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Bluetooth Turns off After 60 Seconds

21K views 15 replies 11 participants last post by  Prezli 
#1 ·
When I start my 2012 Prius C, Bluetooth connects to my Galaxy S5 fine for both phone and music, just as it has with this and my previous phone for over 4 years. Than after 60 seconds, the cars Bluetooth shuts down. If I am playing music from my phone at the time, the word STOPPED appears on the car screen where the artist and album info was just before. It just started happening this week. The only thing that has changed was an AT&T security (not OS) update on the S5.

When I hit the Set Up button and choose Bluetooth, it says Bluetooth Off. All other options are grayed out. I didn't even know there was a way to turn it on or off, since it has always been on automatically. And as it turns out, I can't turn it back on. When I touch the screen over the word Bluetooth, it does beep as if it was supposed to do something, but remains off.

The next time I start the car, the same thing happens. Even if I turn it off and restart right away. Bluetooth automatically connects for phone and music just as it should, then 60 seconds later, shuts itself down. Bluetooth on the phone remains on and active.

At first I thought it was happening with 2 different phones (S2 and S5), leading me to believe the problem was solely with the vehicle. Further testing has confirmed that the cars Bluetooth remains on with the S2, so the problem appears to be S5 related, or how it is interacting with the cars Bluetooth system.

Is it possible for an app on my phone to be shutting down the cars Bluetooth?

I have left messages at AT&T, car, phone, and Android forums and did encounter one other person with the same problem. He had already been to a dealer who expressed complete bafflement at the issue, but since his vehicle was still under warrantee, they replaced the entire entertainment system, which did not fix the issue. Waiting for him to respond back so we can compare specs, apps, etc. and try to pin this down. But am hoping to find someone who has solved this already.
 
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#2 ·
Fixed

I am not going to mark this SOLVED, as that to me means the mystery of why it happened was solved as well. I am not sure if it was. So for any of the people who read this post and have the same or similar problem, I will just call it "fixed".

After comparing notes in a different forum with another Toyota owner(different car, same phone, different carrier) who had this problem, we started comparing apps that had Bluetooth access. We didn't get very far, as just after I listed mine, he got his Marshmallow update, and his Bluetooth went back to normal.

He did respond back that of the apps I listed, the only one he had was Netflix. So I deleted Netflix from my phone, tested the Bluetooth connection, and it stayed connected! And it has continued to function normally for the past two days. FIXED! The reason I am not calling this solved is because to confirm the fix, I reinstalled Netflix to see if it would break the Bluetooth, and it did not.

So for what it's worth, deleting Netflix fixed the problem for me, but as far as I am concerned, there was more going on. Hope this helps someone.
 
#3 ·
UPDATE: The other Toyota owner got back to say his fix (Marshmallow update) had only lasted a few days and for unknown reasons Bluetooth in his car was shutting down again. I reminded him of our common app, Netflix, and how deleting it had solved the problem in my Prius. He uninstalled Netflix from his S5 and the Bluetooth in his 2015 Prius went back to normal functioning!

So now this fix has worked for two people. But we are still both totally in the dark about why, and very curious why Netflix would need access to Bluetooth in the first place. He reinstalled the Netflix app, as I had, and Bluetooth continued to function fine for him as well. This fix has been in place for both of us since June 23rd, and still holding.
 
#4 ·
Dropped Bluetooth

Thank you for the suggestions about deleting the Netflix App. I will try this. The problem has been going on a month. Today the dealer told me it would be close to $1,000 to replace the radio (incl. labor cost). Everything else is fine with my radio - just the dropped Bluetooth.
 
#5 ·
Thank you for the suggestions about deleting the Netflix App. I will try this. The problem has been going on a month. Today the dealer told me it would be close to $1,000 to replace the radio (incl. labor cost). Everything else is fine with my radio - just the dropped Bluetooth.
Haven't been back here in a while, so I am curious if Netflix deletion worked for you. Also, as I mentioned in my first post, the other Toyota driver I was corresponding with did have the dealer replace his radio/entertainment system, but it did not fix the problem. He was still under warranty. If you are as well, the worst you will lose is some time without your vehicle. If you aren't, I would not count on that replacement as a fix.
 
