Bluetooth help, need some technical assistance. - Honor 8 Questions & Answers

I've got a new Honor 8 with the latest updates and one glaring issue. The bluetooth audio skips with my Kenwood KDC-X701 head unit, sometimes a whole song plays, sometimes I get a lot of random skips and pauses in the music like it's dropping connection. The phone is within 2 feet of the head unit so distance isn't an issue. I tried it key on engine off with everything else in the car turned off to rule out interference from anything else in the car like headlights, tail lights, alternator noise, etc. I connected it via the 3.5mm jack and had smooth playback without skipping so it's not an audio source issue. And just to rule out a BT issue with the phone, I connected to and had smooth audio with a generic Chinese BT puck in my home. This same head unit has had no issues streaming BT audio from an iPod Touch 5th gen so it's not simply a head unit with bad bluetooth, it's some kind of issue between the Honor 8 and the head unit. What I want to know is how to determine what BT protocol is in use between the Honor 8 and the head unit and then determine what BT protocol the iPod Touch used and see if there's some way to manually set how the Honor 8 connects via BT to the head unit.
Or is there something more simple I'm missing here? Some kind of power saving I need to turn off, some menu option I'm missing, I hope so.
I'm going to make sure the head unit is on the latest firmware, I believe it is but I'll check and report back if there was an update and if it did anything for the issue.

Ok so during a 5 minute call through the head unit tonight there were not any BT issues, so this must be a music specific BT protocol issue, I'm slowly getting closer to the root of it.

Seems putting it in the dash pocket directly below the head unit works better which is unnecessarily close (less than 4 inches away) and many times closer than the iPod Touch ever needed to be. So there's still some kind of issue but seems like I might have a work around, it only skipped twice in a 30 minute drive which is the best it's been.

8 hour drive today with only 5-7 drops an hour. Seems worse when I'm around a lot of traffic, sometimes or that could just be coincidence.
Sometimes it's also partly dropping, music keeps playing but other Bluetooth features aren't working like Google voice commands or making/taking calls. Weird!
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Related

Issues with Stable Bluetooth Connection in Car

I'm having an issue with my bluetooth holding a connection with my 2013 Honda Civic LX. When listening to music through any music playing app, the connection always stays steady. When there is no music running from the phone, I'll frequently get a message from the display on the dash that the phone has been disconnected. The phone will usually reconnect in a second or two, with another display indicating that it has been connected. This will happen at least two times during my commute to work (25 minutes), oftentimes as many as five times. When I am actively in a phone call, the disconnects seem to be more frequent. It has a timer on the display that shows how long the phone call has been active through the car, and it rarely gets above 3 minutes before the call gets routed back to the phone's speakers while the bluetooth reconnects. The strange thing is that my wife's LG G4, also AT&T, has absolutely no connection issues at any time. I switched phones with her for a week just to confirm since I'm the one generally driving this car, and I didn't have the car drop the connection to the phone even once. Before that week, her phone would have occasionally been used when we were both in the car and she wanted to listen to music through her phone, so it had been connected to the car for more than a week.
I factory reset the phone just to see if there was a strange software issue causing the problem. After the factory reset, the phone and car had a steady connection with no drops for about a week. When the problem came back and was obviously just as bad as before, I tried another factory reset. Once again, the connection stayed steady for about a week before I would get disconnects again. At this point, I contacted AT&T, who replaced my phone thinking that it could be a hardware issue. A week after getting my replacement, the issue popped up once again.
Besides factory resetting, which is the only thing I've found to fix it at least temporarily, I have tried a few different troubleshooting steps. I have cleared cache using the storage screen in the settings menu. I've deleted the phone from the car's connection list. I've re-paired the phone to the car without giving permission for contacts or messages. Also tried to just do a simple reboot of the phone, as well as turning bluetooth off and back on. None of these have any effect on the connection issues once they start coming up.
I can take the car to Honda, but judging on the fact that my wife's phone works just fine in the car, I'm convinced that it is somehow an issue with the software on my phone. My phone is not rooted, and is currently running Android 5.1, S/W H81010o, Build LMY47D.
My guess is hardware problem. My G4 seems to do the same thing with my Jaybird X2 headphones. I've had Jaybird swap them and I'm having the same exact issue of disconnect as with the previous set. I doubt I'd get two bad sets, so its gotta be something hardware related. Sorry I wasn't any extra help. I'm just searching to see if anyone else is having my issue.
My hunch would be whatever the BT protocol is that's being used to pair the devices. Or possibly just an isolated hardware incompatibility. I'm on my second G4 (totally separate reason from BT), and neither has had issues with pairing or staying paired. Even if I were to pause or altogether stop playback of audio, the connection remains stable for me. I pair mine with a Sony BT speaker, a Kinovo receiver for streaming to my car stereo, and even a receiver attached to my Yamaha A/V receiver at home. No issues whatsoever.
For what it's worth: I use PowerAmp Pro when I stream, almost exclusively.
upyouratrix said:
My guess is hardware problem. My G4 seems to do the same thing with my Jaybird X2 headphones. I've had Jaybird swap them and I'm having the same exact issue of disconnect as with the previous set. I doubt I'd get two bad sets, so its gotta be something hardware related. Sorry I wasn't any extra help. I'm just searching to see if anyone else is having my issue.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The strange thing for me is that my wife's LG G4 (now 6 months old) works fine in my car under the same circumstances, but I've had 2 LG G4's of my own that essentially showed the exact same symptoms almost immediately. I'm leaning far more towards it being software, with whatever glitch not being present immediately after I factory reset but shows up within a week on my Google profile. My guess is that it's related to the phone related data transferred to the car since it stays connected just fine during media playback but disconnects soon after the media stops, but I can only block contacts to test that theory.

