"No players found" not returned as string in status

[kaustubhhiware]

When some media is playing, playerctl status returns appropriate string which can be logged, but not when nothing is playing. Basically,

$ x=$(playerctl status) # When vlc is playing
$ echo $x
Playing
$ x=$(playerctl status) # When vlc is paused
$ echo $x
Paused
$ x=$(playerctl status) # No media
No players found
$ echo $x

$

This was working fine till the most recent update, version v2.0.1 breaks this.

OS: Arch Linux, kernel x86_64 Linux 5.0.0-arch1-1-ARCH
The fixes mentioned in #119 and elsewhere do not work. I'm using this to dictate buttons in polybar.

[Baviste]

This is because the status is sent in stderr in that case.
You can redirect stderr to stdout to solve your problem:

$ x=$(playerctl status 2>&1)
$ echo $x
No players found

[kaustubhhiware]

Thanks for the fix, it works well !
Closing the issue now.

[kaustubhhiware]

What finally worked for me was the following:

player_status=$(playerctl status 2>&1)

if [ "$player_status" == "No players found" ] ; then
	echo "Off"
else
      echo "On"
fi