Android Wear media control not showing previous/next buttons

Question

I'm developing a media player. Unfortunately I can't use the MediaBrowserService to better support devices connected over bluetooth. But at least I implemented the MediaSession class to broadcast playback information using the AVRCP protocol.

When I start playback, my Wear watch automatically shows a notification but only with Play/Pause button. If I use Previous/Next buttons on my headphones or in my car, it works perfectly. But I don't have those buttons in the notification on Android Wear.

Is it possible to force the watch to display those buttons? If I sart any other player, I have those buttons on my watch. But not with my own player.

Here is my code:

mMediaSession = new MediaSessionCompat(this, "MuzikaServiceMediaSession");
        mMediaSession.setFlags(MediaSessionCompat.FLAG_HANDLES_MEDIA_BUTTONS | MediaSessionCompat.FLAG_HANDLES_TRANSPORT_CONTROLS);
        mMediaSession.setActive(true);
        mMediaSession.setCallback(myMediaSessionCallback);
        PlaybackStateCompat state = new PlaybackStateCompat.Builder()
                .setActions(PlaybackStateCompat.ACTION_PLAY_PAUSE | PlaybackStateCompat.ACTION_PLAY | PlaybackStateCompat.ACTION_PAUSE |
                        PlaybackStateCompat.ACTION_SKIP_TO_NEXT | PlaybackStateCompat.ACTION_SKIP_TO_PREVIOUS |
                        PlaybackStateCompat.ACTION_FAST_FORWARD | PlaybackStateCompat.ACTION_REWIND
                )
                .setState(PlaybackStateCompat.STATE_STOPPED, 0, 1f)
                .build();
        mMediaSession.setPlaybackState(state);

Thank you.

Answer 1

I had similar problem. Reason was using exoplayer's MediaSessionConnector which override media buttons functions. By default MediaSessionConnector override only PLAY/PAUSE button and when you try to use PlaybackStateCompat.Builder() it not work because MediaSessionConnector override this job. MediaSessionConnector not incude ACTION_SKIP_TO_PREVIOUS and ACTION_SKIP_TO_NEXT becuse for this you need to implement TimelineQueueNavigator (It handles the actions ACTION_SKIP_PREVIOUS, ACTION_SKIP_NEXT and ACTION_SKIP_TO_QUEUE_ITEM) as part of MediaSessionConnector. See details at the Medium page

For fixing it I removed totally MediaSessionConnector from my code and add next code at initialization:

PlaybackStateCompat.Builder stateBuilder;
stateBuilder = new PlaybackStateCompat.Builder();
stateBuilder.setActions(PlaybackStateCompat.ACTION_SKIP_TO_PREVIOUS | PlaybackStateCompat.ACTION_PLAY_PAUSE|PlaybackStateCompat.ACTION_SKIP_TO_NEXT);

and this part to method which update song metadata and notification:

   int state;
        if (isPlaying) {
            state = 3;
        } else {
            state = 2;
        }
        stateBuilder.setState(state, 0, 1.0f);
        mediaSession.setPlaybackState(stateBuilder.build());

Also there is another solution to create MediaSessionConnector with correct TimelineQueueNavigator and queue with your songs. In this case buttons will appear at wear os, I checked it at my watch.