Bluetooth Guru for car connection

Hi, I've been having some fairly big issues with my in-car Bluetooth and phones. I have a 2013 Subaru WRX with the stock stereo which is made by Clarion.
I first started experiencing problems with it about 2 years ago: I would be driving along when all of a sudden my phone would randomly disconnect from my car while I'm talking, listening to music or just had the GPS running (or a combination of these). Oftentimes my car stereo will spaz out once it disconnects and will actually freeze (all buttons are non functioning, including steering wheel controls, power button, am/fm buttons, volume, etc) and take many minutes to reset the connection or it won't do anything at all (the stereo says, "please wait" or "paused" or will get hung on the song title that was playing when the phone disconnected) and my phone won't reconnect to it - I'll have to restart my car. Sometimes the stereo will reset and simply won't reconnect to my phone.
The kicker is that it's an intermittent problem, but still happens semi-frequently for periods at a time then it seems to get better. I've tried deleting my paired phone list in the car and on the phone, I've tried formatting my phone and nothing worked. I even brought my car into Subaru to diagnose the problem because I feel it's a car issue and they claimed it worked with their own phone which I feel is BS because they didn't want to fix it while the car was still on warranty, but that's another story! They said they couldn't fix it because they saw no problem (couldn't reproduce it) even though I provided them with video and pictures of it occurring.
This first started happening with my unlocked, stock, HTC One, m7 (currently running lollipop) . I thought there was a chance it could be related to an app or the OS but was not able to diagnose or isolate the issue. I just recently bought a Nexus 5x (marshmallow), unlocked, stock, thinking if it was the phone then this would fix the problem. It actually seems to have gotten worse with the frequency, however I've noticed that the phone is better at pairing with my car after the connection is lost. I still can't reproduce this on a consistent basis.
Can anyone suggest some possible causes and fixes? I'm hoping someone here is a Bluetooth Guru!

