One of the most unique and beloved features for Google Pixel smartphone owners hasn’t been working as advertised of late.
The Now Playing feature is one of those little bonus features that can really enhance the experience of Pixel ownership. It essentially keeps your Pixel phone on constant alert for any music playing in the background.
From the Pixel 2 through to the current Pixel 9 series, when you glance at the phone while a music track is playing, said track will be identified right there on the lock screen. It’ll also be noted for posterity in the Now Playing app.
What’s the problem with Now Playing?
That’s how Now Playing should be operating. However, a new report by Android Authority claims that the feature has not been working properly for many people.
Numerous Pixel owners have taken to Reddit to report that their Pixel phones are no longer identifying playing music, despite confirming that Now Playing is active in the Settings menu.
This appears to be an issue that has manifested quite recently. “With my Pixel 6, it was fantastic,” one user notes. “It would recognise nearly every song, whether automatically or manually. But now, it hardly works at all.”
Anecdotal evidence
It’s a problem I can attest to experiencing on my Pixel 9 Pro , albeit intermittently. Sometimes it seems to work as intended, with a lengthy list of tracks from nights out and days in with the radio. On other occasions, it seems to draw a blank across successive songs.
Indeed, on one evening sat in a bar with a Pixel 7a -owning friend, neither of our phones picked up any of the classic funk and soul track that were playing in the background.
For the purposes of this piece I fired my Pixel back up and quickly played through three songs from YouTube Music. Now Playing only picked up on the third one.
Jon Mundy / Foundry
Is Now Playing broken?
Anecdotal evidence is one thing, of course. But this latest report highlights plenty of similar issues occurring for multiple Pixel owners, which points to a much wider problem. Is Now Playing flat out broken?
As the report points out, the issue was initially raised on Google’s Issue Tracker last year. Google, for its part, released an update to Android System Intelligence in January supplying “bug fixes and improvements to Pixel Now Playing Album Art feature”, but seemingly to no great effect.
One potential workaround is to clear your Pixel phone’s Now Playing cache by heading to Settings > Apps > All Apps > Android System Intelligence > Storage and cache, then hitting the Clear cache button.
Otherwise, Pixel owners will need to wait for Google to issue a proper Now Playing fix.
Google Pixel 9 Pro
Author: Jon Mundy, Contributor, Tech Advisor
Jon is a freelance journalist who got his start covering mobile games at the dawn of the App Store. He has since covered everything from smart home tech and laptops to food and culture, but always seems to return to his fascination with smartphones.
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