Bluetooth Playback is Garbled

[SteveB23]

When I attempt to play music from my (Android) phone to my wife's car stereo via Bluetooth, it starts off fine but within a song or two the connection falters and the playback gets garbled. It appears to be dropping packets. It's not buffering, because the songs actually skip ahead instead of waiting. Everything may play correctly for 30 seconds or 15 minutes, but once it starts stuttering it seems unable to recover. Closing and restarting the Bluetooth connection (or cycling the car stereo through its inputs) allows the playback to resume correctly, but the problem always resurfaces.

I've been using this setup for 2 - 3 years now, and this started happening maybe a year ago. I assumed it was probably due to either an Android update or a new version of MMA and decided to wait it out and see if any newer updates would fix it. They did not.

Oddly, my wife does not experience the same problem on her phone. At the time we both had Google Pixel 6a phones, configured (AFAIK) exactly the same, but it never happened for her. We're running MMA Pro on both.

Another oddity: it does not do this on my car, only hers. My car is a 2012 Toyota, hers is a 2017 Toyota. I initially thought it might be an incompatability with the Bluetooth version in her car, but that seems unlikely, seeing that mine is much older. Also, as I said, it does not happen with her phone.

I finally decided it was probably a hardware error on my phone and bought a new one about 6 weeks ago. To my great surprise, that did not help. I now have a Pixel 9, and my wife just upgraded to a Pixel 9a a couple of weeks ago, and the situation has not changed. My phone still appears to drop packets in her car but not mine, and her phone has no trouble in either car.

I'm thinking now that I must have had something configured differently on my old phone and it got copied over to the new one, but I don't know if it would be in the Android Bluetooth config or in MMA. I've looked at the options in both, but nothing jumps out at me, and I don't want to just push buttons randomly. Any ideas on what could be causing this? Or is my phone simply possessed?

Oh, and I'm running MMA 2.0.4.1231.

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks,
Steve

[Peke]

Hi,
Please apply to MMA beta (☰ -> MMA Logo -> Register for Beta) and you should be updating to 1244+

Also When you get garbled sound on BT you can use MMA -> ☰ -> ? -> Send logs -> Write log ID (Screenshot) -> Send -> Write LOG ID here.

[SteveB23]

Thanks, Peke.

1. Do I need to install the debug version before I can generate and send a log? Or do I need to somehow start a logging process first?

2. Is this a known issue? Has anyone else reported anything like this?

3. Do I need to open a trouble ticket?

Thanks!

[Lowlander]

There is no debug version of MMA, so you can send them from the current install. You can reply here with the logID for the log you send.

[SteveB23]

I have sent debug log with LogID GM3PZEI2LC from my current install (2.0.4.1231).

The problem began in the middle of the 4th song being played (Billy Joel's "Turn the Lights Back On").

I'm going to apply for the MMA Beta now.

Thanks,
Steve

[martin.bohac]

Hi Steve,

MMA does not control the Bluetooth connection, this is fully under the control of the system.
More likely, something may be affecting the running of MMA in the background, like battery optimization.
However, according to your log, the battery optimization for MMA is correctly disabled.
You can verify that in System/Apps/MediaMonkey/App battery usage/Allow background usage - should be enabled

Don't you have any other battery optimization apps installed?

In system developer options, there are several Bluetooth settings, like AVRCP Version (1.5 default), you can try changing to 1.6.

Other tips see:
https://demcrumbliesreviews.com/fix-blu ... id-phones/

[SteveB23]

I tested with Beta build 1245 and the problem is definitely not resolved there. I sent a new log, LogID = I2S6WB1RWA

I'll try Martin's suggestion to change the AVCRP version in the developer options.

Yes, "Allow background usage" is enabled for MMA, and I do not have any battery optimization apps installed.

Thanks,
Steve

[SteveB23]

I've updated the Bluetooth AVCRP version in the Developer Options from 1.5 (the default) to 1.6. That seems to have fixed the problem. Once or twice I thought I heard a song stutter just for a fraction of a second but then it was OK, so either it didn't happen or if it did, it was able to recover.

I'll leave it like this for a couple more days, then exit the Beta and restore back to the production version of 1231, or whatever version is available in the Play store at that time.

Is there anything I should be careful of? I believe the only instructions were to exit the Beta program, uninstall the Beta version and reinstall the production version. Should all the music files, playlists, and the database itself be intact and automatically imported?

Thanks for all the help!
Steve

[martin.bohac]

Hi Steve, good to hear that.
I believe that uninstalling is needed only if you want to downgrade MMA immediately, but if you want to exit the Beta program only, then "Leave the program" is enough.

Once a stable version with a higher version number is released, the app will automatically update to the stable version.

[SteveB23]

Thanks, Martin. I'll probably do that, then. My only concern is the stability of the Beta version, but I haven't seen any major problems yet.

[Peke]

Thanks, Martin. I'll probably do that, then. My only concern is the stability of the Beta version, but I haven't seen any major problems yet.

We usually tend to test each build and treat it like it is RC, But leave in Beta for possible regressions. It is tested by various team members in numerous Android versions, so we see them as pretty safe. Also only annoyance you may see is active development and increased update releases.