setting tied to cloud music library. May give messing with the plist a try.

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Answer 11

Nov 27, 2023 12:35 PM in response to Shareef Yousef

One more issue found: when I click the control center for Apple Music it doesn't show anything and doesn't allow me to control anything. So this is def more than just a keyboard issue.

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Answer 12

Owl-53

Level 10

107,457 points

Oct 23, 2023 9:13 AM in response to Luis Sequeira1

Luis Sequeira1 wrote:

P. Phillips wrote:

All Functions like F1, F2, F6, F7, F8, F9, F10, F11 and F12 have never functioned since macOS 11 to and including macOS 14

All the above Functions are passed off and Controlled by the Builtin functions of the Display ( monitor )

That makes sense for the brightness keys, and maybe the volume, but not the play/pause key..

7 on 9 Keys Fxx keys 77.7 % correct 😎

32.3 % Not Right

Yes Pause and Play have just tested and yes your are 100 % correct 👍

It looks like you may have set "Use F1, F2 etc as standard function keys" in System Settings->Keyboard.

If that is the case, then to have them work as media keys you need to hold down the Fn key.

Thanks but kind of like to keep the Standard Keys as Standard

The expected behaviours of the key depressing associate with the marking on the keyboard are, for me a good guide

At this stage of life - do forget some things from time to time

I wonder if the OP has some software that is intercepting the key presses somehow.

Food for thought

Reply

Answer 13

Owl-53

Level 10

107,457 points

Oct 24, 2023 1:24 AM in response to Owl-53

P. Phillips wrote:

Luis Sequeira1 wrote:

P. Phillips wrote:

All Functions like F1, F2, F6, F7, F8, F9, F10, F11 and F12 have never functioned since macOS 11 to and including macOS 14

All the above Functions are passed off and Controlled by the Builtin functions of the Display ( monitor )

That makes sense for the brightness keys, and maybe the volume, but not the play/pause key..

7 on 9 Keys Fxx keys 77.7 % correct 😎

32.3 % Not Right

Yes Pause and Play have just tested and yes your are 100 % correct 👍

It looks like you may have set "Use F1, F2 etc as standard function keys" in System Settings->Keyboard.

If that is the case, then to have them work as media keys you need to hold down the Fn key.

Thanks but kind of like to keep the Standard Keys as Standard

The expected behaviours of the key depressing associate with the marking on the keyboard are, for me a good guide

At this stage of life - do forget some things from time to time

I wonder if the OP has some software that is intercepting the key presses somehow.

Food for thought

Self correction should read 23.3% - Not Right

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Answer 14

dialabrain

Level 10

137,567 points

Oct 23, 2023 6:05 AM in response to Filmmaker_Matt

FWIW, the browser being used has to be in focus for the media keys to work.

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Answer 15

Oct 23, 2023 6:27 AM in response to dialabrain

No it doesn't, or at least it didn't used to need to be. I used to type notes in Word and hit pause if I needed to pause the lecture, then hit play to resume, all without switching back to Chrome.

But that doesn't change the fact that it doesn't work for anything... YouTube, Spotify, iTunes, anything.

I stopped being able to do that at the same time the media keys stopped doing anything at all.

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