Brand new, cant use skip buttons

[Happy-Go-Pucky]

I just got my car thing today, and while it's overall working, the skip buttons and shuffle button are grayed out, and I have no idea why. 

Any help is appreciated.

[Jtrut]

Plan

Premium

Country

USA 

Device

Samsung Galaxy A50

Operating System

Android 11

My Question or Issue

With the most recent update of the Android app (10-6-22) I lost all music controls on Carthing. I've tried restarting and resetting. As well as clearing data and cache and logging out in the app. Has anyone else had this or have any idea?

[FU54]

Same with mine, got it yesterday. 

[AlejaR]

Hey folks,

Thanks for posting in the Community and welcome.

In this case, for starters, we recommend restarting the Car Thing, since it fixes many common issues. To do it, you just have to follow these steps:

1. Click the Settings button on the top-right.
2. Find Restart.
3. Press the dial to select and confirm.

If this doesn't do the trick, you can trying by performing a factory reset. This clears all personalized saved data from the device. You’ll need to reconnect it to your phone and reset any presets afterwards. To do it, you can follow these steps:

1. Click the Settings button.
2. Find Restart in the list.
3. Choose Factory Reset and press the dial to select.

Give it a try and let us know how it goes.

Keep us in the loop!

[DeadshotDiesel]

I'm also having this issue. Was working fine last Wednesday but today it was dead in the water.

Restarting the device, disconnecting and reconnecting to my phone, and attaching it to a different device did not help.

On my Spotify account, it says that Car Thing has a new update and will be transfered over the next time I connect to it. However, no update seems to ever occur.

[FU54]

I had already performed several restarts. However, it started working properly out of the blue today. Maybe an update finally caught up to it.

[Happy-Go-Pucky]

I unplugged mine and plugged it back in a few times. Not even trying to fix this when I did that. Was just trying to decide how it want to orient the cable to 'hide' it. But the buttons started to work after a few replugs. 

[Austintwit6]

My car thing won't let me do any of these, the arrows and shuffle symbol only appear greyed out, but I can pause and heart songs perfectly fine

Plan

Premium

Country

America

Device

Motorola edge plus

[jackn123]

I just installed mine this weekend and am having the same problem. The skip forward / skip backward / 15sec forward / 15 sec backward and the shuffle button are all grey and will not work. The voice controls still work to be able to skip songs. 

I have tried the following: 

1 - Unplug / plug in the unit

2 - turn off / on the phone

3 - "restart" the unit via settings

4 - Factory reset the unit via settings

5 - Uninstall / Reinstall Spotify app - I used the "Clean Uninstall" method on the forums which deletes the app cache and app data for a completely new install

Any ideas? 

I did notice that my phone says that there is an update for the Car Thing, but I cannot seem to get the unit to update. There is no manual update option, so you just have to wait for your phone to update the device at some point. I have seen others on here that say this is sort of random and will happen "eventually" during regular use. 

Bottom line - the device is useless without the ability to easily skip songs. 

[OscarDC]

Hey @jackn123,

Welcome to the Community and thank you for joining the conversation.

To keep investigating this issue, would you mind unplugging the unit, and plugging it back in but using a different wire/cable to see if it makes any difference?

Also, could you plug your Car Thing indoor to see if it forces the pending update?

We'll be on the lookout.

[jackn123]

I'll try this this evening after work and report back. Thanks for the
suggestions.

[OscarDC]

Hey @jackn123,

Thank you for your swift response.

It's always a pleasure to help. We appreciate the time you're taking following the troubleshooting process and we'll be waiting for your response to see if it works or if we can try something different.

And remember that if anything else comes up, we're just a post away.

Cheers!

[imasooperhero]

Did not work. I performed a clean uninstall of Spotify on my phone and factory reset the Car Thing. Still unable to shuffle, skip, or replay a song. The Spotify app on my phone has been saying that the Car Thing has an update and will download and install next time it connects, but it's been saying that despite having being reset and reconnected multiple times.

[Lyubka]

Hey @imasooperhero,

Thank you for your reply in this thread and for the troubleshooting you've done so far.
 

Can you try plugging the unit using different cable as @Oscar suggested earlier? 
 

On another note, you mentioned that you see a message that there is pending update, can you let us know what happens when you connect the Car thing? Does it start downloading and installing the update? Any screenshots you can provide will help us investigate further. 

Keep us posted,

Cheers!

[SirAfroPanda]

I have just gotten a new Car Thing and I am having the same issue as the others have explained. No media controls are available on the Car Thing. My Spotify app also says that there is an update for the Car Thing available but there doesn't seem to be a way to force it to update. I have tried restarting the device several times, as well as a factory reset.

[jackn123]

Hi everyone - I got in the car after work yesterday and both issues seem to
have resolved themselves. I have a theory. I think you have to have Spotify
open on wifi at some point during the day so that it can download the Car
Thing update in the background. Then I went and got in the car and did my
morning commute. During that time, I suspect that it is sending the update
over to the unit, so you probably have to be in the car using the unit for
more than a couple minutes in the driveway to give it time to transfer.
Then when I got back in the car after work the unit booted up with the new
software version installed and the button issue resolved.

I suspect that trying to do a bunch of plug and unplugs in the driveway and
uninstalling / reinstalling it won't fix the issue. I think you need to
give the background update process the appropriate time to download,
transfer, update and reboot.

Just a theory, but I am in business now!

[129657542]

Following.... Same problem. Factory reset, connected to wifi etc.... Still pending update and no way to force it. No skip for now.

[SirAfroPanda]

I left my Car Thing plugged in at my desk the whole day while I worked, with my phone connected to it and on Wi-Fi. At some point it must have updated as the buttons have come back for me as well now. Seems it just takes time as others have pointed out.

[AlejaR]

Hey folks,

Thanks for your replies.

@SirAfroPanda, @jackn123 thanks for your insights, we really appreciate them.

@129657542, thanks for letting us know the troubleshooting you've done so far. Can you try what @SirAfroPanda suggested? Make sure the internet connection is stable. Give it a try and let us know how it goes.

If that doesn't do the trick, would you mind trying what @OscarDC mentioned above? Try by using a different wire/cable indoors to see if it makes any difference.
 

Keep us in the loop!

[camblack524]

I just got my Car Thing and it works pretty well except I am unable to skip to the next song, previous song, or toggle shuffle using the shuffle button as they are all greyed out. Only way I can do it is by using voice command or manually doing it on my phone. Aren't these buttons supposed to be usable on the now playing screen?