Anyone having Bluetooth Issues in car - Galaxy Note5 Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting

I'm using an AT&T variant in a Chevy 2015 Equinox. The phone operates fine with calls but stutters and skips with streaming audio. Any app I use it does the same thing; Poweramp, Google Music, Pandora, etc. My wife's iPhone 6 Plus has no issues whatsoever. Is this a phone issue, an AT&T software issue or car issue? Anyone experience anything like this and can give me some direction? TIA

I had something like that happen before. Doesn't happen much anymore. I wasn't streaming though. Listening to podcast I downloaded. It would play fine for a while but then start to stutter. Would work fine after I woke up the phone so assume it had something to do with the processor dropping down too low like it was trying to go to sleep or just the use the low power cores maybe. Just a guess. Doesn't happen anymore though. I'm on t mobile.
Sent from my SM-N920T using Tapatalk

This is a widespread issue with Bluetooth on Android (since about KitKat, possibly earlier) that spans just about every possible combination of hardware and software. It is exactly like you said -- the phone's CPU is too slow to keep up with Bluetooth audio decoding and streaming when the screen is asleep. The CPU governor is too aggressive on saving every last microwatt of battery life, and would rather your experience suffer instead.
The issue is very well-documented, but Google refuses to fix it. See here for hundreds of complaints spanning every major manufacturer and just about every imaginable Bluetooth headphones, speakers, headset, earbuds, etc. etc.:
https://code.google.com/p/android/issues/detail?id=95294

its an easy fix, just download kernel adiutor, set the minimum to 500 and see. I personally set the min and max of little cpu to 900 and big to 1200mhz.

Related

Bluetooth Headphones

I am thinking of buying bluetooth headphones because my wires constantly tangling and eventually ripping or breaking is really pissing me off
so i what i want to know is:
How good is the sound quality (this matters to an extent)
does it cut out a lot (if yes is there a fix)
how much does it affect the g1 battery life
thanks i advance
JJbdoggg said:
How good is the sound quality (this matters to an extent)
does it cut out a lot (if yes is there a fix)
how much does it affect the g1 battery life
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I don't know how much of it is introduced by the MP3 decoding software, the A2DP link, and my A2DP headset, but I do notice a slightly higher noise floor listening to MP3s on G1 as compared to on my computer. It is mainly noticeable during the period between when the headset initializes a stream and when audio actually begins to play. Quiet portions of songs and musical pieces with high dynamic range (classical, mainly) also will suffer disproportionately. If you don't listen to music with high dynamic ranges or significant quiet parts, then the noise floor will likely be imperceptible.
On drop outs: Since BT operates in the ISM frequency, if you live/work in a place with heavy WiFi usage (an apartment complex, an office park) you may notice frequent drop out. In extremely WiFi noisy areas, it can be at the point where it's unusable. The other reason for drop outs (more uncommon) results from the phone hitting the limit of its processing power and being unable to decode the MP3 in realtime. You will notice that while using A2DP music playback, the phone will act more sluggishly, especially for realtime applications like games. I encode my MP3s as LAME -V0, and at this setting the G1 requires 8% CPU to decode. However, playback of the same material over A2DP increases CPU usage to ~30%. The reason for the additional 22% is due to re-encoding to SBC for A2DP. I recommend not running a Rosie/Sense UI with A2DP.
Battery life will also take a nice hit too. In addition to that extra 22% CPU time (meaning more battery consumption), the phone will have to run its BT radio nonstop. I haven't run any battery life comparisons myself, but expect the usable battery life to drop considerably with A2DP playback as opposed to using the wired headset.
jashsu said:
I don't know how much of it is introduced by the MP3 decoding software, the A2DP link, and my A2DP headset, but I do notice a slightly higher noise floor listening to MP3s on G1 as compared to on my computer. It is mainly noticeable during the period between when the headset initializes a stream and when audio actually begins to play. Quiet portions of songs and musical pieces with high dynamic range (classical, mainly) also will suffer disproportionately. If you don't listen to music with high dynamic ranges or significant quiet parts, then the noise floor will likely be imperceptible.
On drop outs: Since BT operates in the ISM frequency, if you live/work in a place with heavy WiFi usage (an apartment complex, an office park) you may notice frequent drop out. In extremely WiFi noisy areas, it can be at the point where it's unusable. The other reason for drop outs (more uncommon) results from the phone hitting the limit of its processing power and being unable to decode the MP3 in realtime. You will notice that while using A2DP music playback, the phone will act more sluggishly, especially for realtime applications like games. I encode my MP3s as LAME -V0, and at this setting the G1 requires 8% CPU to decode. However, playback of the same material over A2DP increases CPU usage to ~30%. The reason for the additional 22% is due to re-encoding to SBC for A2DP. I recommend not running a Rosie/Sense UI with A2DP.
Battery life will also take a nice hit too. In addition to that extra 22% CPU time (meaning more battery consumption), the phone will have to run its BT radio nonstop. I haven't run any battery life comparisons myself, but expect the usable battery life to drop considerably with A2DP playback as opposed to using the wired headset.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I dont live in a wifi heavy area (or any where near one) and dont use the phone for much except browsing while listening to music i guess ill have to go to a cyan rom now(ill just use a hero theme ) Thanks for the great answer
I've had lots of issues with different stereo bt headphones, I think the problem is mostly on the headphones side. Flaky playback, audio actually changes speeds while listening to songs, audio cuts out periodically, can't forward to rev to other songs. I've had all these issues and more on my G1, and a Samsung P2 and P3, so I'm blaming the headsets.
Jak Crow said:
audio actually changes speeds while listening to songs
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Click to collapse
I thought I was going crazy when I first heard this, but apparently its a problem with a lot of a2dp setups. In a way pitch changes are more irritating than drop outs since atleast most of the time it's pretty clear when you have a drop out.
I have an LB HBS 200 headset (I think that's the name). Talking quality is the same as any other bluetooth headset I have ever owned. Kinda choppy. However, that is not the case for the music part. The music sounds great and I have never had trouble with it. Best off, it's only $25 at Fry's Electronics! The next closest one I saw was a motorola for $50. You should look into it. I highly recommend it.

