Something keeps randomly setting iPhone volume to 100%

Question

Occasionally when I open the control center on my iPhone I notice that the speaker volume was set to 100%, or I'll be in public and I play a video or something and it blasts at max volume which is very annoying. I didn't do this; I suspect something is messing with the volume but I don't know what. I always keep the speaker volume all the way down.

Here are my suspicions:

• It seems to only happen when I'm using a bluetooth headset (AirPods) and I swap between different devices (iPhone and MacBook).
• I mostly listen to Spotify.
• An example: I'm listening to Spotify on my MacBook through AirPods meanwhile I'm doing something on my phone, then randomly I see the volume control slide in from the side at 100% as if I had pressed the volume up button.
• The volume buttons on the side of my phone aren't broken. I really don't think this is the issue.

I think Spotify might be hijacking the iPhone volume control when listening across different devices. If so, why is it doing this and can I stop it from doing that? Is there a permission or something I can revoke to prevent Spotify from doing that?

iPhone 11, iOS 15.1

Answer 1

It's probably Spotify's fault.

When you have multiple devices logged in to Spotify, you can play music on one device and control it from another device (Spotify Conntect). For example if I'm playing music on my MacBook, I can open Spotify on my iPhone and it'll show what song is currently playing on my other device. Spotify hijacks the iPhone volume to control the Spotify volume on the other device which is usually always at 100% which is why my iPhone volume gets set to 100% also.

The problem is when I close Spotify on my other device, the volume on my iPhone doesn't reset so I'm left with 100%.

It seems Spotify Connect cannot be turned off, but I can disable at least some functionality by going into Settings > Devices > turn off Devices Lock Screen.