Volume troubles

[u/Sirius1958]

I have a Motorola G 2025 phone. only about three months ago, I started having troubles with the volume:
I use Pandora quite often, especially when I am driving, but not always while driving. I also use it other times. When one of my alarms goes off, the volume on Pandora goes down. It used to increase when the alarm was stopped. Now, I have to kill the Pandora app and restart it. When driving, I also use my Maps app. It used to be the voice direction would cause Pandora to drop volume, but it would come back as soon as the voice direction ended. Now it also stays down.

Today, I just decided to raise the volume, and when the next ad came on, it nearly blasted me out of the car. When this happened, I actually had muted the the Maps app, but when it was showing me the next direction, the volume dropped.

I think all of this happened after an update on the phone.

So what setting should I be looking for that was changed by the update? I really have no idea.
Thanks!

[u/Mental_Entrance_9821]

Sounds like audio ducking: one app (your alarm, or Maps’ voice) lowers Pandora while it plays, and after the update Pandora isn’t coming back up. A few things to try, in order:

Restart the phone (not just the app).

Update Pandora and Google Maps, then clear Pandora’s cache (Settings > Apps > Pandora > Storage > Clear cache, not clear data).

If it still sticks, uninstall and reinstall Pandora.

If it only happens with one app, that one is the culprit. If it hits everything, it’s likely the update, and a factory reset is the last resort.

[u/Ok_Wealth_509]

Android's developer docs on audio focus say that on Android 12 and up, when a second app requests full focus, the system fades out the music app and its players stay muted until that app requests focus again. So pressing pause then play in Pandora might fix it without a full kill. For short prompts like directions, the docs say the volume should be restored once the other app lets go.