Sound ahead of video

Has any one else noticed an issue where the sound will be ahead of any video by about half a second? The problem becomes worse when using bluetooth audio. Normally with bluetooth audio the sound lags behind video, but on this phone, with or without bluetooth audio, the sound is always ahead of video.
I notice this most with pocket cast.
btate0121 said:
Has any one else noticed an issue where the sound will be ahead of any video by about half a second? The problem becomes worse when using bluetooth audio. Normally with bluetooth audio the sound lags behind video, but on this phone, with or without bluetooth audio, the sound is always ahead of video.
I notice this most with pocket cast.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Sounds like you have PowerSave on.
Here is why I say this... I can watch videos with no lag. However I don't know about Bluetooth lagging, bc i dont use BT. I know the videos are not lagging, because I read lips everyday since my hearing is quite dull. I can hear the voice and see the word at the same time. Likely, what is happening, is that your internet connection (LTE,WiFi, or 3G if you have good 3G), is downloading and buffering the audio which gets processed via the network interface (no task offloading to the CPU on phones). Now, your video is being processed via the GPU/CPU. So either your voltages are too low, or your frequencies are too low, or you have powersave on which limits you to 1.1Ghz. Perhaps even too much cached data. Flash a new ROM, and then flash ElementalX kernel with 450Mhz GPU, and use 'run hot' as your thermal steps (youll see these options during your flash so dont worry if you dont know what im talking about).
Yes, i have noticed Netflix video sync issues when power save is enabled. It works fine when disabled...

[Q] Bluetooth audio cutting out.

