Sound Stops When the Screen Turns Off? How to Fix It on Android

This is the most common question about Tingles ASMR. You start a mix or a podcast, lock your phone, and a few minutes later the sound stops.

It isn’t a bug in the sound, and it isn’t your headphones. Many Android phones put apps to sleep to save battery, even an app that’s playing audio. Tingles ASMR already runs as a media app with a playback notification, as Android asks audio apps to. But Samsung, Xiaomi, OnePlus and some other brands add their own battery managers on top, and only you can tell them to leave the app alone. Spotify and YouTube users run into the same thing, and the fix is the same.

Step 1: allow background playback in Tingles ASMR

1. In Tingles ASMR, open Settings and go to Playback → Background playback.
2. Tap Allow background playback.
3. Android asks whether to let Tingles ASMR always run in the background. Tap Allow.

On some phones, Android opens a list of apps instead of asking. Find Tingles ASMR in the list and set it to Unrestricted, Don’t optimise or Not optimised, whichever your phone calls it.

You can also reach this from the timer: when you set a Sleep Mode or mix timer, tap Sound stops when the screen is off? at the bottom of the sheet. In the app’s Help & Support page, it’s the first question.

Step 2: your phone’s own setting

If the sound still stops, your phone has a second switch of its own. The card in the app shows Allowed on this phone once step 1 is done. Below that, it links to the steps for your phone’s brand.

• Samsung: go to Settings → Battery → Background usage limits → Never sleeping apps and add Tingles ASMR. This is the one that catches most people: Samsung can put an app to sleep even after you’ve set it to Unrestricted.
• Xiaomi, Redmi and POCO: set the app’s battery saver to No restrictions, turn on Autostart for it, and lock it in the recent apps screen. Steps for Xiaomi
• OnePlus: set battery optimisation to Don’t optimise, and lock the app in recent apps. On newer phones, also look under Battery optimisation → Advanced optimisation. Steps for OnePlus
• Oppo and Realme: Steps for Oppo and for Realme
• Huawei: Steps for Huawei
• Vivo: Steps for Vivo
• Motorola, Sony, Asus, Nokia and Google Pixel: step 1 is usually enough. If not: Motorola, Sony, Asus, Nokia, Pixel.

Menu names change between Android versions, so if a path above doesn’t match your phone, search your phone’s Settings for “battery” or “sleeping apps”. The brand pages are from Don’t kill my app!, an independent site that tracks what each phone maker does.

Other reasons the sound stops

• It’s a YouTube video on the free plan. Videos pause when the screen turns off unless you have Premium. Mixes, sound playlists and podcasts keep playing for everyone. See Playing ASMR with the screen off.
• You swiped the app away from the recent apps screen. On Android that stops it.
• Your headphones disconnected. Playback pauses and stays paused, so it doesn’t suddenly play out loud.
• A timer ended. Sleep Mode fades the sound out and stops it, and the free mix timer pauses the mix.
• A phone call came in. Playback pauses and picks up again after the call.

On iPhone

iPhone doesn’t have these battery settings. Mixes, sound playlists and podcasts keep playing with the screen locked, and YouTube videos keep playing as audio with Premium. If sound stops on an iPhone anyway, that isn’t expected: tap Send Feedback in the app menu, pick Bug Report, and say which iPhone you have and what was playing.