IPad spontaneously suddenly plays music without music player either in sleep mode or when running other apps

Question

IPad spontaneously suddenly plays music without music player either in sleep mode or when running other apps

I have read pages and pages from other people saying that their iPad spontaneously plays music, often when flat on a desk or in their bag. Mine has just started doing this, once, when running iRealB (so there was music from that app) suddenly there was other music too (from my library) but no other app running. Then a while later when in sleep mode it played a different tune from my library. When double clicking the home button to view all active apps, only Safari was active. When ending Safari there were NO apps running at all, not the music player, nothing, but the music continued. I had to start the music player to see the song that was playing, when starting this, the song showed as halfway through as if music player had been up and running all along. Some people say this is linked to a blue tooth keyboard but I've never owned one so that is the wrong answer.

If so many people are posting this error, it has to be a software bug in IOS 5 so why is there no answer from Apple? I can't see a way of reporting problems to Apple, do we just have to hope they read the discussions?

Thanks for reading!

Lisa.

iPad 2 Wi-Fi, iOS 5.0.1

Posted on Feb 16, 2012 5:53 PM

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Answer 1

Best reply

ItsMeSherryE

Level 1

4 points

Feb 20, 2013 7:18 PM in response to Lisa-guitarist

This happened to me last night. I was playing Candy Crush and minimized the app and closed the cover to make the iPad sleep. I had headphones plugged in so I didn't disturb my family's TV watching. I opened the iPad back up and put the headphones back in my ear and heard music playing. I checked to see how the iTunes app started, because I hadn't started it. It wasn't opened. I closed all apps and the music was still playing! I turned off bluetooth connectivity and the music played on. I unplugged the headphones and the music stopped. I don't know what was happening, but it was a little spooky.

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Answer 2

May 18, 2017 6:46 PM in response to Lisa-guitarist

Any updates on this? I have the same problem, no BT keyboard, headphones plugged in always, and music plays on its own. I have woke up in the middle of the night to hearing what sounded like voices talking and it was my iPad!

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Answer 3

JimHdk

Level 7

28,874 points

Feb 16, 2012 6:13 PM in response to Lisa-guitarist

To report a bug to Apple use http://www.apple.com/feedback/ipad.html or http://bugreport.apple.com

This is a user-to-user forum Apple does not participate here.

Apple does not normally comment on bugs.

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Answer 4

Feb 17, 2012 1:15 AM in response to JimHdk

Hi Jim,

That's helpful but he second link is only for Apple developers, not for reporting bugs in the IOS.

I sent a report using the first link but I have grave doubts as to it's effectiveness because after filling in the form, it asks me what operating system I'm on and instead of giving me a list of IOS it gives me a list of MAC OS. If the form is that inaccurate, it doesn't give me much hope!

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Answer 5

Feb 17, 2012 2:05 AM in response to Lisa-guitarist

None of the iOS devices have a data field for iOS version in their Feedback page. This is a well-known issue, a feature of their page design, and is not any reason for you to be concerned about its effectiveness.

As for your original post, sorry ..... I simply can't find the "pages and pages" of posts about this issue. In fact, if you look at the "More like this?" block off to the right, none of them seem to have anything to do with what you're talking about.

You make several claims as to what was running and what was not. How did you determine that? The only way to ensure that some apps are not running in the background is to Force Quit them using one of the two methods available to you. Are you actually saying, as you appear to be, that when you double-clicked Home to open up the MT/Recents Tray that the only icon there was Safari? Does that mean you routinely delete all of the rest of them? If so, why?

There's absolutely no indication that this is a software bug in iOS 5, and none of the relatively few people who have reported this sort of thing in the past even hinted at that. Most, once again, seemed to center their discovering on BT keyboards being left on and their iPads responding to random inputs from them. You discount that as a wrong answer, and perhaps it is .. for you. Not, evidently, for most others.

