Help Bluetooth Audio in Car W/ Spotify acting up! Can't fix it.

[SampsonNation]

I have a Samsung S9 with the latest OS and security updates on it. It's a G960F. I live in the USA, on the east coast.

I am having an issue mainly with Spotify and my aftermarket Bluetooth radio in my car. For whatever reason, I'll press the NEXT button on either the radio's screen or on the steering wheel and Spotify will refuse to change songs. This applies to the GO BACK button as well. However, it I try to use the volume buttons on the steering wheel control, they function. This also applies to the volume UP and DOWN button on the radio. This is all happening all while I don't have Spotify in the foreground on my S9 (IE: minimized). The music is still playing, but I can't control anything except the volume controls. I can fix this issue by immediately tapping on the Spotify icon and bringing it up to the foreground. After that, the steering wheel controls, etc. will start functioning again. If I leave the app again, my controllability goes away within a few minutes.

I'm completely stumped on why this is happening. This is very frustrating. I literally can't use Spotify unless it's running in the foreground.

Here's what I've done to try and resolve the issue:

1. Clear my phones cache.

2. Reinstall Spotify

3. I did a factory reset on my phone, but maybe I did something to "break" the background nature of the app.

Spotify is set to be able to run in the background.

What do you all think?

Thanks in advance!

 

[mikedt]

I'm sure someone else was reporting the same problems last week on AF. With no apparent resolution. So it could be an issue that Spotify needs to fix with their app?

 

[SampsonNation]

I went ahead and restored/wiped my entire phone just to be sure. It seems to be cooperating for now. I was very careful with installing just the bare minimum apps and changing only the settings I thought wouldn't impact it. I'm not sure if this helped, but it's functioning.

 

[SampsonNation]

Well, this didn't last long. I'm getting issues almost all the time now. I was extremely careful to only install the apps I absolutely needed and only changed the settings within the phone on the ones I knew wouldn't cause any interference.

I'm so frustrated over this phone. I'm literally considering going back to an iPhone because I can't control Spotify or my volume controls consistently enough with this platform.

On top of all this, simple commands like "OK Google" bring up an error message saying "Cannot connect to Google right now." It happens while I'm driving. I've seen that this issue has been around.

I just want to be able to drive safely and ask Google to create a reminder or to type a text message without giving me an error. It's very annoying!

 

[SampsonNation]

I replaced the phone with a new one and it seems my issues are gone for now. I'll report after a few more weeks to see if that's really the case.

 

[SampsonNation]

UPDATE: It seems if I use Android auto via USB to my radio I have ZERO issues. That's all I can conclude at the moment. I haven't been using BT on it's own much without the USB cable as well. So, I'm not 100% sure if it's BT related, but at least my issue has gone away for now.