There is no pause in video when pressing the play button of another media file

[AndreyKaiu]

Checked for duplicates?

• This issue is not a duplicate

Does it also happen in the desktop version?

• This bug does not occur in the latest version of Anki Desktop

What are the steps to reproduce this bug?

An mp4 video file and an mp3 file were placed in one field. Autoplay was disabled for the deck. By clicking the button, I started playing the mp4 file and then the mp3 audio file.

Expected behaviour

The video file doesn't pause, but it does in Anki (tested on Windows).

Debug info

AnkiDroid Version = 2.23.1 (3f3133b496b531383e9a6494f5a7704634935308)  
Backend Version = 0.1.62-anki25.09.2 (25.09.2 3890e12c9e48c028c3f12aa58cb64bd9f8895e30)  
Android Version = 14 (SDK 34)  
ProductFlavor = play  
Device Info = OUKITEL | OUKITEL | C51 | C51_U_EEA | C51 | ums9230_6h10  
Webview User Agent = Mozilla/5.0 (Linux; Android 14; C51 Build/UP1A.231005.007; wv) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/4.0 Chrome/143.0.7499.34 Mobile Safari/537.36  
ACRA UUID = 4946b4d0-a0f1-4ee1-b7e4-ab1d23ede639  
FSRS = 5.1.0 (Enabled: false)  
Crash Reports Enabled = true

(Optional) Anything else you want to share?

The error is described on the forum: https://forums.ankiweb.net/t/video-and-audio-should-only-play-together-at-the-same-time/67905

Research

• I have checked the manual and the FAQ and could not find a solution to my issue
• (Optional) I have confirmed the issue is not resolved in the latest alpha release (instructions)

[welcome]

Hello! 👋 Thanks for logging this issue. Please remember we are all volunteers here, so some patience may be required before we can get to the issue. Also remember that the fastest way to get resolution on an issue is to propose a change directly, https://github.com/ankidroid/Anki-Android/wiki/Contributing

[sanjaysargam]

We have separate media players for both audio and video files. There is no any communication between each other. That's why they are playing independently. I think the best way possible way is to have a centralized MediaStateManager which can track all active media players

[ShaanNarendran]

@david-allison is having them separate intended or do we want it to be managed? (saw that you had written the media player file)

[BrayanDSO]

The audio player runs on the Android side, while videos play at the WebView, so it isn't possible to have a single media player for both of them.

Moving audios to the WebView would be an option, but WebView audio can't be played along other playing audio in the device, and that is useful if someone is listening to background music.

[kaike0000]

This also happens with video/video, and on AnkiWeb it’s even worse — it also happens with audio/audio. We are waiting for the team to fix it.

[ujjol1234]

Hi, I would like to work on this issue. Could you please assign it to me? My understanding is that currently, AnkiDroid appears to handle audio(Native) and video(WebView) playback through separate player instances that do not communicate with each other. I plan to implement a centralized layer to track active media players.

[izatkplus-collab]

Are you saying this happens because audio and video use different players? But that's not true, because it also happens with video/video that use the same player.

I think this issue is more general than just audio (native) vs video (WebView).
The same problem happens with video/video as well:
if one video is playing and I press play on another video, both videos keep playing at the same time.
This shows that the root cause is not only the separation between native audio and WebView video, but the absence of a global media playback management.
Each media element (audio or video) starts playing independently, without checking whether another media is already active.
From a user perspective, the expected behavior is that starting any media pauses all other currently playing media, similar to how Anki Desktop behaves.And he's right!

[55ys]

I agree with this analysis, and I want to reinforce that this behavior is really disruptive in practice.
When multiple media files play at the same time (audio/audio, video/video, or audio/video), it becomes confusing and negatively affects study flow.
From a user perspective, it is reasonable to expect that starting any new media pauses all previously playing media, even if they are handled by different players internally.
Anki Desktop already behaves this way, so aligning AnkiDroid with that behavior would significantly improve usability.
Even if the internal implementation is complex, I believe this is a real UX issue and worth addressing in some form.

[BrayanDSO]

Everyone is welcome to send a PR that introduces a reasonable solution.

[ShaanNarendran]

I have a fix that works, the solution is a new class MediaStateManager.kt like sanjay suggested and the functionality it performs is:

Scenario 1:
Let's say we have 3 videos and an mp3 in a card, if I play all 3 videos and then play the mp3. All 3 videos are paused, regardless of whether or not they have audio in the background.

Scenario 2:
If we have an mp3 playing and x videos with no audio, if we play the videos nothing happens to the audio.

Scenario 3:
If we have an mp3 playing and x videos with audio, if we play the videos, the audio is paused.

If this is fine, I can open a pr for what I changed otherwise if there is anything else required ill look into it, I left video vs video since people may be using it and the main issue for me was the mp3 vs video.

[sanjaysargam]

Can you confirm these scenarios in Anki Desktop, how it handles?

[ShaanNarendran]

Can you confirm these scenarios in Anki Desktop, how it handles?

How it works in Anki desktop for me (using a MacBook), is that whenever videos are played it opens an mpv window and starts that video alone (stopping any other audio or video that are in play), same thing with audio. I don't think we can implement in the same way because, like what Brayan said, our mp3 audio goes through android while the videos are through webview.

[55ys]

Você pode confirmar esses cenários no Anki Desktop, como ele lida?

O que funciona no desktop Anki para mim (usando um MacBook) é que sempre que vídeos são reproduzidos, ele abre uma janela mpv e inicia o vídeo sozinho (parando qualquer outro áudio ou vídeo que esteja em reprodução), a mesma coisa acontece com o áudio. Não creio que possamos implementar da mesma forma porque, como disse Brayan, nosso áudio mp3 passa pelo Android enquanto os vídeos passam pelo webview.

Even though Anki Desktop stops all media via a single external player, Android has technical limitations.
This proposal still preserves the core behavior (avoiding overlapping audio), so it seems like a reasonable approximation for AnkiDroid.Feel free to open a PR.