[Q] Nexus 6 Bluetooth issues... - Nexus 6 Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting

[Q] Nexus 6 Bluetooth issues... - Nexus 6 Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting

I've had my Nexus 6 since Jan. 1, upgrading from an HTC One M7 GPE running 5.0 Lollipop. I experienced Bluetooth connectivity issues with the HTC One after upgrading to 5.0L from 4.4KK, and I knew they were 5.0 related, so I expected somewhat of the same when getting the N6. My problem is, even after upgrading my N6 to 5.01 and then 5.1, most of my Bluetooth issues still exist. I'm trying to figure out if they are indeed software related, or if maybe I have a defective BT radio. I'm rooted, running stock 5.1 LMY47M, with ElementalX Kernel and Nova Launcher. Here is a list of the issues I'm having with my N6 and Bluetooth:
1. Constant dropped connection to my car's bluetooth. Will connect when car is first powered on, then drops connection after about 20 seconds only to reconnect 30 seconds after that, then drop again within 30 seconds. Sometimes it will connect and stay connected for hours. This issue didn't exist with my HTC One running 4.4KK, but did happen intermittently after upgrading it to 5.0L. This issue also doesn't seem to exist when connecting my wife's N5 running 5.1 LMY47D.
2. Problem #1 also seems to exist when connecting my N6 to my Nvidia Shield Tablet running 5.0L, but not as persistent as with Car BT.
3. When my N6 does connect to my Nvidia Shield Tablet, I can send messages using joaoapps' AutoRemote over Bluetooth from my N6 to my Tablet, but not from my Tablet to my N6. Both phone and tablet are configured correctly. This one has me completely stumped and I've spent hours troubleshooting it before just giving up.
3. Audio stuttering when connected to my BT headphones. Again no issue when using said headphones with HTC One 4.4KK or wife's N5 5.1 LMY47D.
3. Bluetooth seems to turn off randomly. At first I thought it was one of my Tasker profiles, but problem still exists even after uninstalling Tasker.
4. My N6 will not connect to my BT OBDII adapter. N6 pairs with adapter, but adapter does not work with Torque or any other ODBII app. HTC One 4.4KK, wife's N5 5.1 LMY47D, and my Nvidia Shield tablet running 5.0L all connect with no issue.
I have tried every suggestion on threads (Reboot, clear Bluetooth Share cache, clear Bluetooth Share Data, forget all connections and re-pair, Bluetooth Auto Connect app) with no luck. I love my N6, but I've hated these BT issues since day one and I've crossed my fingers with every Lollipop update that they would be resolved, to no avail. I'm wondering if anyone (or everyone) is experiencing similar issues with BT, or is it just my N6, and I should return it for a new one before warranty expires. Thanks.

I only use my N6 Bluetooth with my car (ford sync) and occasionally my home phone. I haven't had any issues. Use it everyday on my commute to and from work.
Since you're experiencing this with multiple devices id assume its you phone too. Maybe contact google for warranty replacement?

Are you by any chance wearing a smartwatch? I had similar problem with my OnePlus One and narrowed the problem down to my Moto 360 smartwatch connection. If I didn't have my smartwatch on while in the car, my auto connection worked fine.
Recently, I switched to a Nexus 6 and find bluetooth to be even worse with this phone. Seems as if the signal being broadcast is too weak. Headset audio will start to breakup, with a clear LOS, after just 10-12 ft. Also, just putting my phone in my pocket will case choppiness. With this phone, however, I have yet to determine whether it is my smartwatch that is causing the problems as well or not.

Mit Hipster said:
Are you by any chance wearing a smartwatch? I had similar problem with my OnePlus One and narrowed the problem down to my Moto 360 smartwatch connection. If I didn't have my smartwatch on while in the car, my auto connection worked fine.
Recently, I switched to a Nexus 6 and find bluetooth to be even worse with this phone. Seems as if the signal being broadcast is too weak. Headset audio will start to breakup, with a clear LOS, after just 10-12 ft. Also, just putting my phone in my pocket will case choppiness. With this phone, however, I have yet to determine whether it is my smartwatch that is causing the problems as well or not.
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No, not using a smartwatch yet. Holding off on purchasing one until I can get this bluetooth mess figured out. I did another factory wipe and rolled back to 5.01, this time staying encrypted (used no force before). Seems to be a little more stable this time, although I have no way of telling if it's because of encryption or just luck. I think it's just coincidental, I don't see how encryption would have any effect either way. I applied the 5.1 update to LMY47M and so far much more stable than before. Again, I don't know why. I can say I am rather disappointed with Google and the Nexus 6. My wife's Nexus 5 is far more stable and I can't believe Google would allow a 'flagship' device to remain this buggy. I never had any of these issues with my HTC One. I traded up to the Nexus 6 for the Google experience, no bloatware, fast updates, etc., thinking that meant more stability. It seems that trading bloatware for the Nexus experience has an unexpected consequence of being a beta-tester for Google.

