sync & android auto repeatedly disconnecting

[VAMike]

still probably the cable. my recommendation is always a really short one (like 6 inches). if that fixes the issue, you can either work on finding a long cable that works or use the short cable to connect the wireless adapter (what I did). android auto is trying to push a lot of data over that cable, stressing it much more than most low- or no- bandwidth applications, and cars are notorious for being electrically noisy. the longer the cable, the more likely it is to pull in interference from the environment, have crosstalk within the cable, have excessive voltage drop, etc. all of those issues can be prevented with shielded cable, properly twisted pairs, properly sized conductors, etc., but there's no real way to know whether a given cable was built well without cutting it open. a short cable makes it much more likely to pass a clean signal regardless of build quality.

one thing you can be sure of: the amount you pay for a cable has basically nothing to do with how well it's built

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[svgrdr]

I have a 2020 Ranger Lariat, and am having the most frustrating problem between my phone and Android auto in my truck.
The truck keeps disconnecting. Sometimes it lasts 5 minutes, sometimes 10 minutes, but it almost never goes longer than that without disconnecting.

Things I've tried:
My first thought was a flaky cable. So I bought a 3 pack of new cables on Amazon, and changing the cable doesn't affect anything.

I tried plugging into the other USB port in the front of the truck, same thing happens.

When it disconnects, I usually unplug the phone end of the cable and plug it back in, and it reconnects only to do it all over again. Instead of that, I tried unplugging the end at the truck, and same thing happens.

So after being annoyed with this for another few days, I thought it might be my phone, so I tried my work phone. (Both my phone, and my work phone, are both Samsung Galaxy S21s) - same thing happened with my work phone.

I made sure the Android Auto version on my phone was fully up to date.

I checked the ford website and it says my SYNC version is up to date ( Update Ford SYNC® & Navigation Maps | Ford Owner Support )

This whole process of elimination leads back to what seems like an unavoidable conclusion that the problem follows the truck itself.

My phone: Samsung Galaxy S21, Android 14
Truck: 2020 Ranger Lariat
Sync: Sync 3, version 3.4, build 23188

I really love the maps and music integration with Android auto and this problem is driving me nuts. Does anyone have any experience with this, or any ideas about how I can move closer to solving it?

Thanks for any ideas.

Mine has been flawless until a few months ago when Android Auto got updated with the ugly new map colors and crap. Now it is all over the place. Will connect for an hour at times, or disconnect every two minutes. Thankfully I don't have to use it very often, but when I do, it's frustrating. Definitely not the truck, it's the latest version of android Auto.

 

[magoh]

Mine doesn't fully disconnect, I just get glitches in the audio. A split second of whatever I'm listening to missing every 10 or so minutes. The cable I'm using is about 12 inches and works fine in my wife's Mazda CX-3.

 

[ToddTheCanadian]

Ok, so here's an update (in addition to the things I've already tried):

- I used compressed air and blew out the connector
- I went through my phone and configured a few things:
- I set Android Auto (AA) to 'never sleep'
- I cleared all of the cached data for AA, which effectively reset it to the defaults.

- I reset the system in the truck by holding down the volume and skip buttons for around 10 seconds.
- I bought one of these wireless dongles and paired my phone to it (https://www.amazon.ca/dp/B0CH31RMC3)

- After all of this, I drove around for awhile with my phone connected wirelessly, and it did not disconnect.

- The only apparent problem at this point is that for some reason, the Spotify app isn't rendering on the display. It plays music with Spotify if I use voice commands but won't display any of the contents of the Spotify window, the Spotify window is just blank? I will mess with this and see if I can get it sorted out in the coming days.

So we'll see how it behaves over the coming week or so. If it remains stable, then I probably tried too many things to know which of them solved the problem, but I'll provide another update anyway.

So it's been another 4 or 5 days, and the new setup has been bulletproof. Zero issues.

I solved the spotify problem by uninstalling it, and then reinstalling it on my phone. (I think when I removed all the cached Android Auto files, it probably messed up it's installation). It worked fine after I re-installed it.

I experimented with a few wireless chargers so that I could still charge my phone in the truck despite the lack of a cable connection to AA, and many wireless chargers don't work (probably because the USB in the truck doesn't have the juice), but one of my old Samsung wireless chargers that says it draws 2A seems to work just fine.

If anything messes up in the coming weeks, I'll come back and post it but it looks like I've got it sorted. Thanks to everyone for the ideas.

 

[VAMike]

I experimented with a few wireless chargers so that I could still charge my phone in the truck despite the lack of a cable connection to AA, and many wireless chargers don't work (probably because the USB in the truck doesn't have the juice), but one of my old Samsung wireless chargers that says it draws 2A seems to work just fine.

Just plug a full power charger into a 12V USB adapter. The on-board USB ports are very low power, and if you find a wireless charger that will work with them it'll probably charge slower than the phone discharges while running android auto.

 

[ToddTheCanadian]

Just plug a full power charger into a 12V USB adapter. The on-board USB ports are very low power, and if you find a wireless charger that will work with them it'll probably charge slower than the phone discharges while running android auto.

I considered that if I wasn't able to find a wireless charger that worked in the USB port, but luckily I did, and was able to avoid the extra wires. Thanks for the suggestion.

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