One of the best features of Google Pixel smartphones is “Now Playing,” an ambient way of tracking music that’s playing in your vicinity without having to open an app or ask a digital assistant. But, as of late, the feature doesn’t seem to be working as well as it used to.
“Now Playing” is a simple feature, but one that’s rather impressive the more you dig into it. Debuting on Pixel 2 and still available on the latest devices, Now Playing is able to use a database to recognize songs that are playing around you without using a bunch of data (as it can leverage offline data for a large collection of songs) or having a major impact on battery life. The feature has improved in its capabilities over time, most recently adding album artwork and a default music player shortcut to the history feed. Back in April 2024, our Abner Li called on Google to “thoroughly modernize” Now Playing, including various overdue app improvements and new functionality for the beloved Pixel feature.
But, for many Pixel owners, new features aren’t much of a concern as there’s a bigger problem – Now Playing doesn’t seem to work as well as it did in the past.
Users on Google’s forums, Reddit, and Google’s Issue Tracker have been questioning whether or not recent updates have broken Now Playing on Google Pixel devices. That’s because, for many, the feature just doesn’t seem to be working nearly as well as it did in the past. During the Android 15 beta program, Google acknowledged a crashing problem with Now Playing on Pixel devices, saying it would be fixed in a “future release,” but Google later re-opened the issue and hasn’t provided any further updates. This doesn’t seem to be the core issue, though, as Now Playing isn’t crashing so much as it’s just not working.
It’s hard to directly get a metric here since this is an ambient feature.
Anecdotally, I’ve personally noticed that Now Playing doesn’t recognize nearly as many songs as it used to, with a day full of music in my office often only triggering 5-10 songs over several hours. I think that could be related to Spotify Connect, and Now Playing perhaps getting a bit better at recognizing when my music app is just playing on another device. But performance issues are still readily apparent. During a movie over the weekend, the feature only caught five of 11 songs featured in the film. Android Authority says that out of 10 songs played in a direct test, only one was identified by Now Playing. And, as for manual searches, they seems to just not work at all as of late. Even with some popular songs, I couldn’t get Now Playing to recognize anything in some quick tests. But when I left Now Playing to automatically recognize songs, it picked up two Lewis Capaldi tracks immediately, but only after I’d opened up Now Playing history beforehand.
I’ve also noticed that the lock screen chip for Now Playing hardly ever shows anymore, similarly only appearing consistently after I manually open settings for the feature.
Google did roll out a Now Playing update in late January with “bug fixes and improvements,” but the changelog implies this is strictly related to the new album art feature.
With a lack of direct evidence or answers from Google, it’s hard to know what’s going on here. But it’s clear that something is amiss, as users are bringing up this issue fairly consistently. Some say they’ve seen success in clearing the cache for Android System Intelligence or simply disabling and reenabling Now Playing, but your results may vary.
Have you been noticing problems with Now Playing on your Google Pixel device? Let us know in the comments below.
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