Infotainment Issue

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ap19063

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Hi - I just bought the new Equinox in the RS trim last Saturday. Seems like a nice car, and although the materials could be better I'm not loosing sight of the fact that it is a 33k car. Not sure that this matters, but I am an Android guy, so the new Google tech was a big attraction. That said I'm having a problem I wanted to post in the hope that if others if not yet, soon have the same problem someone can find a solution. I also do not know if Chevrolet engineers or staff reads these posts and may become aware of the problem. My problem is with the Bluetooth connection to my Samsung S24+ phone. It acts very erratic. Once you start the car and it recognizes the phone, the connection begins to endlessly connect and disconnect. Google is unable to use contacts and make calls because of the constant lost connection to the Bluetooth. Also and this is very bizarre, I cannot disable the Bluetooth on my phone. When I do, hoping to stop the madness, the car (or something) turns it back on and it goes back to connect-disconnect - connect - disconnect... and the cycle continues until I turn the car or the phone off. Also, and, this is important... it only happens with my S24+ phone. I will circle around to this later. That said, I know many people will suggest the obvious troubleshooting steps, so I will list them here to save you some time.

1 - I have unpaired and paired the phone several times. I have made sure the phone is forgotten in both the car and the phone before I pair it again.
2 - I have RESTARTED the phone. I have also restarted the car.
3 - I reset the infotainment to factory and tried it again.
4 - I have reset my phone to factory - to ensure there isn't a corruption
5 - Note that the phone works flawlessly otherwise and that includes connecting to several other Bluetooth devices, wifi, etc.
6 - This is where it gets juicy and many will say (it's obviously the phone) - I have set several other phones including 2 other same generation Samsung phones and there isn't a problem. Ordinarily I would also assume that my phone or phone's Bluetooth is broken, but remember I said the phone works perfectly in every other case including Bluetooth with other devices. These would include my other car a 23 Nissan.

All I can think is that for some reason I have not found yet, that there is some incompatibility with the S24+. My phone is running the latest updates from Samsung. I know the car is running some version 12. If anyone has one of these phones and is having a similar issue, I'd like know. The only thing I have not done yet is find another S24+ and try it. It would surprise and confuse me if it did work, as it would not answer why I am able to use it with other devices without problems. Also if anyone can advice a way to let Chevrolet engineers know about this or talk to someone who isn't just answering a phone. I try the dealer, but I'm sorry to say that seems also useless, as they would only reset the radio to factory, test it with the phones and give it back to me saying that they did not find a problem. Thank you in advance for your time.
 

bagbyjw

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I realize it's not the same phone but I have a Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra Android version 14 One UI version 6.1 Google Play system Update of July 1 2024, with the Android security patch level of August 1 2024. I don't have any of the symptoms that you are experiencing, are you up to date on the software?
 

ap19063

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I realize it's not the same phone but I have a Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra Android version 14 One UI version 6.1 Google Play system Update of July 1 2024, with the Android security patch level of August 1 2024. I don't have any of the symptoms that you are experiencing, are you up to date on the software?
Yes, the phone is up to date. Today I'm driving with the Samsung a25. Off course the cheap phone works fantastic - LOL.
 

ricklack

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I had similar issues in my 2013 Nox shortly before trading it in (2021) with my Samsung phone, sorry I forget what model.

The issue started after a Samsung update and was corrected in the next update. The workaround I found was to perform a "Network Reset". In the Settings menu just do a search - after running that and rebooting the phone and re-pairing, it would work ok for a random amount of days/weeks. Maybe worth a try, good luck.
 

ap19063

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For those who care to follow and/or contribute to this process 🙂, I have a couple of updates. One of the issues I mentioned was that once the phone was attached, it would not let me turn off bluetooth in the event it was necessary. I mean, I can't express how stressful and frustrating it is to loose access to your phone because your buggy infotainment has hijacked it. I don't know about you all, but I've had cats with bluetooth for at least 25 years. For me attaching my phone to the cars bluetooth is a part of driving to safely make and receive calls. Ok, so - the infotainment continues to be buggy, but I figured out why I can't turn off bluetooth. It has to do with wireless android auto. I'm not gonna go into a deep dive into why they are related, but basically if you have wireless android auto running, that requires a bluetooth connection to the infotainment and android auto will not let you disconnect it in order to maintain WAA running.

That said, buggy, glitch, pick your description... the issues with bluetooth continue. Sometimes it is connected, but it didn't established a link to your contacts, so when you ask the infotainment to call someone, it says it's unable to complete the command. I was able to correct the problem by just turning off/on bluetooth. When it reattached, it linked to the contacts. BTW, it also happened to my wife who uses a different Samsung phone.

At this point I'm just praying either Chevrolet or samsung puts out some kind of update that fixes these bugs. I am avoiding the dealer cause as I said, these days the level of service businesses give you is subpar and considering the glitch is inconsistent, I don't expect much cooperation. As well, I would allow them to reflash the infotainment, but I would rather get rid of the car, than allow them to replace it.
 

PhillyPhan23

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This is a wild guess, but it may not be a Bluetooth issue. While wireless Android Auto uses Bluetooth to establish a connection, the actual screen display is accomplished using wifi. There are a couple of Verizon network dead spots on the PA Turnpike. Every time I travel in those dead spots, my phone loses network connectivity and Android Auto drops and then comes back just like you mention. How is the cell phone coverage in your area and do you notice Android Auto dropping in the same location?
 

ap19063

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Hey Phillyphan. Keep in mind that the issue is the phone remaining connected to the infotainment. I'm not sure if you have the same nox or if you've seen these new infotainment systems, the new not EV, new traverse, new EV truck has it also. When you connect the bluetooth to the infotainment, it lists your phone at the top - e.g. "ap19063's phone". When it's glitching out, I can see it disconnect, connect, disconnect, connect... I can choose to not run android auto and still have a problem using bluetooth because of the constant connection looping and/or it not linking to my contacts etc. If I had a wifi issue (and yes no zone is 100%) I would them report that my calls were dropping. My post from yesterday was to explain that I now found the reason why the infotainment WILL NOT let you disconnect from bluetooth and/or why you NEED bluetooth if you're going to use android auto. WAA is sort of new to cars and it's a learning curve. If I was using android auto wired I would be able to turn off bluetooth. My intent with that information was to point out that this is not one of the issues as listed on my original post, it is a common behavior of WAA.

BTW, as part of my troubleshooting, I ordered a WAA dongle from Amazon. I connected to my 23 Nissan and it works perfectly. The phone not only established a connection with the flash drive via bluetooth, it identified that the device was used for AA and limited it to music, while updating the bluetooth connection to the car's infotainment to calls only. With this connection, I'm able to make and receive calls through the car by using the controls on the steering wheel, as well as saying "hey google" ,etc.etc. And this is some cheap Chinese crap 😁.

I have a Oneplus phone I will be testing with for a couple of days to hopefully narrow the trouble to samsung phones. I will also eventually go to my iPhone and determine if the problem also exists with Carplay.
 

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