Android auto and bluetooth crashing

[Alylalala]

Plan: Premium individual 

Country: Canada

Device: Galaxy S23 Ultra

Operating System: Android 13, One UI 5.1

Spotify app version: 8.8.80.599

My Question or Issue

Hey! So I've been having this issue fornthe past little bit and it's started getting way too annoying as it's happening more and more often, even though it is intermittent. I have my phone Bluetooth registered in multiple cars, and Android Auto set up for a few others. I have Spotify set up to always stay open in the background, and to auto-play when it connects to these devices. (Mitsubishi Outlander 2018, Mitsubishi Eclipse Cross 2021, Toyota Camry 2012, Volkswagen Tiguan 2014)

Either when the Bluetooth connects, or when I connect the wire for Android Auto, the screen on the car will show the title of the song playing, with only a stop button. The now playing on my phone shows that it is not playing. I can neither start playback from my device or the car screens. 

I cannot navigate on my phone to any other tracks either to try playing, and the screen has the spinning green circle indefinitely. I must remove the app lock and close it and restart the app. At this point, the current track will play through, but the next track will not start. I cannot press shuffle play on the same Playlist and MUST change Playlist and return.

As I said, this is getting kind of annoying to have to reset the app and change Playlist every other time I sit in the car.

Troubleshooting steps taken:

I have tried clearing the app cache- failed to resolve issue

Uninstalled and reinstalled the Spotify app - failed

Changed the wire - same issue

Logged in on an oder device and used that for music a couple of weeks - same issue.

I'm not sure what else is left to do. Any ideas? Thanks.

[MihailY]

Hey @Alylalala,

Thanks for reaching out and kudos for the detailed post and the troubleshooting you've tried so far.

As a next step, can you please go through your phone's settings and make sure that the Spotify app is set as an exception in any battery- or memory-optimizing services? Feel free to use this guide or reach out to Samsung support.

Let us know how it goes.

[Alylalala]

Thanks @MihailY 

I have updated my app setting to unrestricted battery usage and to not remove permissions if the app is unused. We'll see if that solves it over the next couple of weeks.

[Alylalala]

I'm still having this issue, BUT I'm starting to think it's caused by network connectivity.

I usually have the issue when I connect my phone to the car in the driveway, where my phone would be in transition between connected to the home wifi, and switching to the LTE nework. Today I had the same issue on the local subway. I opened the app to start playing music at a station where there is a gap in the network and it gave me the same spinning circle of death.

[Elena]

Hi again @Alylalala,

Thanks for the info!

Could you confirm if the issue persists when your LTE connection is stable or does it only seem to happen when transitioning between Wifi/mobile data and when the network connection is unstable at certain locations?

Keep us posted.

[Alylalala]

Hey Elena,

I haven't noticed it happen with stable wifi/mobile data. I don't often open the app. I listen while driving or on public transit. I only use wifi at home, so getting into the car in a switch spot, and when I'm using transit I'm on LTE, but there are a few gaps in the network. One of those gap spots is where I tend to start listening to music as I'd be talking with a colleague up to that point. I haven't noticed the app falter at any other time.

[Maria]

Hey @Alylalala,

Thanks for providing us with some more info!

Could you try starting the playback a bit before reaching one of these areas, where you notice that connectivity issues usually appear, just to see if you notice any difference?

Let us know how you get on.