Major problem, Bluetooth music connection to car

Hi, has anyone run into this?
I'm used to play music from my phone to my car (Toyota Auris hybrid) over Bluetooth. Worked good with my LG G4 but with the Mate 9 it miserable fails. BT connects but it won't play anything.
There's loads of forum messages around since nougat came out, it seems to be an android 7.0 problem that seems to be solved in 7.11
Do you guys have successfully streamed in your cars over BT? Please let us know!
blackspp said:
Hi, has anyone run into this?
I'm used to play music from my phone to my car (Toyota Auris hybrid) over Bluetooth. Worked good with my LG G4 but with the Mate 9 it miserable fails. BT connects but it won't play anything.
There's loads of forum messages around since nougat came out, it seems to be an android 7.0 problem that seems to be solved in 7.11
Do you guys have successfully streamed in your cars over BT? Please let us know!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'll test it when mine arrives as I use bluetooth also.
Some other info, it really seems to be widespread and only with cars. Will check if calling actually works, I was so busy with music I forgot to check.
Btw, I have a Pebble time steel and that now has a better and more stable BT connection across a longer distance than with the lg g4.
Update next day:
Car/phone BT connection is fine.
Audio suddenly worked after a few tries but no tags visible. Much in line with what others say. Really erratic behavior.
Same for my BT speaker, perfect connection.
Another update: It played audio only once. After some more digging on other forums it seems that Android 7 is the issue. A lot of cars won't play audio over BT anymore or just handle the stream only now and than. The connection is there, the song is playing on the phone, it streams to the car but there's no sound. Oddly when you receive a phone call there's no prob whatsoever.
blackspp said:
Another update: It played audio only once. After some more digging on other forums it seems that Android 7 is the issue. A lot of cars won't play audio over BT anymore or just handle the stream only now and than. The connection is there, the song is playing on the phone, it streams to the car but there's no sound. Oddly when you receive a phone call there's no prob whatsoever.
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Click to collapse
My Nexus 6P on RRemix rom rooted with Marshmallow does this with 2017 Audi A4. Only thing that makes it come back is to hit the bluetooth icon in notification tray off and back on, and it syncs back up with sound. Try that? It might be a Huawei bug?
I had a similar issue on my mate 8. Spotify worked but deezer didn't in relation to showing what's playing etc.. it's likely to be nougat 7 as I've got a pixel xl and no issues with 7.1 at all over Bluetooth to my car. Looking at a mate 9 though as I miss the bigger screen
Sent from my Pixel XL using Tapatalk
I have had issues with my S7 Edge where everything connects up and all seems normal but when it plays it either delays before sound works right out of car speakers or you have to do a dance of connecting and reconnecting before sounds works properly. Also think I recall similar glitching with my previous car and my previous android phone but maybe it was previous phone (Nexus 6P) and current car (2015 Nissan Murano Platinum). Only regularly ever play podcasts in car from Beyond Pod app, BTW. Occasionally play something off YouTube but don't recall it glitching.
Sent from my Samsung Galaxy Tab S2 using XDA Labs
I have a Japanese 2014 Mazda Demio, and my Chinese Mate 9 (MHA-AL00C00B109SP01) connected, played music no problem, over bluetooth. The artist/song name shows up. But it doesn't support browsing the song library like the iPhone or Galaxy S7 did.
I also have issues to connect my mate 9 to my car (Renault Laguna 3 from 2011). I simply do not succeed to connect the phone to the car: when I try to connect, my car gives me a 4 digits pin number to enter into my phone to establish the connection, I try to connect to my car from the mobile, the box to enter the 4 digits opens and closes before I have the time to enter the digits with a connection error message.
I suspect a software bug on the bt connection with pin validation on the mate side. I can connect without issue to a standard Bluetooth speaker.
I think some cars, maybe many, just have suck computer systems. It is why I always laugh at the idea of self driving cars - like these same morons that make these terrible in car computer systems will be worth trusting to drive you around.
Sent from my Samsung Galaxy Tab S2 using XDA Labs
I also have issue on Bluetooth with my Renault Megane 2009
I had to choose nomade device to pair my mate and I have some problem on mp3 play-back that suddenly stop where has it continue on music player.
It seems to be better since I install A2DP switcher from playstore but don't know why
So I have had this issue since I got the phone yesterday and just got it working in my 2012 Toyota Tundra.
Settings > Apps > hit the 3 dots > Show system processes > Bluetooth Share > Force stop, clear data. After that try pairing your device, mine has stayed connect with frequent breaks for 5 hours today
No issues with 2 of my vehicles.
I'm having no issues at all. I'm connecting to a Tune2Air bluetooth adapter ('11 A4 doesn't support Bluetooth streaming).
same issue with Pioneer Android Auto unit.
Sometimes it works out of the box, sometimes music plays (as per screen indicators) but no music, sometimes music plays for split second and stops.
disabling/enabling BT helps
no issues when phone is connected over usb with android auto
Same thing with me as well. I have reached out to Huawei but no response. I have a US version
Just got a new Huawei Mate 9 from Optus Australia. It would not connect to my car bluetooth although it would connect to two bluetooth speakers I have. Optus technical support finally resolved the issue by changing the car bluetooth PIN from 1111 to 0000. Looks like a Huawei bug in that it can only connect to devices without a PIN or with a PIN of 0000. Checked my speakers and one has no PIN and the other has 0000 as the PIN. Hopefully Huawei will fix this.
I have a recent Japanese Mazda, as well as a gear s3 or a Huawei watch connected at the same time, and no issues with Bluetooth at all with any recent Huawei firmwares.
My Fabia plays over BT just fine, Android Auto plays it fine too.
dscline said:
I'm having no issues at all. I'm connecting to a Tune2Air bluetooth adapter ('11 A4 doesn't support Bluetooth streaming).
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Click to collapse
I previously reported no issues, but now BT is very problematic. For me, it seems, the issue stems from multiple connections. Before I needed two bluetooth connections in my car: one to the car itself for phone calls, and one to a BT adapter to stream music to the car's audio system. A couple months ago, I added a Huawei watch to the mix, and things went south. Typically I'll put my watch on in the morning and it will connect to the phone no problem. But when I get in my car, it doesn't want to connect: the car itself is not connected at all, the phone reports that it's connected to the BT streaming adapter, but no music plays through it. If I turn off BT on the phone and turn it back on, typically that will fix the streaming, but not the phone call connection. The phone will report that both the streaming adapter and the watch are connected, but not the car. If I click on the car connection, it will then connect. The watch connection in the list with then lose the "connected" status, but strangely, it stays connected.
So, I can't get three devices to say "connected" in the BT device list simultaneously, BUT if I turn BT off then back on when all three devices are available, THEN manually connect the car connection, all three will work, even though only two of them will say "connected".