#6 ·
I actually have never ever had any bluetooth connection with any smartphone ( Samasung, IPhone and lately Asus Zen3).
In the dealership they said, Toyota has not solved this problem.
However, when I use a cheap China tablet I bought in the Philippines (Cherry Mobile) it does work fine.
So the Mistery continues. :-(
 
#7 ·
ready to file lemon car suit! Can't pair Bluetooth

I've had it! I have had two Prius's. I love them but my second 2014 but has had constant blue tooth issues. Ive had a Samsung S4, S5 iPhone 6 and now Samsung 7(Verizon). Each time they stayed paired for awhile maybe 4 months, then all of the sudden they stop pairing. Sometimes I can attribute it to an update, sometimes not. Tried new Toyota dealer. They were able to pair their S7 on T-Mobile and an iPhone with Verizon. Tried my phone on another Prius and it didn't work. The dealer says it's my phone. Verizon says it's the car.

Every time I try to hit the pair button in car to add device I need to turn car on and off to get to that screen. Otherwise the Bluetooth just remains unchecked and I can't advance to the next screen. This makes me think it is the car not the phone.

My problem is it drops bluetooth after a few seconds and/or never downloads address book. I did a factory reset again on thi phone. It didn't work!
Got a new S7 phone and am trying not to use any programs but downloaded them fresh from play store. Still doesn't work
Eliminated my contacts one by one. Still doesn't work.
Help!!!!!
Tried the limit text thing but never got the message to refuse text transfer.
 
#8 ·
Frustrating, isn't it?

Melanie, welcome to the mysterious Bluetooth shutting down issue. If you have solved the problem, let us know what did it.

If not, I suggest you go through the apps on your phone. Make a list of all the apps that require Bluetooth access in the Permissions. Not sure of the procedure on the S7, but on the S5 it was settings/application manager, then select each app and the permissions were right there. With list and phone in hand, go to your car and turn off the Bluetooth permission in the first app, and close it if it's open, start the car and wait a minute or two to see if Bluetooth stays connected. Repeat with each app until the offending app is found.

If this doesn't work, well, like I said, mysterious. It worked for me and one other Toyota owner. He had a Rav 4 and service with Verizon, I have a Prius C and service with AT&T. The offending app was Netflix. Others with the issue have tried deleting Netflix and it did not solve the problem, and reinstalling the app or giving Bluetooth permission back to it did not cause the problem to reappear, so make of it what you will. It's pretty baffling. I have been told by experts that an app on my phone cannot shut down the Bluetooth service in my car. And I would have previously agreed with that statement, and yet.......

You are pretty much on your own here. As you have already found out, you are likely to get little or no help from the dealer, or your carrier. They will each blame the other and send you on your way.

Hope this works for you.
 
#9 ·
Aren't there options on the phone that should shut down access to other applications when the phone is being connected to the car? I've never really gotten the hang of doing that, but I’m pretty sure you could arrange it if you find the right menu under the settings list to get this done. Otherwise, at least we have a temporary fix for the problem for now hey?
 
#12 ·
Bluetooth Shuts down

I just had this happen to me this morning, 7/10/18, with my 2014 Prius V 5 and my 2 week old Samsung G9.
I had an appointment with the dealer this morning anyway, so I brought up the issue. They said that they would look into the issue but all they could recommend doing was to unpair and pair the phone again, which didn't work.

Seeing this forum, I tried a couple of things and removing Pandora and Netflix did not resolve the problem.
However, since I saw that Messenger was just updated on my phone last night, I tried a couple more steps.
What seems to be working for my car is that the Bluetooth setting on my phone under my car gives me 4 options: Call and Media audio and Contact and Message access. When I deactivated the Message access, my Bluetooth no longer drops.
I haven't tried this for very long (only 3-4 minute tests) but is seems to be working for me. I hope that this helps someone else.
 