Something I noticed today while driving was my Bluetooth audio would cutout every few minutes. It only happened on my Nexus 5 with an alpha ROM, but was fixed later. Anyone else notice this?
gakio12 said:
Something I noticed today while driving was my Bluetooth audio would cutout every few minutes. It only happened on my Nexus 5 with an alpha ROM, but was fixed later. Anyone else notice this?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
On the new moto x? No, I just had a couple hour car ride with zero issues listening to Play Music and Slacker Radio. Made a few calls, no issues either.
This happened to me on a 20 mile bike ride. Horrible having choppy audio for almost a few hours
I just noticed this too. I do have a Moto 360 as well so maybe that is messing with the blueooth? I have gone a couple car rides and it's perfect, and others it's really choppy.
This does seem to be a problem with me too. Sometimes perfect and sometimes not. When connected to Bluetooth I notice that Google maps speaker goes in and out as well as moto voice while driving
I can confirm that if you have a 360 this is the cause. You can verify this by disconnecting the 360 through wear and the problem going away. For now what I have due is set up an IFTT to disconnect wear when by car's Bluetooth is connected.
I actually don't have anything else connected via Bluetooth and it still happens to me.
I figured it out. I was driving and I turned off Bluetooth completely and the voice worked perfectly. As soon as I connected back to Bluetooth the voice got choppy again...
I looked over in the Note 3 forums, and users were experiencing the same thing. Someone said to listen to music with the screen on to fix it. Today I listened to music with the screen left on and sure enough my music didn't stutter once the whole car ride.
This leads me to think either the processor is getting clocked too low for playing music through A2DP when the screen is off, or perhaps active display makes it stutter whenever it activates. I will look into it further today.
In the mean time, does anyone know of a processor control app that will change the minimum processor clock if bluetooth is connected? Perhaps there is one with a tasker plugin.
I'm experiencing the same issue, really sucks.... I'll try disconnecting the Moto360 on my drive today and see if that fixes it - although I swear I've had the issue before while it wasn't connected.
gakio12 said:
I looked over in the Note 3 forums, and users were experiencing the same thing. Someone said to listen to music with the screen on to fix it. Today I listened to music with the screen left on and sure enough my music didn't stutter once the whole car ride.
This leads me to think either the processor is getting clocked too low for playing music through A2DP when the screen is off, or perhaps active display makes it stutter whenever it activates. I will look into it further today.
In the mean time, does anyone know of a processor control app that will change the minimum processor clock if bluetooth is connected? Perhaps there is one with a tasker plugin.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
SetCPU could possibly do this. You can definitely set the minimum CPU clock, but I'm not a 100% whether you can get it to do this WHEN a bluetooth device is connected. SetCPU has a profiles where you can define certain parameters based on conditions.
Of course, before you can get SetCPU working you'll need to root your phone and I have a suspicion that all other CPU clock apps will need root access too.
Has anyone had any luck resolving this?
gakio12 said:
I looked over in the Note 3 forums, and users were experiencing the same thing. Someone said to listen to music with the screen on to fix it. Today I listened to music with the screen left on and sure enough my music didn't stutter once the whole car ride.
This leads me to think either the processor is getting clocked too low for playing music through A2DP when the screen is off, or perhaps active display makes it stutter whenever it activates. I will look into it further today.
In the mean time, does anyone know of a processor control app that will change the minimum processor clock if bluetooth is connected? Perhaps there is one with a tasker plugin.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm hoping that either an OTA or Android L will fix this. My Moto X is fine when I'm using my Motorola S11-HD headset, but when connected to my car it goes in and out every few seconds.
So it isn't the processor. So far i have it down to either Wi-Fi or active display. Will report more when i find it.
Turning Wi-Fi off while connected to my car Bluetooth has fixed the issue for me. At least, so far it has.
I'm using PowerAMP for playing music and when I enabled the "high priority" setting in the headphone/bluetooth settings it seems to have resolved the problem until today. This morning on the way from work it started to cut out every few seconds. grrrr...
I have 2 bluetooth adapters in my car, one which takes only phone audio and one which takes phone and media audio, the latter one continously drops and reconnects phone audio (even after forgetting the other device), which makes me believe it is some hardware compatibility issue
I have posted on the official Motorola Forums but I though I should re-post here as well becuase well....XDA fixes things.
So I just purchased a Moto X 2nd Gen Pure Edition as an upgrade to My 1st Gen Moto G. Both phones have the same problem with the Bluetooth Audio sounding like a scratched CD skipping and studdering and it seems to be way worse a problem on the Moto X than I ever had on the Moto G. It's not buffering it happens with music on the phone. It doesn't happen every time I'm in the car but I'd say 50% of the time.
I would think it's the car but before the Moto G I owned a Galaxy Nexus and never had the problem as far as I remember. I'm sure I would remember it's really really annoying. I have even tested with a friends HTC M8 over a long road trip and there seemed to be no issue there. In my car (2011 Subaru Impreza) with the G or X after a time it eventually starts skipping even if it takes a couple hours.
So I did some research before and have tried various things.
I have disabled the Wifi while connecting to BT as Motorola has recommended to owners of other phones. That didn't help them it doesn't help me.
I have removed all other BT devices from the phone while connected. Nope
I have removed the Phone in the profile so my car doesn't try to use it as a phone as well at the same time. Nothing
I have done all of the above at the same time stopped every other program other than Google Music and added the phone to my car fresh and I still have this issue.
During my research about my car the only complaints similar I found seem to come from someone else with Moto phones. I dont' know what they do special with their Bluetooth but it's not helping me out.
You could try to upgrade your car's firmware. Some dealers do this for free, with some cars it is easy to do yourself
godutch said:
You could try to upgrade your car's firmware. Some dealers do this for free, with some cars it is easy to do yourself
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This is what fixed the audio in my Mustang with Sync. The Ford dealership did not charge me anything for them to do it.
Sent from my XT1095 using Tapatalk