Bluetooth issue with car stereo

EDIT: KNOWN ISSUE https://us.community.samsung.com/t5/forums/v3_1/forumtopicpage/board-id/GS8QA/page/1/thread-id/299
Anyone else had any connectivity issues? 2013 Toyota 86 and i cant connect to the car stereo... may be time to get Android Auto, finally have a reason
But, in the meantime, i would love to hear from you if you've managed to connect.
2016 Ford Mustang GT with Sync 3. Android auto and bluetooth both work as expected with 0 issues (other than personally I think android auto blows monkey chunks.)
xkwizt said:
EDIT: KNOWN ISSUE https://us.community.samsung.com/t5/forums/v3_1/forumtopicpage/board-id/GS8QA/page/1/thread-id/299
Anyone else had any connectivity issues? 2013 Toyota 86 and i cant connect to the car stereo... may be time to get Android Auto, finally have a reason
But, in the meantime, i would love to hear from you if you've managed to connect.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Have a 2015 Camry Hybrid and don't have an issue connecting to my Entune Audio system.
14 Grand cherokee SRT with 8.4 Uconnect and no issues at all. My iphone 7 plus wont stream smoothly to my headunit (choppy audio) but the S8+ does.
No issues connecting to the aftermarket deck in my jeep or the factory system in my 2017 work Chevy Equinox.
No problem connecting with the radio on my 2016 RAV-4.
2011 civic. No issues other then it takes a little longer to connect than my last phone, and my car no longer displays artist/track info. Hopefully it'll get fixed in an update.
pizzlewizzle said:
2011 civic. No issues other then it takes a little longer to connect than my last phone, and my car no longer displays artist/track info. Hopefully it'll get fixed in an update.
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Click to collapse
Unfortunately, it won't happen. Samsung phones haven't displayed metadata on Civic stereos since the Note4. It's something about Samsung's custom Bluetooth stack when they upgraded it to Bluetooth 4.0; it doesn't offer full backwards compatibility. It will connect and play audio and even respond to controls via BT, but no metadata. And those apps that circumvent the issue by transmitting metadata in an alternate way, none of them work. We Samsung/Civic users have been fighting with this for a few years now to no avail.
And Honda doesn't put out updates for their stereos, so nothing will ever be fixed from their end. The only "solution" is to get a different stereo or a newer car. Or a new phone.
That's the worst part – every other phone works fine. iPhone, LG, Motorola, Pixel... It's just Samsung phones that don't play nice with older Honda stereos.
I am having an issue where call audio and contacts work between my T-Mobile S8 and Kia Optima EX 2012 with the Navigation/Infinity system, but no Streaming audio. There is no option on my phone for it, and I can Enable/Disable Streaming Audio on the car, pair, unpair, try different combinations, even factory reset the head unit and the Bluetooth on the head unit. Nothing so far. My car does show what's playing, but it still only plays through the phone and I can pause, skip, etc. from the car.
Anybody else had/has the same issue?
xkwizt said:
EDIT: KNOWN ISSUE https://us.community.samsung.com/t5/forums/v3_1/forumtopicpage/board-id/GS8QA/page/1/thread-id/299
Anyone else had any connectivity issues? 2013 Toyota 86 and i cant connect to the car stereo... may be time to get Android Auto, finally have a reason
But, in the meantime, i would love to hear from you if you've managed to connect.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I know you posted this a while ago - but I have never had issues connecting blue tooth to my personal car (BMW X1) - I also travel heavlily and I have never had issues connecting to a variety of different rental cars, Fords, Kias, Toyota, etc.
Hope you found a fix or got it working
Stock stereo in a 2014 Toyota FJ Cruiser. I have no problems connecting, streaming audio, or making phone calls. My audio streaming does play with a lot of cracks, but it still plays. I might mess with EQ settings but I haven't had a chance yet.
2015 WRX with stock stereo (no nav, non-Harmon version). Here are the seemingly random issues I have with bluetooth:
- Connects fine most of the time, but will sometimes connect and the audio will be muted and requires me to pause the track on my phone and then press play.
- Audio will cut out at times and revert to playing through the phone's speakers, but the phone will still be connected and call audio will play through the car speakers and I can still control the track next/previous with my steering wheel controls.
- Audio will not connect sometimes when my wife is in the car wearing her FitBit, even with my phone's auto discovery turned off and nearby devices turned off.
- Track info sometimes gets stuck on the currently playing track and will not change until the car is turned off, the app is closed and process killed, and connection is made again.
Like I said, these issues appear to be random and seem to get worse when someone else is in the car with me or when I'm wearing an Android Wear watch. I've played with every connection setting I can in my phone but I'm sure this all boils down to it being a crappy stereo system. Nothing like being on the freeway during the beginning of a long commute and having my music cut out on me and having to switch back over to the (ugh...) FM radio.
Sevael said:
Unfortunately, it won't happen. Samsung phones haven't displayed metadata on Civic stereos since the Note4. It's something about Samsung's custom Bluetooth stack when they upgraded it to Bluetooth 4.0; it doesn't offer full backwards compatibility. It will connect and play audio and even respond to controls via BT, but no metadata. And those apps that circumvent the issue by transmitting metadata in an alternate way, none of them work. We Samsung/Civic users have been fighting with this for a few years now to no avail.
And Honda doesn't put out updates for their stereos, so nothing will ever be fixed from their end. The only "solution" is to get a different stereo or a newer car. Or a new phone.
That's the worst part – every other phone works fine. iPhone, LG, Motorola, Pixel... It's just Samsung phones that don't play nice with older Honda stereos.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I have the same issue. Sound is clear, music plays fine, wheel commands work fine... even the contact list, which only showed partially (200 contacts or so), now shows all of them...
But Title/Artist/Album do not show up, only says Samsung S8.
How do I enable the metadata?
thunderdrome said:
How do I enable the metadata?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
As I outlined in my post, you can't.
Why not?
I have the same issue, calls work, changing track, music playing, good quality of sound, contact info, full phonebook (on the S2 it was just 200 contacts or so).... but no media metadata! This is software issue and it seems that in other units than the Civic (maybe post AVCRP 1.3) it works...

