tasker + phantom music control + google play music

[Andrea Z.]

I have just bought Phantom Music Control Pro and Widgetlocker and i'm trying to create interaction with tasker and google play music.
I know that google play music is not directly supported in tasker (I can play/pause but %MTRACK does not work). But as I read here and there, with Phantom Music Control Pro is possible to populate %MTRACK variable...
It seems not working for me, is there some special setting to do?

[Pent]

Think you have to enable something in Phantom, yes.

Pent

[Andrea Z.]

i really don't find what option to activate.. the one that allows third part applications is already on...

[Pent]

Does PMC support google play music on your device ?

Pent

[Andrea Z.]

on the market it says that the pro version supports google music.
In fact i'm able to play, stop and see the title of the current song in PMC. But %MTRACK is still empty...

[Pent]

Well, let's try a log:

http://tasker.dinglisch.net/faq-how.html#x2

Please do this after enabling logging:

- In Tasker UI Menu / More / Run An Action / Alert / Vibrate (so I can
see where log is relevant)
- go to the music app, press Play

Thanks,

Pent

[Andrea Z.]

I did it.
I also clicked a couple times next track and previous track inside google music (or play music, it changed name) to see if the variable %MTRACK is able to change.

[Pent]

> I also clicked a couple times next track and previous track inside google
> music (or play music, it changed name) to see if the variable %MTRACK is
> able to change.

It's not listening for the event.

Have you created a task linked to an active profile or widget which
has the %MTRACK variable in it or are you just clicking the Play
button in an 'orphan' task ?

Pent

[Andrea Z.]

sorry, i did not....
so tomorrow as soon as i can, i will create a profile linked to a task that uses %MTRACK.
then should i try to use google music as usual or start playing with toggle pause in tasker?

[Pent]

> so tomorrow as soon as i can, i will create a profile linked to a task that
> uses %MTRACK.

Try this first:

Event: Variable Set, %MTRACK
Task: Alert / Flash Playing %MTRACK

Or just create a widget that does Flash %MTRACK

> then should i try to use google music as usual or start playing with toggle
> pause in tasker?

Try using Google Music manually to start to rule out problems with
media control :-)

Pent

[Andrea Z.]

Hi Pent reading your message created in my mind some little sparkle and today I did this: just created a profile with state: variable set %MTRACK and the task is just an alert with %MTRACK.
Surprise, surprise, now Google Music aka Play Music works with %MTRACK!
Just to be sure I uninstalled phantom music and it still works....
What I really don't understand is: why %MTRACK updates only if there is some profile looking on it?
Can't I just use mtrack in tasks without creating a specific profile to look on it? Is this a normal behaviour?

[Pent]

What I really don't understand is: why %MTRACK updates only if there is some profile looking on it?
Can't I just use mtrack in tasks without creating a specific profile to look on it? Is this a normal behaviour?

That's a general Tasker strategy to reduce battery power. No point tracking %MTRACK if it's not used by anything.

Pent

[Andrea Z.]

ouch.
I bought phantom for nothing... but at least now we know that google play music works with tasker and updates %MTRACK
maybe you should write somewhere that %MTRACK updates only if there is some profile directly looking on that, because I did some task looking on that and this is not working, it needs also a profile looking on that... it still seems strange for me, but if this is normal behaviour it's not so clear.

[Wietse van Buitenen]

this also helped me out.. didn't think I could use these parts of Tasker with Google Music..

It's also just now clear to me how types of variables like %MTRACK work so I learned something new to play with just before the weekend :)

thanks for the testing!

[Carlos G. Limardo]

Oh man, sorry. I was JUST about to do the same.

[doc1987]

That's a general Tasker strategy to reduce battery power. No point tracking %MTRACK if it's not used by anything.

Pent

Does %MTRACK only pull the song and not the artist? 

[Jay M]

If you want to get the artist album artwork etc you can use media utilities.

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.batescorp.notificationmediacontrols.alpha

Jay M

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[doc1987]

I have tried to get the artist to pull with Media Utilities but I have been unsuccessful. I have tried using the %artist and %MU_ARTIST to no avail. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks.

[bdanders]

Extra information from MU is only available in a task that was triggered by a MU state. So if you set up a task that is triggered by Plugin>Media Utilities State>New Track then you should be able to see all information you need. All available data such as %artist and %album is listed at the bottom of the configuration screen for the MU State.

If that doesn't work for you then you might want to provide some more information about what specifically you've tried so that we can help troubleshoot.

[Jay M]

Aye what he said, If your using poweramp you need to enable the ICS lockscreen in its settings otherwise the metadata shows as "...“ This might have been fixed now tho.

Jay M

[doc1987]

Got it working Thanks.

[Daniel Aunspach]

I know this is an oooooold thread, but I just wanted to thank you for posting this.  It was a huge help!  I didn't even think I might need to prompt the system to set the variable.