BaseAudioContext: state property

Baseline Widely available

This feature is well established and works across many devices and browser versions. It’s been available across browsers since April 2021.

The state read-only property of the BaseAudioContext interface returns the current state of the AudioContext.

Value

A string. Possible values are:

suspended

The audio context has been suspended (with the AudioContext.suspend() method.)

running

The audio context is running normally.

closed

The audio context has been closed (with the AudioContext.close() method.)

Examples

Handling state changes

The following snippet is taken from our AudioContext states demo (see it running live.) The onstatechange handler is used to log the current state to the console every time it changes.

js
audioCtx.onstatechange = () => {
  console.log(audioCtx.state);
};

Resuming interrupted play states in iOS Safari

In iOS Safari, when a user leaves the page (e.g. switches tabs, minimizes the browser, or turns off the screen) the audio context's state changes to "interrupted" and needs to be resumed. For example:

js
function play() {
  if (audioCtx.state === "interrupted") {
    audioCtx.resume().then(() => play());
    return;
  }
  // rest of the play() function
}

Specifications

Specification
Web Audio API
# dom-baseaudiocontext-state

Browser compatibility

BCD tables only load in the browser

See also