[tardboi]

Hi all, I've been trying to figure this out for half a year now and have run out of ideas.

I have an android phone connecting to a 2015 335i. I just want Pandora to work when I'm driving. When I use bluetooth, the car connects immediately (usually) and plays 1 song. After that, there's about a 50% chance it plays another, or stops. The connection remains. If I look at my phone, the song is playing, but no sound from the car. The car will show the song progressing with some arbitrary length. What i've done for 6 months now is just mash "next". Eventually, it will start playing a song.

Interestingly, my pandora subscription ended a few days ago - now, once I reach the song skip limit, it will always start playing the next song when I hit next. So, I might skip 5 songs with no audio (even though the phone is playing them), then song #6 starts with no audio - I hit skip, hear the "skip limit reached" noise, and suddenly.. audio. This made me think it was some power saving crap on the phone, so I turned it off. I've tried keeping the screen on while driving so its awake.. nope, still only get one, two, or on a lucky day.. 3 songs in a row.

I also found if I go on my phone, pause the current "muted" song, and then hit play - the car starts playing audio for that song.

Oh, and maybe 10% of the time I get album art and song names. It's either on or off for the entire trip. No idea what triggers it to do that, but it still stops playing audio.

So then I bought Connected Drive services from the BMW site, since the BMW Connected app claims Pandora works with my car and phone. Well, the only app that shows is Calendar. No Pandora. The first day I tried syncing over USB it gave an error ("Something went wrong, please try again." on the idrive), but today it just says "ok" and only gives calendar. I know I've read the apps dont work with Android, but the app knows my car and phone and says it would work - so I bought it...

Please- any ideas?


Oh yeah - this also means google map voice instructions dont work over Bluetooth unless a song is successfully playing. If a "muted" song is playing when voice instructions try to come through, I hear nothing. With a working song, I get them. With no music - no audio.

I have the tech package and
S6NSA Convenience phone, expanded Smartphone



EDIT: I found this post https://f30.bimmerpost.com/forums/sh....php?t=1495876

I will try this and report back. After some googling, it seems my issue is not that rare. It seemed so absurd for a $50k+ car to have these issues so I didn't think it would be so prominent...

[tardboi]

Above fix did not work. However, the desktop version of Pandora (on mobile) DOES work. Song skipping does not work thru idrive, but the audio does.

[plurant]

I had a similar issue while using bluetooth and spotify/deezer with my Oneplus 6. Songs would play on the phone not on the car, metadata and commands would not work and timestamps where updating every 5s.

I thought this would be an issue with the car but no it's not.

Let me explain, i had a cic with combox with latest FW, with the above issues, tried to change avrcp version etc but nothing would work so i let it be.
Some weeks ago i did a NBT retrofit, and guess what... Same issues. I flashed the NBT to see if the latest i-step would correct that but no. Media update from bmw site did nothing.

The only common thing with these setups was my phone.
So i reset it to try, but nothing. Then i though i could flash a custom rom to see if this makes any difference. And this worked, no more bluetooth issues. Everything is working now.

Seems like some phone manufacturers modify the bluetooth stack of their rom to the point it doesn't behave well with the idrive system. I'm still trying some stuff to see what causes this but yeah this is the culprit.

What Android Phone do you use ?

[tardboi]

Thanks for your input! Its a HTC 10. Been looking at getting a new phone but I hate all these new ones are too big for single handed use lol. I will look into trying someone else's phone on the car and report back if that helps. Might be awhile before I find someone willing to let me play with their phone.

[plurant]

Originally Posted by tardboi

Thanks for your input! Its a HTC 10. Been looking at getting a new phone but I hate all these new ones are too big for single handed use lol. I will look into trying someone else's phone on the car and report back if that helps. Might be awhile before I find someone willing to let me play with their phone.

I had tried with a friends S8 and it worked perfectly.

[tardboi]

Perfect, I know someone with an S7.

Also, another option I've read is to buy an old iphone just to permanently plug into the car and use your existing phone as a wifi hotspot for it when you drive. If the S7 doesnt work then I might try that.

[plurant]

Originally Posted by tardboi

Perfect, I know someone with an S7.

Also, another option I've read is to buy an old iphone just to permanently plug into the car and use your existing phone as a wifi hotspot for it when you drive. If the S7 doesnt work then I might try that.

if you have issues with the S7, as last resort you can try to install the latest media update for your HU from the BMW web site, or flash it to the latest istep with esys.

[tardboi]

Originally Posted by plurant

if you have issues with the S7, as last resort you can try to install the latest media update for your HU from the BMW web site, or flash it to the latest istep with esys.

I think I've done that. Installed some update via USB in the center storage thing. "UDP05081". Are there other updates/ anything the dealer could perform?