When switching from Android Auto to Bluetooth headphones, Arc will sometimes become unresponsive after a few minutes/next song
I'm using Arc without port forwarding enabled, I'm leveraging Arc's ability to play downloaded content offline. I can play downloaded music in Android Auto, then after stepping away from the car, Arc will pause the active track playing. I then put on BT headphones, then resume playing by pressing play from the mobile app. Sometimes (often) after a couple of minutes, Arc will stop playing and the app goes blank/black on the phone. I need to force the app to stop, restart it, then resume playing - which will often be a track or two back (i.e., it's like the last track that played was "forgotten).
I’ve not experienced this issue using my Pixel 7 with AA, and after leaving the car, BT headphones. There’s usually a momentary “blip” while the phone switches devices.
However, I use ARC as intended and have a connection through to my server whether using downloaded content or not. Since you don’t have port forwarding enabled, this may cause problems, since ARC will attempt (and fail) to connect.
Have you tried using “airplane” mode? Do you still have the same issue?
I create a delay between me exiting the car and walking away, putting on my headphones. Several minutes have passed. One use case is parking the car, turn it off and get in a building (e.g., grocery store), then put on my BT headphones, they connect, then I resume music. The issue happens a few minutes later, I typically play a song or two before ARC stops playing music.
I have not tried to flip to offline mode from within the app, used to but one of the recent updates seems to make it work seamlessly when losing wifi access. I have no issues getting from home (connected over wifi) to say taking a walk outside the wifi range (and back again). It’s only the Android Auto → BT scenario that gives me this issue. I also don’t have the issue with the other direction - i.e., using BT headphones, pausing the music, disconnecting the headphones, getting in the car, then Android Auto just starts playing normally. I’m also using a Pixel 7.
I could try to repro forcing offline mode when I get in the car.
Thank you for the report. Please let us know, at your convenience, an approximate timestamp for when you next reproduce the Android Auto → BT headphone handoff or the name of the track that was playing when the music stopped.
Are you able to capture a screenshot of the following?
We’re still investigating this report behind the scenes, although we have made some adjacent improvements in ARC with the most recent release. I’m curious if you’ve been experiencing this problem on the most recent build as well.
Thanks for the update @connor. I have indeed hit the issue last night, around 9:40-9:45pm eastern time. The conditions were different though, ARC was in offline mode, there hadn’t been a BT handoff. In fact, BT through the car had disconnected several hours earlier and I was just playing music off the phone internal speakers. Same result though, after playing a song (Angels Can’t Help You Now) by Def Leppard, the ARC screen went blank. I restarted the app (swiped up to close on Android) and upon restarting the app, it went back to the previous song that had played (It’s All Your Fault, by Pink). I reconnected to the Roon server so hopefully logs are uploading. Thanks!
We’re sorry to hear the issue persists. We’re investigating a mechanism for audio output failure on Pixel phones - the BT handoff might have influenced conditions but we’ve determined it’s not the underlying mechanism.
Was ARC backgrounded at any point in the minutes preceding the incident last night?
Since this affects ARC’s ability to interact with the Android’s selected audio output, there’s unfortunately not a better workaround we can offer than restarting the app until we understand more. That said, we’re getting close to pinning down the root cause.
I’ll post as soon as we can investigate the most recent log set with developers. Thank you again.
The team has a fix prepared that will likely resolve the issue you reported here.
This should be included in the next release. Please keep an eye out in the Software Release Notes section and report here if you’re still encountering this after the next release.
Hi @connor. Same thing on build 256. Yesterday, 7:47am eastern, def leppard song can’t recall the name), but I had disconnected from the car over 11 hours prior (evening prior). Again this morning, 7:49, Afterglow of Ragnarok was playing
Revisiting and reopening this issue to report that we’ve merged a change that should improve this behavior (depending on the conditions). We have an additional ticket that will be released in an upcoming build that will catch other potential mechanisms for this behavior. In all, you should see the mechanism for a hang OR crash resolved within the next few weeks.
If you’re still seeing this in ARC at this point, please let us know here. Thanks!
The original ticket associated with this report has been merged. There are, however, additional investigative tickets in the pipeline based on other reports with Pixel/BT combinations in ARC.
Are you encountering any hangs or crashes? Please describe the symptom, including whether you had any BT or AA connection active, and share an approximate timestamp if possible. Thank you!