Bluetooth is different on the Nexus 6 for sure.
lords8n said:
No, not using a smartwatch yet. Holding off on purchasing one until I can get this bluetooth mess figured out. I did another factory wipe and rolled back to 5.01, this time staying encrypted (used no force before). Seems to be a little more stable this time, although I have no way of telling if it's because of encryption or just luck. I think it's just coincidental, I don't see how encryption would have any effect either way. I applied the 5.1 update to LMY47M and so far much more stable than before. Again, I don't know why. I can say I am rather disappointed with Google and the Nexus 6. My wife's Nexus 5 is far more stable and I can't believe Google would allow a 'flagship' device to remain this buggy. I never had any of these issues with my HTC One. I traded up to the Nexus 6 for the Google experience, no bloatware, fast updates, etc., thinking that meant more stability. It seems that trading bloatware for the Nexus experience has an unexpected consequence of being a beta-tester for Google.
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I also use Ford Sync system. For years it has been reliable and worked flawlessly. But starting with the Nexus 6, some of the common applications I use when mobile started crashing the bluetooth stack and giving the error, "Bluetooth Sharing as stopped working."
Before the Nexus 6 which is the first device I've owned with Lollipop, this never happened. The developer of the SMS texting app that is the main one affected by this, has tried everything to resolve the issue but he and I are now beginning to believe it is something baked either into the phone or lollipop, but before this device I never had any problems with bluetooth. I even went as far as to replace my HU in the car with the new pioneer that supports Android Auto, but to my chagrin, it still crashes on that head unit whenever the SMS reader trys to log off and switch back the stream to media. And unfortunately Android Auto currently does not support Pandora which is a must have for me. Pandora runs perfect on the new HU as it did on the Ford Sync as well, but the SMS reader causes BT sharing to error on both devices since the Nexus 6 and Lollipop, so there is something going on with the bluetooth stack and unfortunately no one I can find has any information about what has changed. Hoping Android Auto will soon add Pandora, but Pandora has not given any time estimation about when that will happen.

Mit Hipster said:
Are you by any chance wearing a smartwatch? I had similar problem with my OnePlus One and narrowed the problem down to my Moto 360 smartwatch connection. If I didn't have my smartwatch on while in the car, my auto connection worked fine.
Recently, I switched to a Nexus 6 and find bluetooth to be even worse with this phone. Seems as if the signal being broadcast is too weak. Headset audio will start to breakup, with a clear LOS, after just 10-12 ft. Also, just putting my phone in my pocket will case choppiness. With this phone, however, I have yet to determine whether it is my smartwatch that is causing the problems as well or not.
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Funny that you mention that. Previously used my Nexus 6 in the car with no issues. Only thing that changed is that I started pairing with a smartwatch in addition, and now my Nexus 6 crashes a few minutes into using Spotify over bluetooth. Complete automatic reboot.
EDIT: Yep, can definitely confirm the combination of the smartwatch and bluetooth audio device kills my phone. Had no trouble without the smartwatch.
EDIT 2: Turns out Google just sucks at bluetooth. Phone can crash regardless, it's just more likely with the smartwatch.
EDIT 3: RMA'd the phone and the new one works perfectly. Turns out it wasn't the software after all, or maybe the watch update helped.

I don't know if this is the same issue or not, but....
Ever since I got my Nexus 6 I have had bluetooth issues with both my cars. One has a Pioneer headunit (2014 model, not Android Auto), the other is a 2014 Subaru Forester with stock head unit.
In both cases there are days when it works perfectly. Then there are other times when it's a nightmare.
With the Pioneer headunit, bluetooth audio will be playing for a brief period (maybe 30 seconds?) and then something will happen and the headunit will play a repeated beep (bing bing bing bing bing bing) till I turn off bluetooth on the phone, wait a minute or two and reconnect.
With the Forester's headunit, similar situation - i'll be playing audio and it will just drop out. Maybe 60 seconds later it may come back (sometimes). Same applies to telephone calls via the headunit with bluetooth.
The same 'issue' appears with both headunits with one playing a beep when it happens the other dead silence, but both dropping in and out whether it's bluetooth audio or a call.
N6 running latest firmware. Problem has existed since I got it last year. Recently unlocked and rooted, but hasn't made a difference.

