Why does music streamed from online sources stop while in lock screen?
Some online sources in Crates mobile are played through the source’s own web player inside the app.
When Crates mobile app stays open in the foreground, these web players should normally continue to the next track.
However, when your phone is locked or Crates is running in the background, iOS and Android restrict what embedded web players can do. In many cases, the current track may keep playing, but the web player cannot reliably stay active and automatically move to the next track.
This limitation does not apply to local files. Local files are played through the native mobile player, so they support reliable background playback, lock screen controls, and continuous album or queue playback.
For the best mobile experience, especially with music you have purchased from services like Bandcamp, we recommend downloading the tracks to your computer and syncing them to your phone through Crates. This avoids web player limitations and gives you better audio quality too.
How to download your Bandcamp purchases
- Log in to your Bandcamp account on your computer and go to Collection or Purchases page.
- Find the album or track you purchased and download, preferably in lossless format (AIFF is recommended as it holds full metadata as well)
- Add the downloaded files to your Crates library.
- Sync them to your phone using Crates.
Once synced, Crates mobile will play those tracks as local files, so playback can continue reliably when your phone is locked or the app is in the background.