Automattic / Automattic/pocket-casts-android

WearOS: Unable to Play nor Resume Playback on Fossil Hybrid Smart Watch via Bluetooth

Open
#3,814 0 comments 0 reactions 0 assignees View on GitHub
[Area] Wear OS [Priority] Low [Type] Bug
Dominant language
Kotlin
Stars
2.8k
Forks
308
Avg merge
1d 13h
Merged PRs (30d)
143

Description

### Description

User is experiencing an issue where their Fossil Hybrid smartwatch, connected via Bluetooth, is unable to play or resume podcasts using the Pocket Casts app, although stopping playback works fine. Other audio apps are functioning correctly.

Playback does not resume after pressing the button in my smartwatch once, but after the third time, it does.

Fossil Hybrid smartwatch which with the app Fossil Smartwatches v.5.1.14.

They are on

Logs available in (#9531583-zd-a8c) attached:
[debug.txt](https://github.com/user-attachments/files/19431947/debug.2.txt)

Highlight from the log:
```
I 24/2 16:34:19 Event from Media Session to KeyEvent { action=ACTION_UP, keyCode=KEYCODE_MEDIA_PLAY_PAUSE, scanCode=0, metaState=0, flags=0x0, repeatCount=0, eventTime=0, downTime=0, deviceId=-1, source=0x0, displayId=-1 }.

[debug(2).txt](https://github.com/user-attachments/files/19431765/debug.2.txt)

Controller: com.fossil.wearables.fossil pid: 4374 uid: 10270
I 24/2 16:34:20 Trying to gain audio focus
E 24/2 16:34:20 Could not get audio focus, stopping
```

### Step-by-step reproduction instructions

Using the controls on the watch to play and pause an episode.
Stopping the episode works, but resuming playback does not.
You can pick to use one of the buttons to stop and start whatever music/audio app is active at the moment via Bluetooth.

### Screenshots or screen recording

_No response_

### Did you search for existing bug reports?

- [x] I have searched for existing bug reports.

### Device, Operating system, and Pocket Casts app version

Fossil Smartwatches v.5.1.14.
App version : 7.84.1 (9322)
Phone: Google - Panther - Pixel 7 - panther
Kernel: 6.1.99-android14-11
Android version: 15 SDK 35

Contributor guide

Open the contributing guide

Research direction

No source file or test is named. Start by reproducing playback and resume through the Fossil Hybrid watch over Bluetooth, then inspect the supplied debug logs around the media-session key event and audio-focus failure. Done means pressing the watch control reliably resumes Pocket Casts playback, as well as stopping it.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Assessment

Tech stack
android, kotlin
Domain
mobile
Issue type
Bug
Difficulty
4/5
Estimated time
3-5 days
Activity status
Stale
Clarity
Mostly clear
Newbie friendliness
35/100

Get new issues in your inbox

A short digest of beginner-friendly GitHub issues.