I don't know if this is the same as my problem, but it is the closest thread I could find, so I'll post here.
I've had my Nexus 6 about a week. Running 5.1.1, unlocked bootloader and rooted. I've been using a bluetooth headset for phone audio and media audio. It had been working, though I have experienced some audio dropout and stuttering with media audio. I had not been able to determine if that was a bluetooth problem or an app problem, but now I am leaning towards thinking it was a bluetooth problem because of what is now happening.
Today, media audio just stopped playing through my headset. Phone audio is working. I've tried rebooting, I've tried forgetting and re-pairing, I've tried a different headset and I cannot get media audio to play over bluetooth.

I am having the same problem with Nexus6 I have tried two different Plantronics voyager bt headsets and a Motorola Sliver. Motorola said it may be a bluetooth antenna problem
Did a resit on phone and Motorola Bluetooth
I really need bluetooth connectivity so I am stuck
Only other option is either find someone to open up the phone and check the antenna or do it myself maybe replace it myself or look for another phone and use this one as a backup
What would you all suggest?
Thanks

Related

Bluetooth nexus one connecting to Renault carkit

I recently got my new Renault Scenic car and discovered a rather strange situation.
The phone pairs with the carkit and connects the first time without issues and works like a charm.
But however when I start the car and thus also the carkit the phone connects also but no audio is heared trough the carkit when calling or getting called. The phone says it transfers the connection to the carkit but nothing is heared.
It only works when I have bluetooth off, starts the car and then turning bluetooth on the phone on. Wait till it connects and make a call. With this procedure the connection is good till I step out the car.
Its a work around but hmmm not the one i would love to.
I have a nexus one rooted with the latest MCR (21) and an intersect kernel. Though I tried different kernels also but no go.
Hopefully one of you guys have an idea

Ok I searched a bit and found out the Bluetooth is done with the opensource code Bluez. So I wonder which version of Bluez is in the froyo roms and how it can be updated if possible to a new version.
Anyone knows ?

I feel your pain, I have a Renault Grand Scenic III (purchased last December) and the hands-free is unreliable, but music streaming (A2DP) is even worse as most often than not it will fail to connect.
I have to say that the hands-free works fine most of the times (for the phone part, not for music), but some days it will refuse to work no matter what. Since it isn't working much better with my wife's Nokia (BTW, which I had to do a firmware update or else it went into a permanent reboot loop when connected to the car-kit), I assume the problem lies on the car, not on the phone. I have yet to see if my Hero, which has been recently updated to Android 2.1, behaves any better. A firmware update on the Bluetooth car-kit seems a better approach, but I'm unaware if one exists since after some digging it seems my car doesn't use the OEM Parrot kit that other earlier models carried.

igalan said:
I feel your pain, I have a Renault Grand Scenic III (purchased last December) and the hands-free is unreliable, but music streaming (A2DP) is even worse as most often than not it will fail to connect.
I have to say that the hands-free works fine most of the times (for the phone part, not for music), but some days it will refuse to work no matter what. Since it isn't working much better with my wife's Nokia (BTW, which I had to do a firmware update or else it went into a permanent reboot loop when connected to the car-kit), I assume the problem lies on the car, not on the phone. I have yet to see if my Hero, which has been recently updated to Android 2.1, behaves any better. A firmware update on the Bluetooth car-kit seems a better approach, but I'm unaware if one exists since after some digging it seems my car doesn't use the OEM Parrot kit that other earlier models carried.
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Hi,
I've just come across your post. Did the situation improve ?
I'd just point out that for me it comes from the Android system : I own a Renault Mégane 3 and was able to fully use the bluetooth system with my HTC HD2 (Windows Mobile 6.5). Now, I've just installed Android 2.2 on it and I encounter a similar behavior... and the car can't connect to the phone directory either...
Looks like I'll boot back on Windows Mobile when driving...
Regards,
Stéphane

My Hero with the official 2.1 ROM is now 100% reliable. The Nexus One with Froyo isn't, A2DP is still hit & miss.

Well... I'm getting the same but not with Renault ones.
I have LiquidAUX on my car and to have both phone and a2dp synced, I have to restart phone BT and LiquidAUX every time I go into car. And most of the times I can only have 1 connection each time, or phone is on and a2dp is off or a2dp is on and phone is off. It's really annoying since I had an HTC Hero with Android 2.2 and it used to work with no problems...

Hello, I've the same issue with my new Renault and Nexus LG. The phone pairs with the carkit and connects the first time without issues and works like fine. Once someone calls, the connection is terrible or lost! I checked the phone compatibility list at Reanoult and the NEXUS LG is on that list. So it should work. Updated R-link2, same issue. I went to the Renault garage and they told me that this is a bug in the Renault software, they can't do anything about it. Can't believe this, there should be a solution or fix.