AudioContext.suspend

The suspend() method of the AudioContext Interface suspends the progression of time in the audio context, temporarily halting audio hardware access and reducing CPU/battery usage in the process — this is useful if you want an application to power down the audio hardware when it will not be using an audio context for a while.

This method will cause an INVALID_STATE_ERR exception to be thrown if called on an OfflineAudioContext.

Syntax

var audioCtx = new AudioContext();
audioCtx.suspend().then(function() { ... });

Returns

A Promise that resolves with void. The promise is rejected if the context has already been closed.

Example

The following snippet is taken from our AudioContext states demo (see it running live.) When the suspend/resume button is clicked, the AudioContext.state is queried — if it is running, suspend() is called; if it is suspended, resume() is called. In each case, the text label of the button is updated as appropriate once the promise resolves.

susresBtn.onclick = function() {
  if(audioCtx.state === 'running') {
    audioCtx.suspend().then(function() {
      susresBtn.textContent = 'Resume context';
    });
  } else if(audioCtx.state === 'suspended') {
    audioCtx.resume().then(function() {
      susresBtn.textContent = 'Suspend context';
    });  
  }
}

Specifications

Browser compatibility

See also

• Using the Web Audio API
• Web Audio API