Music volume changing while listening to spotify

Hey guys,
Love my new S6, because of memory limitations, I'm using spotify more than the music player. I noticed that when I listen to music, the volume keeps changing by itself (but remains at the same "number" that I set), I believe it's an EQ problem due to the voice/instrument equalizer function that keeps adjusting one VS the other. I was able to downgrade the amazon appstore still has version 2.6.0.813 and it's better (but not perfect yet, I hope they fix this bug in the next spotify update, just wanted to share in case you though you were going crazy (as I did).
See http://forum.xda-developers.com/galaxy-s6/help/volume-changing-playing-music-t3089066
Solution
Just found the solution, please close topic
https://community.spotify.com/t5/He...-Distorted-playback-sound-levels/td-p/1028205
Disabling Nuplayer does not work
solution from the previous post does not work, I and others tested it and spotify volume is still messed up with Nuplayer disabled, downgrading seems to be the only solution as of now, sorry for the confusion
Remix22 said:
Hey guys,
Love my new S6, because of memory limitations, I'm using spotify more than the music player. I noticed that when I listen to music, the volume keeps changing by itself (but remains at the same "number" that I set), I believe it's an EQ problem due to the voice/instrument equalizer function that keeps adjusting one VS the other. I was able to downgrade the amazon appstore still has version 2.6.0.813 and it's better (but not perfect yet, I hope they fix this bug in the next spotify update, just wanted to share in case you though you were going crazy (as I did).
See http://forum.xda-developers.com/galaxy-s6/help/volume-changing-playing-music-t3089066
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
actually, I've noticed this problem with Google Play music as well.. I'm not using the equalizer.. for no apparent reason, at some points in certain songs, the volume will inexplicably lower, never quite recovering.. weird
same here. thought i was going deaf bc i had the volume up to 80%
Is it happening with your stock music player? I disabled Nuplayer and spotify is still misbehaving but the Samsung player works fine. I didn't find a Samsung user forum to report the problem but will look more into it.
old version works
Using S6 Edge, had this problem myself with spotify - can confirm using the previous version of spotify fixes the problem.
Agree there's points where it stoll changes volume ever so slightly but definatley a big improvement.
Can't post link to download due to new user restrictions.
Thanks to OP for posting his findings. Big help.
Peace.
I have been going back and forth with Spotify support for weeks on this issue, and it's been escalated to a Tier 2 person who I've been working with for almost a week now. Specifically, my problem is that the sound on any given song will vary throughout the song...it will start at whatever volume I have it set at, then suddenly get about 25% quieter for about 10-20 seconds, then go back up to original volume. This happens in almost a cyclical fashion my entire time listening to Spotify on my phone...whether it be through headphones, phone speak, or a bluetooth speaker. Spotify support even gave me another test account to try, which this issue also happen in on my phone....and they logged into my account on their end and done extensive listening tests, but are not able to replicate on their end. They had me try everything...clearing cache, trying with volume normalization ON, then trying with it OFF, WiFi only, data only, listening to cached music with no data turned on, re-installing, rebooting, updating, deleting all Spotify files/folders from the file manager, listening with corded headphones, bluetooth headphones, phone speaker, bluetooth speaker, etc. They really feel at this point that it's the Samsung Galaxy S6 that doesnt play nicely with Spotify, but they cannot figure out why. I'm still troubleshooting with them but so far no solution, only a ton of things ruled out as culprits. =(
This is a few days old but do you have sound alive enabled?
Sent from my SM-G920T using Tapatalk

What Could Cause Bluetooth Audio Stutter? [6.0.1]

