Bluetooth issues [#11416, #11417]

[mcow]

In order to play music from MMA via BT in my car, what I have found is best practice is:
- wait for the BT connection to be made
- view the MMA screen
- turn on the head unit (and switch to BTA if needed)
In this case, it usually starts playing right away. I hit the power button to turn off the screen and tuck the tablet away and drive.

Issue 1) If the tablet is dark or if MMA is not visible, I have problems with not being able to start the track: the head unit displays "BTA PAUSE" (PAUSE is blinking) and even if I press the unit's play/pause button, it won't start: the PAUSE indicator clears for a bit while it tries, but it gives up and PAUSE blinks again. This is easily fixed by pressing Play in MMA, but that's not safe while driving.

Issue 2) Even following "best practice" as above, I sometimes encounter a symptom where the music starts playing, but when I hit the power button, it stops, and I have to power back on, unlock, and press Play again. I've only seen this when resuming play of a track that's advance some short amount of time into the track, and the play position usually resets to 0:00 when it suddenly stops. This may also be related to restarting MMA after using the tablet for something else.

The above two issues have been occurring for a while. The unit is the "standard" (not "premium") that came with the Toyota, but I can't find details on the manufacturer.

Issue 3) NEW! -- MMA appears to be playing, but no sound. What led to this, yesterday: In the house, testing something, I started and then paused an on-device track. Then I sync'd, moving five or six albums off and another five or six albums on. Then I went out to the car and followed "best practice" as above, but while the head unit showed normal ("BTA" without "PAUSE") and MMA's scrub-bar was advancing, there was no sound. I paused and restarted, turned off and on the car stereo, advanced to the next track, selected other tracks: I could not get it to play. Finally restarted the Tab, and then it was able to play. I wonder if this might have been caused by the play having started thru the device speakers, then switching to a BT connection.

I saw this inaudible-playing once with MMA 165 and once, yesterday, with MMA 167, never before; but my tablet upgraded from 4.1.1 to 4.2.2 just before I installed 165, so that could be at the root of this particular issue.

[rivorson]

I also experience your second problem in my Toyota. When music is playing normally through the car then I press the power button, the car sends a STOP command. When MMA receives the STOP command as opposed to the PAUSE command it shuts down and stops listening for further media commands. Consequently the only way to play music again is to unlock the phone/tablet and press Play in MMA which, as you say, is not safe while driving.

I believe the way to fix the first and second problems on your list is for MMA to have a service running all the time to intercept media commands, even when the main app is closed.

[mcow]

Thanks for that info, rivorson, I'll keep that in mind when I'm experiencing these problems again.

In case it's not clear, the "power button" I was hitting was that of the tablet, to shut off the screen before driving off. But I do sometimes hit the car's power button while the stereo is still on, and that could be causing some of the varying symptoms I'm seeing.

I had another instance of symptom #3 tonight: I was playing via Bluetooth in the car. I stopped for gas, turned off the stereo, shut off the car. Turned back on, "best practices," it started playing but no audio. This time I just drove home with no music, and as soon as I got in I sent a debug log.

[Peke]

Hi,
MMA can't determine STOP from PAUSE when BT connection is closed Eg. if BT connection is closed MMA stops Playback which is normal due the fact that in most cases (mine included) BT connection is closed mostly when I turn off engine and stereo goes to standby mode which instruct MMA to stop playback and put itself to Idle mode. You do the same when you turn off stereo manually.

Only way that MMA and any other media app are able to override Android idle state is to have Playback service started (and only service that tells BT to be active and react to commands, in all other cases BT goes to low power state) that on the other hand drains battery a lot.

[mcow]

Can you put a button (like in Options) to try to start the service?

[Peke]

@mcow
Not related to this Topic.

[rivorson]

Only way that MMA and any other media app are able to override Android idle state is to have Playback service started (and only service that tells BT to be active and react to commands, in all other cases BT goes to low power state) that on the other hand drains battery a lot.

