Phone audio no longer routing over Bluetooth in car for anything other than phone calls.

[Digsy]

Huawei P20 user here on Android 10.

I used to be able to access all the Google Assistant features on my phone by pressing the "voice" button on my car's steering wheel. This would mute the stereo and route all phone audio over the car's speakers. So I was able to read and dictate text messages, create new calendar entries, etc, etc. Basically anything I could do hands free on my phone I could also do via my car's hands free speakers / microphone.

However since about two months ago this has stopped working. Or rather, it now only works for calls. Pressing the voice button still works, but for anything other than calls the phone audio now only plays over the phone's speakers and the car does not mute the radio / media, so I cannot hear the phone which renders it useless (unless I manually mute the stereo).

At the moment I don't know it this has been caused by a phone software update, or a car software update, or what ever. Its also not easy to pin down when the problem started as even though it is useful and I miss it now it is gone, I never used to use this feature much. I discovered it by accident a few weeks before Christmas when someone sent me a text message while I was driving and I could not get it read to me over the car's speakers. All I know for certain is that it used to work but does not now.

Anyone else noticed anything similar? 

[BandOfBrothers]

Which phone model do you own ?

For one example......There isn't an exact date when a Samsung phone will receive Android 10 Samsung One Ui 2.5 or Android 11 Samsung One Ui 3.0 @Digsy 

Samsung provide the month of the update to their unbranded phone's i.e phone's supplied directly by them. This info is in the Samsung Members app.

For branded phone's i.e phone's supplied by Vodafone then Vodafone say.....

Firmware-Explained. 

[Digsy]

Thanks for the reply. Its a Huawei P20, original post edited to include this.

[BandOfBrothers]

No worries @Digsy 

Was it supplied by Vodafone?  If so check out the firmware statement.

If not check out any online information from people who own your model of phone or tech blogs for update information.

[Digsy]

"Was it supplied by Vodafone?  If so check out the firmware statement."

Yes it was supplied by Vodafone. There's no information on the phone itself, that's the first place I checked, but I probably should have mentioned that. It only shows the Android level but not when it received the upgrade to 10.

"If not check out any online information from people who own your model of phone or tech blogs for update information."

You mean like the Vodafone forum? 😉

I already Googled it but could not find anything other than the update became available around June / July time but that doesn't mean that is when it was rolled out for Vodafone customers - hence asking on here.

[BandOfBrothers]

I'm sure you realise when I said “if not” i.e not supplied by Vodafone hence the software wouldn't have been pushed out by Vodafone but instead the manufacturer then tech blogs or forums for your particular phone may have had the roll out date

May I ask why your chasing the exact date your phone updated to Android 10 ? Just being nosey

I've not used your model of phone but sometimes the update date is in the software update section.

i.e 

This shows in mine 

 

[Digsy]

The Huawei phones run a modified UI called EMUI so things appear slightly differently. The "software update" section looks different to the picture you posted and does not contain any date information. There are hyperlinks to "change logs" but they don't contain any useful data.

In the "about phone" section there are two dates:

Kernel version: 4.14.116 android@localhost#1 Thu Sep 3 13:$6 CST 2020

and

Security patch level: 1 July 2020

No date specifically for the big upgrade to Android 10 unless it is captured by one of those above.

I am asking because of this thread. Short version: My phone doesn't talk to my car over BT as well as it used to and I am trying to find out if either phone or car had a software update recently.

[BandOfBrothers]

Ah I see @Digsy 

I'm wondering if there is other forums with people who have posted they are having similar issues to yours ? 

Your car dealership might be able to help and or can you send a bug report to the source who send out the updates for the phone and car. Just an idea.

Is software reversible on your car or phone ?

[hrym]

That's annoying.   My Moto G8 does it (shows the date), but I've just checked my wife's Sony L3 and it doesn't.

Looking at Android Authority, it appears that the Huawei P20 may have got A10 in late May or early June last year.

You could, I suppose, do a factory reset on the car's system - a pain because you'll have to set up personalisations all over again.   If that fails, talk to your dealer, though I'm not hopeful because car manufacturers tend to regard connectivity as a fit-and-forget peripheral.

[Digsy]

OK, new news. Its definitely a phone issue. I got my hands on a Samsung Galaxy A40 running  Android 10, paired it with my car, enabled Google assistant and it instantly worked exactly like my Huawei used to.

The UI on the Samsung is more "vanilla" so I can see when it was last updated. Looks like it got Android 10 on 16 October.

Kernel: 4.4.155-18598463 #1 Thu Sep 10 14.45.58 KST 2020

I need to dig a bit deeper into the Google Assistant and Bluetooth settings on both phones to see if there are any differences that might be causing one to work and the other not.

[hrym]

It certainly sounds as though there's been an update to the phone that implements BT in a slightly different way.   The more functionality there is between connected devices, the more there is to go wrong.

At this stage, it might be worth looking for Huawei forums to see if anyone else is having the same problem.   If Huawei know about it, there's a chance they'll issue a fix.   I have heard of people solving issues like this by installing a different BT stack, but that's a technicality way above my paygrade and you'd need a clear rollback path as it may make things worse rather than better.

I can only wish you luck with is and repeat my observation that, of all the things to stop working, this seems one of the less likely.