Play button (media buttons) behavior has changed for the worse.

I agree, the new behavior is terrible and not very useful. Now when I'm on a web page and a video starts playing, I hit 'pause' to stop my music, so I can actually hear the video. But instead, the music keeps playing, and the VIDEO is paused. Completely backwards. And very often, the play/pause buttons will do nothing at all. Like they lose track of what app they are supposed to be working in and just do nothing.

The media buttons used to act like this in iPhoto/Photos I believe, but they'd control iTunes in any other app. Even back then, I used to want to change them so they ONLY ever worked to control iTunes. But now, they've gone in the exact wrong direction with this feature. If enough people complain, they absolutely will fix it....

Remember everyone, http://www.apple.com/feedback if you want to complain in a format that will actually count.

Keep calm and try the following:

1. Restart in Safe Mode (press the Shift-key when hearing the chime sound and keep it pressed until you see the grey Apple-logo and the progress bar).
2. Log in as usual.
3. Open iTunes and try the media keys - you won't hear any music playing as Safe Mode prevents that but you will see that the media keys now function again because Safe Mode cleared out some caches that were behaving in a naughty way).
4. Restart normally (don't hold any keys).
5. Open iTunes and enjoy the media keys again. 🙂

I found a very simple fix:

1. Open keyboard settings
2. Check the "Use F1, F2, etc. keys as standard function keys" checkbox
3. Close Keyboard Settings
4. Re-open Keyboard Settings, and uncheck "Use F1, F2..."
5. Place my cursor in Spotify (for me, maybe Apple Music for you)
6. Now the media controls map to Spotify again, even when I move to a different screen or app.

We aren’t saying the media keys don’t work. We are saying high Sierra has changed the way they work. If you just open up iTunes and use them it will work fine, but then if you navigate to a web page with some sort of media (video/music player) and you push the pause button to stop your iTunes music, it will instead play/pause the media on the web browser. You then have to manually bring iTunes back up and click play/pause.

To me this totally defeats the purpose of shortcut media keys. If I can’t use it to control a background app it’s useless.

I disagree. It is USELESS for YouTube. If you are watching a YouTube video you can press space bar on your keyboard to play/pause it. So now, if I am on a page with a YouTube video I have two buttons to play/pause the YouTube video, and zero buttons to play/pause my iTunes music.

No. The media keys will work again as they always did if you follow my instructions. The issue is resolved when certain caches are emptied - which you can do easily by starting in Safe Mode, using the media keys in iTunes, and restarting in normal mode again. High Sierra didn't change anything about the use of the keys. It's a matter of cleaning out the caches and the issue is resolved. Just try it.

The problem is that it doesn't work like that. First of all, why would I ever need shortcut media keys for the "active window"? If I am actively in iTunes I don't need a special button to pause it. I want it to pause when its in the background. Before high sierra the media keys would always play and pause iTunes no matter what. If I started a youtube video then hit pause it would stop my music and the video would continue. Now if I start a youtube video I have to manually click back to iTunes and click the pause button with my pointer. Even though iTunes is then the active window is only controls the most recently opened window. It has nothing to do with being the active window. If I leave the youtube video open to watch later and just continue web browsing in a new tab, I can't control my music with the media keys. they now only function for the youtube tab that I'm not even looking at.

Try this once and let me know.

Play music on iTunes. In safari go to YouTube and pull up any video. Once the video starts playing push the pause button on your keyboard.

In my case, it pauses the video and NOT iTunes. This is not how I want it to work. I don’t want shortcut keys for YouTube.

i have noticed that sometimes my google chrome browser (the Google Play Music Extension) in particular is highjacking my media control keys. You can get chrome to undo this by going to the vertical 3 dots (...More Tools>Extensions, Keyboard Shortcuts and unbinding them. (You have to make sure your Google Play Music Extension is enabled for this controls to be visible

Please, we all need to file a feedback report : Product Feedback - Apple

Called apple all afternoon yesterday, they made me reinstall the OS and reset everything to then later find out that its a "feature" haha

Sorry to tell but the @Deep Sky Diver solution doesn't work, or at least for me. I restarted in safe mode and started iTunes and also safari with a youtube video. The behavior is exactly the same –I also play music, I really don't know why he says you can't play music in safe mode...

Anyhow the only thing that has worked for me is this small app I found in Ask Different:

http://milgra.com/high-sierra-media-key-enabler.html

GitHub - milgra/highsierramediakeyenabler: MacOS High Sierra Media Key Enabler for iTunes

It's not a great solution –botched job, since you have to install an additional software– but works.

I recommend all of you to tell Apple thought feedback about how annoying is the change in behavior.

I contacted Apple today regarding this issue and received some terrible customer service.

After being told to check the keyboard settings, I requested to speak with a senior advisor as the person I was speaking with hadn't even heard of this issue. This is how the conversation went after I asked to speak to a senior advisor:

(CS Rep)

Senior advisor says: This is a behavior that is not a ‘problem’, leave feedback at http://www.apple.com/feedback regarding this.

(Me)

So this is by design?

(CS Rep)

Not intentional if that is what you are asking.

(Me)

So it's not intentional... but not a problem? I'm confused.

Did Apple add this as a feature? Or is it a bug?

(CS Rep)

It is being reported but not as an issue/problem.

(Me)

But it is a problem...

And thousands of people agree.

(CS Rep)

Feedback to Apple will determine any next steps taken by engineers.

(Me)

So it's a bug. But you can't call it that?

(CS Rep)

Call it whatever you like and please make your feedback known.

(Me)

I am. And I'm talking to you trying to find a solution.

(CS Rep)

I apologize but I have no ‘solution’

This will be something Apple Engineers will ned to solve.

(Me)

I'll log a feedback report. But please don't play these "it's not a problem" games. Apple has broken long standing functionality. It is a problem. I'm now more frustrated than I was before I contacted support!

(CS Rep)

Way above my pay grade

(Me)

Okay, got it. Thank you for your time.

-----

Anyway, I've installed this app: http://milgra.com/high-sierra-media-key-enabler.html which solves the issue as long as I don't have both spotify and iTunes open at the same time.

I am too struggling with this new "feature" and would prefer the old behaviour, here is the feedback I just submitted:

Hi in High Sierra the media key behaviour has changed. My usual flow is while listening to music in iTunes and browsing the web and begin to view a video I usually press the pause key to pause the music. Instead it pauses the video! There are a few other issues with this behaviour like after the video ends the media keys still don't return to iTunes and the tab has to be closed. Also sometimes it's hard to understand which application has captured the media keys, e.g. sometimes I press play and something is playing and after I've quit Safari, and iTunes I then find that Reeder is playing a video even though one isn't even displayed. I'd like to request that an option is added to the keyboard settings to return to the original behaviour of the media keys only controlling iTunes thanks.

This is the right solution, works perfectly.

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It is nice to have it for youtube, but it was quite comfortable to start something from iTunes too. I think it should work with iTunes if in the active safari tab there is no youtube, what is the purpose to start youtube from a tab I can't see? I understand if I'm watching an youtube video it's ok. So, I think if there is an youtube video I watch right now , it could work for it, if not iTunes. If there are more in the same time, use it by default to the one in foreground, and allow to use it for background with cmd/ctrl/option button for example, so we can stop what is in the background.