How do I get "Headphones Reconnect" and "Bluetooth Reconnect" options?

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1

I just switched to an Android 13 device, and when I installed AntennaPod, I am not getting the Settings → Playback → Headphones Reconnect / Bluetooth Reconnect" options.

Was there a plugin or something else I installed way back when that gave me that option on my old device?

I have AntennaPod 3.1.2 on both devices

2

This feature is unfortunately no longer possible on Android 13 because of changes in Android about when an app is allowed to start from the background

3

Version 2.7.1 functions quite well on Android 13 . The options “Headphones Reconnect”, “Bluetooth Reconnect” are available and function. That would seem to indicate it’s not Android 13’s fault.

4

Apps that target Android 13 can no longer do that. And we have to target Android 13 in order to still upload updates. Old versions that don’t target Android 13 still work because the system applies compatibility behavior.

5

I assume you are reluctant to change the target for Google Store reasons. While I personally wish more open source developers were willing to give the Google Store the heave-ho (in favour of F-Droid et al), I’m not going to criticize on that account.

That still leaves several ways forward. Well, likely there are many many ways forward for keeping the functionality intact. Of which I can recommend the following as my top suggestions:

  1. Leave the options in and when the user selects them, give an educational dialog saying “This isn’t available in this version, you need to: X” where X = “download the proper version from F-Droid and switch to it”.
  2. Same as #1 where X = “download a helper plugin from F-Droid”. This is Vanilla Music’s solution and I can attest it works very well.
  3. Change methods for stopping. Or, in other words, don’t actually stop. Just switch to playing nothing. Have a half second blank waveform in memory which you switch to playing when the headphones are turned off/unplugged and then switch back to playing the real audio when the headphones are turned back on.

#1 is the easiest solution. It will be years before apps that target Android 11 have compatibility issues (I still run apps that target Android 4 with no issues), and by then this decision of Google’s will likely…assuredly… be reversed. Users are going to howl if suddenly all auto-stop/start music/podcast/bookreaders lose that functionality.
#2 is best for Google Play users, in that they don’t have to uninstall and reinstall the app to do it. But it requires more development work.
#3 is likely pretty easy to implement, and it has the benefit of working without anything needing to target earlier Android versions. But it would need some limits on how long you can be fake-paused for.

6

I’m curious, what is the plan for getting the functionality back in?

7

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