Whatsapp widget on the lock screen, don't know why

I've noticed that in recent weeks, when I wake up my PC from its slumber, the lock screen shows a Whatsapp "player" widget. It shows back/pause/forward buttons. Like what you'd have on your phone's lock screen if you were playing media on it. The thing is, the Whatsapp desktop app isn't playing any audio/video, it's just sat there waiting for messages like it always has.

I've looked in the Whatsapp desktop app settings and there's nothing about the lock screen there.
I've also looked in the Windows 11 -> Settings -> Lock Screen and there's nothing there about Whatsapp.

Anyone know what the deal is?

Disable notifications for the Lock Screen. It’s probably always showing because WhatsApp has access to your microphone

dacrone said:

Disable notifications for the Lock Screen. It’s probably always showing because WhatsApp has access to your microphone

Click to expand...

Thanks for the suggestion. I checked, WhatsApp Web doesn't have access to my Camera or Mic.


I checked the notification settings for WhatsApp and they were on because I do generally want the notification center to show them when the machine is fully awake, but as a test, I turned them fully off, locked the computer with Windows-L and that weird widget is still there.


Weirdly, I took a screenshot and cropped it to just the WhatsApp media player widget and did a google image search and it didn't find anything. I seem to be the only person in the world seeing this. My mother was right, I am special


Btw, that pause button does in fact change to a play button (and vice versa) when you click on it. I don't know what it thinks it's pausing and unpausing.