Why whatever is happening is happening to you remains unknown but there are things you can do. Your Users Guide has a whole chapter (at the end) devoted to what you do when things aren't going well, generally following the sequence of

Restart - red slider, then boot up again
Force Quit apps - either via Sleep/Wake followed by Home, or via Recents Tray
Reset - hold Home & Sleep/Wake to force reboot
Reset iPad Settings - Settings > General >Reset
Erase All Content - same as above
Restore iPad Software - iTunes or iOS 5 equivalent

You start at #1 and work your way through until the issue you're seeing goes away. If you get through all of the steps and it still doesn't work, you're pretty much out of gas and have to start talking to Apple.

I think in this case I'd start out at #3. Good luck!

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Answer 6

Feb 17, 2012 4:24 AM in response to Michael Morgan1

Hi Michael,

Thanks for taking the time to reply. I'm having a bit of trouble following your instructions. When you say 'MT/Recents tray' - what does 'MT' mean? I assume you mean when you double click home you get the list of apps that are running. Yes, I routinely delete those that I'm not using because the Apple assistant that sold the iPad to me said that other apps running use up battery life. I find this a little suspect but have no way of proving or disproving it! She also told me that you had to hold the start button AND the home button to switch it on (wrong!) and that you could not transfer any MP3 files from iTunes that had not been bought directly from the iTunes store (also wrong!) so I think she didn't have a clue about the iPad!

Anyway, I have been led to believe that what you see in that bottom bar is what is actually running at the time and this seems to be true as those are the apps that I can 'four-finger swipe' between. Is that right? So if I just see Safari, only Safari is running? I was confused when the music player wasn't running but when I started it, it was halfway through the song I could hear playing, how is that possible? That's one of the things that confuses me as a conventional computer user where only applications that are actually running can do anything. I've not owned an iPod or iPhone before so its all a little different.

The pages and pages of discussions about this were from a Google search.

What are the two methods of force-quitting? I guess one is the double click then holding an app to get the 'no entry' sign on each wobbling icon.

I will leave it switched on today and see if there is any more spontaneous music and let you know!

Again, thanks for the reply,

Best wishes,

Lisa.

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Answer 7

Dec 15, 2012 6:51 PM in response to Lisa-guitarist

My iPad (IOS6) also will spontaneously burst into song. We thought it might be the blue tooth Apple wireless keyboard sending spurious inputs, but ruled that out when we were in a taxi a kilometer or so from home, and had left the wireless keyboard at home. We thought the taxi driver had his radio turned on softly, then realized it was our playlist playing on our iPad.

Is there a chance that other Bluetooth devices might be able to send the occasional signal to the iPad and have the iPad receive said signal and act upon it? That shouldn't be able to happen, as we have to explicitly pair the Bluetooth keyboard with our iPad. One would think that the Bluetooth pairing is secure and exclusive between paired devices.

We have tried using the apple wireless keyboard top row of keys to initiate an iTunes playback, and the top row keys work as intended.

Does this spontaneous playback happen only when the iPad Bluetooth is turned on?

Does this mean that I have to turn off Bluetooth when I am not using the apple wireless keyboard?

If yes, then it is an extra step we have to remember to do when we want to use the apple wireless keyboard -- turn on, or off, the iPad Bluetooth feature.

Whatever the cause of the spontaneous playing of music on the iPad, it's nice to know we are not the only ones.

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Answer 8

Morriehr

Level 1

12 points

Feb 13, 2014 9:12 AM in response to Lisa-guitarist

I don't know who is saying that this doesn't happen, because it certainly does. The problem isn't being able to stop the music once you know it's on; it's that my battery runs down because the music has been playing without my being aware of it. This happens erratically. It has happened since I got my Ipad. It is very annoying and I'm disappointed that Apple doesn't seem to care about it.

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Answer 9

Mar 8, 2014 10:39 AM in response to Morriehr

My iPad suddenly started playing coldplay. I dont like Coldplay and havent any of their songs in my iTune library. No apps were running. I filmed what was happening using my iPhone 4 so there can be no denying it now. We have the proof.

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