Hey everyone,
I've been battling this issue since Day 1, and its been a bumpy road. It seems as though this is a widespread issue across many Android devices, and fixes range but none of them seem to completely eliminate it.
When connected to Bluetooth audio, certain devices, the audio stutters or "skips". Ive noticed this extensively in KItKat. One fix for rooted devices was to increase the idle CPU frequency, I did so with Tasker and it definitely suppressed the stuttering, but did not completely eliminate it.
One of the most notable points of stuttering is when you answer a call via Bluetooth, then hang up. After hanging up, and music resuming, there is a solid ~10-20 seconds of constant stuttering and skipping until playback returns to normal.
Imagine my surprise when I upgraded to 6.0.1, and had absolutely no stuttering without increase CPU frequency or anything! Just buttery-smooth playback, all the way through, even after hanging up a call.
However, a couple of weeks after, the issue came back again. I had to re-enable my task to increase idle CPU frequency, and that horrible stutter after hanging up a call is back, strong as ever. To me this indicates perhaps something I modified after stock interfered., however nothing I can think of should come close to affecting it, other than XPOSED (however, XPOSED was installed prior to this issue coming back up, and no new modules were added)
Additionally, since Marshmallow, my phone won't reconnect automatically to my head unit. For example, when my car is on accessory mode and the stereo is on and BT connected. When I start the car, the system momentarily turns off for ~5 seconds at most, and turns back on. With Lollipop it would automatically reconnect, here is causes some serious problems as the only way to get them to reconnect after is to turn off the stereo and the phone, and turn both back on again. Sometimes I even have to do a couple of cycles.
Does anyone have any ideas?
i tried to do everything possible to fix the issue... I have a stuttering keyboard as well... anykeyboard I use seems to stutter, it lags a little, but most words that i type apear two times...
I have no issues at all like that, or stuttering throughout the system. It is specifically related to Bluetooth audio.
Anyone?
I've always thought kernel
unibomber said:
I've always thought kernel
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
If you do not have this problem, what kernel do you use? I just flashed BeastMode today, hoping that will bring me a bit of luck. However as it worked initially and a few weeks later broke down into the pathetic mess once again, I have my doubts
I use power amp and in advance I set thread priority to the highest and audio buffer to 750ms. I've used them all and haven't had skipping
unibomber said:
I use power amp and in advance I set thread priority to the highest and audio buffer to 750ms. I've used them all and haven't had skipping
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Seems to have improved it, but reconnect issue is still present
The reconnect issue may be related to the stuttering.
The unit may be also trying to download contacts at the same time which causes the stutter.
Have you tried unpairing it from the unit, renaming your phone and then pairing it again?
Will Rickards said:
The reconnect issue may be related to the stuttering.
The unit may be also trying to download contacts at the same time which causes the stutter.
Have you tried unpairing it from the unit, renaming your phone and then pairing it again?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I have in fact tried to re-pair the unit many times, to no avail. Factory resets also yield no benefits. It is set to auto download contacts, I'll try to disable that option to see if it improves anything.
I have the stuttering almost removed, however it still sometimes occurs. On a recent long-distance road trip, it randomly started stuttering after playing flawlessly for 1.5 hours, it was incredibly frustrating. I rebooted the phone, and the stereo, reconnected and it started playing smoothly again. Keep in mind however this is with both raising idle CPU frequency, and changing the poweramp options mentioned in Post #7
Perhaps I should try a custom ROM?
You can also try stopping media scanning. I think there is a xposed plugin
I only notice this on a non-name-brand headset. (Also, after it happens, I disconnect and reconnect...and it works fine from there on out...until Power down) My other 3 don't have this problem. Music plays, get a call, hang up, music pick right up. Didn't read your post in detail to see if you've tried a different pair of BT receiver.
FWIW it's not just you, also use PowerAmp, have the buffer turned up, and also get stuttering. On pvsgh's stock rooted deodex'd debloated 5.1.1 with beast mode 1.92 + ZL fix and both my motorola s10 headset and sharkk speaker stutter from time to time. It does not seem to be universal. In the beast mode thread it bluetooth audio issue was brought up, but didn't really get much attention ::shrugs, palms up:: I even limited them to media only but still get the stuttering.
Like so many things it seems, it worked ok before the MM update (910t3 on dok2 ootb) and now doesn't. Kinda like my ability to sign into enterprise level (work - EAP login) routers...
CM12.1 didn't make a difference in my case. Been on several stockish 5.1.1 roms as well. It still happens. Swapping out roms doesn't appear to pay off. It hasn't for me anyway :-/
Interested to see if a solution (or a cause?) lands here...
Sent from my SM-N910T3 using XDA-Developers mobile app

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