Google fixes audio playback bug in Chrome for Android tablets

Google has added a fix to Chrome for Android tablets that stops audio from keeping play after a picture‑in‑picture window is closed, a problem that has frustrated users for months. The change was merged into Chrome Canary on 23 August and will eventually reach the stable channel after passing through Dev and Beta builds.

The bug has been a known annoyance for anyone who watches a video on a tablet. When a PiP window is closed, the audio keeps running in the background. On phones the behaviour is correct – closing PiP automatically pauses playback – but on tablets a feature flag called “kAndroidEnableBackgroundMediaLargeFormFactors” blocks that pause. Users have had to manually stop the sound from the notification shade or by reopening the app to pause the video.

The new commit in Chromium’s code review system, contributed by PiunikaWeb, changes that logic so that closing a PiP window signals an explicit user intent to stop playback. The fix means the browser will now stop the audio automatically, matching the behaviour on phones. This eliminates the extra step of pausing from notifications or reopening the app, making the user experience smoother.

Once the patch is integrated into Chrome’s stable release, tablet users will no longer be left with background audio after closing a PiP window. The update demonstrates how even small UI bugs can be quickly addressed when developers collaborate openly in projects like Chromium. The change should roll out over the next few weeks, giving Android tablet users a cleaner, more predictable media experience.