Recently, a lot of iPhone users started complaining that the Spotify app on their iPhones suddenly stops playing music when they turn off their phone’s screen, especially, people who just upgraded to iOS 14 version and above, making this problem now famously known as the “Spotify app stops playing when screen is off problem on iPhones“.
But if you turned it off, and the problem got solved, well, congrats to you, but, if it doesn’t, then that takes us to the third option.
3. Enable Background App Refresh for the Spotify app
The “Background App Refresh” is a feature that keeps apps open and updating in the background even when in sleep mode.
Most people choose to disable this feature cause of its aggressive battery consumption, but we’re not gonna turn ours on or off completely, as we’re only gonna turn it on for the specific apps that need it, just like the Spotify app, and then turn it off for every other app that doesn’t.
And to turn this feature on, all you have to do is;
- Go to your iPhone settings menu, and go to “General“.
- From there, loacte and go to “Background App Refresh“, and turn it on.
- After turning on the option itself, from the list of apps below, you can disable the feature using the toggle buttons in front of them for the ones you don’t want, and keep it enabled for the ones you want, such as the Spotify app.
4. Force restart your iPhone
But, what if after doing everything from the first method to the third method above and the problem persists, well, maybe a good old force restarting your iPhone might just be what the phone needs right now, and, as you all know, restarting electronic devices such as phones, helps to fix most common issues like this most of the time.
And bear in mind that restarting your iPhone is absolutely different from resetting it. Restarting does no harm to your phone as it’s basically just turning off and turning it back on, so, you shouldn’t be bothered about losing your data here.
And to force restart your iPhone, well, depending on your version of iOS and the iPhone itself, the methods of doing this are different.
So, for the iPhone 6, 6s, and SE 1st Gen
- Press and hold the home button, and power button.
- When the Apple logo appears, release the buttons.
- Now you just have to simply wait for the phone to turn off, and reboot on its own.
So, like I said, a good old force restart in most cases, helps to fix common electronic software problems like the infamous “Spotify app stops playing when your screen is off” problem troubling your iPhone, but, what if it doesn’t fix it this time?
Well, then that brings us to the next option.
Sometimes, issues like this might arise from the fact that our phones are running on an outdated or obsolete version of their proprietary software, and the only way to fix it is by updating the said phone to its latest software version.
So, to check and update our iPhones to the latest version of iOS, all we have to do is;
- Go to your iPhone settings, and tap on “General“.
- From there, locate and tap on the “Software Update” settings option.
- From the software update page, if you see the option to update your phone to a new version of iOS, simply do so.
- And for those who are already running on the latest version, and doesn’t see an option to update, well, you should probably try looking at the last option below.
6. Erase and reset your iPhone
So, if you’ve tried all the steps above, and you’re still stuck with the “Spotify app stops playing when your screen is off” issue on your iPhone, then, maybe it’s actually time to factory reset that iPhone of yours.
But remember, you should only do this when you’ve tried all possible methods, and have no other choice but to do so, as factory resetting your iPhone will wipe every single piece of data from your phone, and it is advised that you first backup your phone before attempting this.
To factory reset your iPhone, all you have to do is;
- Go to your iPhone settings page, and go to “General” settings.
- Scroll to the bottom of the page until you see the “Reset” option, tap on it.
- From the options shown to you on the new page, tap “Erase All Content And Settings“.
- If you’re asked to provide your iPhone passcode, simply do so, and if you’re asked to provide your Apple ID password, do so as well.
- You might also be prompted to backup your files to the iCloud before erasing the phone, and I’ll advice you to do this if you haven’t done it before.
- After all that, tap on “Erase” and your iPhone will be wiped clean and restored to the same way it was when you took it out of the box.