Galaxy Watch 4 Classic w Galaxy A51 phone playing Poweramp trouble restarting music

[ultrarunner2019]

Hey guys;

I'm not sure whether to post in this forum or in one of the Android forums. Here is my situation:

I have the Galaxy A51 running Android 11 on Tracfone (Verizon) service.
I have Poweramp (build 911-arm64) running on the phone.
I have a Galaxy Watch 4 Classic (latest firmware) paired to the phone.
I am listening to music from PA over JBL/UA Sport Train Wireless headphones.

Normally to start, I open PA on the phone and hit the play button. Music begins playing.
Now I want to pause the music. I can either hit the button on the headphones - when it works - or the watch face. When PA is playing music, a full face transport control will work with PA to pause or start the music.
However, after PA has been paused for a while (maybe 1 minute or longer but I haven't timed it yet) I cannot restart the music from the watch. The full-face transport control does not appear; instead there is just the main watch face with the clock and a 'play' button as one of the 'complications'. But that button does not work. When I hit it, I get the message "Couldn't perform action. Music not playing". Well, duh! I paused the music, so of course it's not playing. But the app (Poweramp) is still open and running on the phone?
What is the point in allowing me to pause the music from the watch, but not to restart it?

Is this an issue with Poweramp, or does the same thing happen regardless of which music player I use on the phone?

I have been a PA user for more than five years now, and really like the player. I don't want to give in and use the Samsung app for playing my .flac files.

This issue coupled with other issues I have with this phone and watch have me seriously considering returning at least the watch to Amazon for a full refund. But before I do that, I would like to at least try to work around this and any other issues I have with these devices.

I think you can all understand how frustrating it is when all you want to do is listen to music on your headphones but have to jump through hoops when the software decides it doesn't want to work for you. Maybe it's time to purchase a turntable and some vinyl and a tube amp and go back to listening at home using wired only headphones. Or maybe I just need to calm down and see if perhaps there is a solution to my problem.

Thank you very much.

Ultrarunner

[ultrarunner2019]

Well, looks like I figured it out. I guess I was in a bit of a rough mood when I posted. Very frustrating when you're not thinking rationally.
The problem was that Poweramp service was stopping a couple of seconds after I hit the pause button. This prevented the watch from reading PA status, so it could not restart the player.
I just changed the setting to keep PA service running even when app is idle. Seems to work so far.

Now an interesting question here: Why could I restart the music (after more than a minute or two) using the button on the headphones but not on the watch?
My best guess is that the headphones are not requiring the Poweramp service to work, while the watch does.

[davedela]

Where did you change the setting to keep PA service active? 

[andrewilley]

2 hours ago, davedela said:

Where did you change the setting to keep PA service active? 

It's in PA Settings > Misc.

Andre