Plexamp Bluetooth Issues with Car Head Unit

Plex Labs
1

Server Version#: 1.19.3.2852
Player Version#: Plexamp 3.0.3
Phone#: Samsung Galaxy Note 10
OS Version#: Android 10 - Latest security Patch

Hi Community,

Looking for some advice and or assistance on the Plexamp App running on my Samsung Phone.

I am noticing the following issues when trying to use Plexamp with my car head unit, these issues are not seen with other apps like the default Samsung App, Power Amp or Media Player X;

  • Plexamp wont push song information to the head unit like Song name or Title
  • Plexamp wont resume on pause, so if a call is taken or placed it pauses it but wont resume, sometimes if you try to hit play again it crashes the app, or if you take too long to hit play again the application just closes out
  • Plexamp has no Auto Play on automatic connection to Bluetooth, with the other applications you have this ability and it is not specific to a head unit, but to connectivity to Bluetooth, the latest versions of Android have had the ability for some time to auto start an application out of memory

I dont seem to be having too many issues with the app so it would be good to see just the basic stuff working well, I think I can favor this over anything else as I wont have to any longer transfer over my music library to SD card and I can just stream from my server.

Cheers,

David.

2 Likes
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I’m having similar issues with Plexamp and my car stereo as well. My biggest issue is not getting any song information transmitted to the head unit during playback. Interestingly enough, if I launch Google Play Music first (which works perfectly with my head unit) after connecting, then switch to Plexamp, the song info comes through as expected. But I launch Plexamp first, it doesn’t work at all with either app until I disconnect and start Play Music first again.

Pretty sure I saw another thread a while ago describing the same issue. Can we get some sort of acknowledgement from Plex on this?

1 Like
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Oh, there’s the other thread…

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Any response at all from support for this basic Bluetooth playback functionality? Need logs, or…?

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Hello? Any official response at all? I’m more than willing to provide logs and additional information if needed, but would need someone from Plex who’s willing to troubleshoot with me.

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I’ll just give up on this out of frustration and hope it’s fixed in an update or something.

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Lol…sucks. I’m lifetime plex pass owner. Need support. Nothing!

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Just got a new phone. Fired up Plexamp while connected to my car via Bluetooth. Same issue. Just get a giant NO DATA under the song title, artist, and album info on the head unit.

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Hello… taps mic Is this thing on? Can anyone at Plex give me ANYTHING to work with here? My god, this is terrible customer service.

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I have been told there will be improvements for playing via Bluetooth in your car in the new update coming out very soon.

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Thanks @JAGDrummer

I hope you are right, I have remained quite on this just to give them breathing space to get this app up-to-speed, I truly hope that in the next development cycle they will incorporate this level of integration.

I signed up as a Plex Pass lifetime member because of Plex, so this app is a loyalty bonus to me, thus I refrain from being overly critical, and just provide support if and when I am asked to do something.

Cheers,
David.

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Hopefully that’s the case. I just wish we could get something from Plex themselves. I’ve found several threads about this and none of them ever got an answer. The fact that other users have to answer speculatively, while it continues to be completely ignored by Plex is piss poor. Even a “Sorry, the app doesn’t support this. Use Android auto or Car play.” or “we can’t replicate this” would have been better than nothing. A little bit of communication goes a long way.

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I only know because I tweeted them about it last week and they replied with the information.

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Just installed 3.2.0. and it still has the same issue. Go figure. Just like before, my head unit gets track info just fine from Play Music, but not Plexamp.

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And now we’re back to this issue being completely ignored by Plex. Sigh… Nice to see that Plex Pass money is going to good use.

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sorry, not sure why this thread was flying under the radar. we’re not ignoring you, promise.

so basically it seems like with some cars/head units, the way we set metadata for tracks isn’t getting through to the car. this is mysterious, because it seems to generally work, and there’s literally no bluetooth specific code involved here, we just set the data and android should take care of the rest.

if you’re having the issue, can you let us know what car/head unit? would be good to know. and also let us know if you have the ability to pull logcat data.

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I have the issue where I cannot resume playing once paused when using Bluetooth. It happens with headphones and with my car stereo. I have Jabra headphones and Chevy stereo.

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please post a debug log after you try and fail to resume.

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Share Debug Logs.log (77.4 KB)

Here is the log file. Thank you for your help.

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Interesting, nothing super suspicious in there. Just to be clear, the last thing you did in the log was pause and then try to resume, and then sent me the log, right?

I can add some more logging and share a private build with you if you’re willing to lend a hand and see if we can get to the bottom of this?

Also, what Android device is this?