I remember seeing somewhere that having a bluetooth headset connected now keeps the service running, so I tested this with MMA 168 on my Nexus 4 by connecting my bluetooth headset, starting then pausing playback, and leaving the phone alone. After 50 minutes pressing the play button on the headset (without touching the phone) worked and playback resumed as expected. The phone's battery history showed that it had been in idle mode the whole time and had used very little power (less than 2%).

It seems on my phone the service can run without preventing idle mode. Are other devices different in this respect?

[mcow]

I've had the inaudible-playback issue in a number of different scenarios since first reporting the problem. For instance, recently, I had the tablet in the car and playing. I stopped play using the head unit, left the tablet in the car, ran an errand, returned: "best practice" started the track inaudibly.

Once, and once only, I was able to get audible playback to resume by stopping MMA from the notification's STOP button, then restarting, but this hasn't worked on subsequent attempts. The one time I tried restarting the tablet in the car (with the passenger's help), that worked to re-enable audible playback.

[mcow]

I don't know if anything changed in this area with 175, but I updated this morning and have had far worse playing-inaudibly over Bluetooth all day.

[rusty]

Thanks. Tracking the first 2 issues at:
http://www.ventismedia.com/mantis/view.php?id=11416
http://www.ventismedia.com/mantis/view.php?id=11417

Re. the volume problem, no changes have been made in recent builds. Can you confirm whether the issue occurs or not on other players as well?

Thanks.

-Rusty

[Peke]

FYI I have tested ASUS Memo Pad 7HD today using BT keyboard that have STOP button and MMA didn't close just stopped music.

[mcow]

Re. the volume problem, no changes have been made in recent builds. Can you confirm whether the issue occurs or not on other players as well?

I will try. At this point, MMA is unreliable for Bluetooth player.

FYI I have tested ASUS Memo Pad 7HD today using BT keyboard that have STOP button and MMA didn't close just stopped music.

Assuming that's in reference to this:

Once, and once only, I was able to get audible playback to resume by stopping MMA from the notification's STOP button, then restarting, but this hasn't worked on subsequent attempts. The one time I tried restarting the tablet in the car (with the passenger's help), that worked to re-enable audible playback.

The STOP button I was referring to was the one in the tablet's notification area from MMA, the one to "stop" the player.

In addition to those fix-attempts I mention there, I have tried a number of times to Force Stop, with mixed success. I have also several times tried just dismissing the MMA app from the Android task-switcher (swiping it away), and this also seemed to work once, but only once.

Yesterday, when I tried playing and couldn't get it started, I selected "Send Debug Log", and it appeared to succeed, but I didn't have a data connection; I don' t know if the log was queued for later delivery or if it was lost. Sorry, but I didn't have time to note down the log ID.

[rusty]

Hi,

Let us know how build 178 is working for you--1416 and 1417 should be fixed.

Thanks.

-Rusty

[mcow]

I didn't update from 176 until today, got 179.
Drove on an errand, playing from an album in MMA, BT into car stereo. At shop, got out, taking the tablet with me. Got back in, turned on the car, woke up the tablet: Android's BT connection was not yet established with car. Waited until the icon showed the two dots, then turned on the car stereo. MMA's scrubber bar started to advance, but no sound.

I paused, opened Google Play Music, selected a different track and started: audible playback thru BT.

I got home, brought tablet inside. Switched back to MMA, sent a log as soon as wifi connection was established. ero76ljgaz (or maybe er076ljgaz?)

[rivorson]

I've just had the problem of sound not playing in build 182. Sound was playing normally while I was driving when my car paused the music to switch to a radio traffic announcement. After the announcement finished the car sent the command to resume playback. MMA looked like it was playing and tracks were advancing but there was no sound.
I paused MM and sent a debug log as soon as I could. I couldn't note the log number but it was approximately an hour prior to this post.