Automotive: Bluetooth drops whenever an ad plays

[Nagash]

Been happening a lot lately. When an ad plays, I completely lose bluetooth. The screen in my car even stops showing the BT symbol, and automatically switches itself back to FM radio. When the symbol comes back, I can hit media to go back to BT audio, but it plays less than 0.25 seconds of the ad before dropping again. Some ads don't cause it, most do. I've also had the same issue when trying to listen to songs on demand, and podcasts do it pretty often, too. This happens in my car, I haven't tested with other BT devices. I can try to find one when I get home, I guess. I'll update this when I test that.

For weeks, I've just been driving with my phone in the cupholder and hitting "play" on my phone to complete the ad w/o switching back to BT audio and then switching back once I assume enough time has passed.

Moderator Edit: Merged posts

[TannerPandora]

Hi @Nagash!

Welcome to the community! Thanks for sharing these details, and sorry to hear you're running into trouble while listening in your car.

Testing with another Bluetooth device when you get a chance would be helpful to narrow down whether this is vehicle-specific or happening across all Bluetooth outputs. Alternatively, if your car supports a USB connection, please give that a try as well.

In the meantime, I've enabled a trace on your account to help with the investigation. While the trace is enabled, please complete the steps below and continue to use Pandora as you normally would. Please note that once these steps are completed, you'll be logged out of Pandora and will need to sign back in afterward.

1. Open your device Settings
2. Tap Apps
3. Scroll down and select Pandora
4. Tap Storage
5. On the storage details page, tap Clear Data

Could you also provide the following details about your mobile device and vehicle?

• Phone model + OS version
• Pandora app version
• Car make/model/year

Thanks so much for your help!

[Nagash]

I completed those steps.

The car is a 2013 Hyundai Elantra

The phone is a TCL 50 XL NXTPaper 5G running Android version 15

The app is running version 2604.1

I still haven't tested with another device, yet. 

[TannerPandora]

Thanks for completing those steps, @Nagash! Please use Pandora as you normally would, the next time you run into trouble, let me know the date and approximate time, please include time zone, and I'll have a look. 

One thing I missed to ask yesterday, are you connected to an in car WiFi or are you using your mobile's cellular network?

Thanks again!

[Nagash]

I'm in the Chicago time zone, and I'm using cellular data. 

It happened today at about 5:12pm, then again at 5:30pm (this time it was 2 ads in a row, so for the sake of the test, I switched back during the second ad, but it did the same thing again), then it happened at 5:39pm.

I just tested with a pair of wireless earbuds. At 6:51, while connected to my house's wifi. I tried to listen to a podcast, and they went *beep beep* you're connected. *Beep beep* you're connected. *beep beep* you're connected. The BT symbol on my phone's toolbar would flash in and out as this happened. I wasn't even pressing anything (which isn't true in my car. When in my car, the BT stays connected until I press play. With the earbuds, it just keeps flicking in and out even with no input from me), it just kept reconnecting and automatically disconnecting. Then I switched to music. Three songs and a pair of ads actually played almost without incident (the second song booted me at the start. This was about 6:52, but once BT reconnected, it was able to play the whole rest of the song).  2 songs later at 7:06 it happened again. The first second or two of a Liberty Mutual ad played, then Beep beep you're connected beep beep you're connected on a loop until I turned them off at 7:08. The earbuds are recognized by my phone as "JLab BT". They're black and they say JLAB on them. I don't know anything else about them.

And again, all these timestamps are in the Chicago timezone.

[TannerPandora]

Hi @Nagash 

Thanks so much for taking the time to document all of these details and timestamps. I’ve shared your experience with our engineering team for further review and investigation. The information about the different connection types, and the behavior around ads is especially helpful.

One last thing to double check in your settings, please review any battery optimization/saver settings enabled on your phone, as these can sometimes interfere with background audio playback or connected devices.

The steps below are general Android steps that may help:

1. Open your device Settings, then tap Apps
2. Scroll to find Pandora (or use the Search option)
3. Select Battery
4. Choose Unrestricted

Because Android devices can vary by manufacturer and model, the exact steps may differ on your device. If the steps above don’t match what you see, please references the owners manual for specific steps to review battery optimization/saver setting. 

Thanks for your patience in the meantime!