Bluetooth delay and Google Assistant

Some BT headsets (typically in car built in systems) have 1-2 second delays from when audio is sent from phone to BT receiver to actual playback. This causes Google Assistant to turn on the mic to listen before the speech is completed. In some cases, the app would time out waiting for a response before the speech is done being read out. Typically when you use Google Assistant to dictate a text message to someone.
Anyone have ideas on how we can customize Google Assistant's wait timer to deal with this kind of delay? Preferably on a per BT device level.
Nobody owns a car and uses Google Assistant in it?
I have a Hyundai Ioniq w/ Android Auto and also have similar Bluetooth lag. I think this is an issue with the (most likely) poor quality BT that cars implement. I've always had several seconds of lag when using bluetooth in a car system. It's never been so bad that it will prematurely cancel voice requests, though.
AFAIK, I don't think there's a specific software option (officially) to account for this bluetooth lag. I'd think the only solution would be to get an ApTX Low Latency-certified bluetooth connector for your car? Might be worth a shot. The Pixel 3 supports it.
I found that it affects cars that uses BT implementation from Johnson controls - Hyundai, Mazda, Honda, Toyota, GM are those I know of at this point. Doesn't seem to impact newer iDrive 6 based BMWs since they have a passthrough button that triggers the assistant directly.
https://www.amazon.com/Kinivo-BTC450-Bluetooth-Hands-Free-Input/dp/B009NLTW60 Seems to work OK ish if you have an aux-in port. Delay is still there but manageable since it's just a slight delay. If you set the phone to not use BT to record audio, move the phone closer to the center away from speakers (assuming you don't have it on full blast loudness) it won't catch the last half a second of delayed audio.
Still not as good as the built in system like on the BMW or my friend's MB. Audi that comes with Android Auto support works beautifully.

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