#13 ·
My 2013 Prius V had phone-over-bluetooth capability for 7 years without any issues. But the other day, my Samsung Android dropped after between 1 and 2 minutes. Restarting the phone did not help. BT was re-established after restarting the car, but always failed in the first minute or two. Discarding all the stored pairings on the car and the phone and re-pairing did not solve the problem.

I learned from reading these forums that the failure might derive from the car's software's attempt to access additional bluetooth services from the phone after it has first established calling service. Indeed, there are three approvals that I am asked to make on the phone once the pairing starts: phone calling access approval, message access approval, and contact access approval.

Solution: the failure to stay connected is apparently remedied by refusing (on the phone) to approve message access. Since the software on the car was unchanged in 7 years, the software on the phone must have changed to make message access unreliable, or some other app on the phone that I am unaware of is using is using bluetooth or messaging. Whatever it is, the car bluetooth algorithm continues to interrogate the phone in the first two minutes after pairing, finds something not to its liking, and is not robust enough to handle the problem so it shuts down.

Look, Toyota, is not a small or unsophisticated company, but it is likely that they just contracted to buy the bluetooth technology from a vendor, much like they buy any other subsystem. I can see why there is no incentive to fix this for cheap, especially since it is not a safety issue. Very few of us will pay the money Toyota wants to upgrade the software just to have our text messages appear on the display panel. The growth of wireless/comm technology is so rapid these days that backward compatibility is sure to be a continuing problem.
 
#14 ·
My 2013 Prius V had phone-over-bluetooth capability for 7 years without any issues. But the other day, my Samsung Android dropped after between 1 and 2 minutes. Restarting the phone did not help. BT was re-established after restarting the car, but always failed in the first minute or two. Discarding all the stored pairings on the car and the phone and re-pairing did not solve the problem.

I learned from reading these forums that the failure might derive from the car's software's attempt to access additional bluetooth services from the phone after it has first established calling service. Indeed, there are three approvals that I am asked to make on the phone once the pairing starts: phone calling access approval, message access approval, and contact access approval.

Solution: the failure to stay connected is apparently remedied by refusing (on the phone) to approve message access. Since the software on the car was unchanged in 7 years, the software on the phone must have changed to make message access unreliable, or some other app on the phone that I am unaware of is using is using bluetooth or messaging. Whatever it is, the car bluetooth algorithm continues to interrogate the phone in the first two minutes after pairing, finds something not to its liking, and is not robust enough to handle the problem so it shuts down.

Look, Toyota, is not a small or unsophisticated company, but it is likely that they just contracted to buy the bluetooth technology from a vendor, much like they buy any other subsystem. I can see why there is no incentive to fix this for cheap, especially since it is not a safety issue. Very few of us will pay the money Toyota wants to upgrade the software just to have our text messages appear on the display panel. The growth of wireless/comm technology is so rapid these days that backward compatibility is sure to be a continuing problem.
Just tuned off Bluetooth Messaging access on G S8. Problem fixed! Thank you 😃
 
#16 ·
When I start my 2012 Prius C, Bluetooth connects to my Galaxy S5 fine for both phone and music, just as it has with this and my previous phone for over 4 years. Than after 60 seconds, the cars Bluetooth shuts down. If I am playing music from my phone at the time, the word STOPPED appears on the car screen where the artist and album info was just before. It just started happening this week. The only thing that has changed was an AT&T security (not OS) update on the S5.

When I hit the Set Up button and choose Bluetooth, it says Bluetooth Off. All other options are grayed out. I didn't even know there was a way to turn it on or off, since it has always been on automatically. And as it turns out, I can't turn it back on. When I touch the screen over the word Bluetooth, it does beep as if it was supposed to do something, but remains off.

The next time I start the car, the same thing happens. Even if I turn it off and restart right away. Bluetooth automatically connects for phone and music just as it should, then 60 seconds later, shuts itself down. Bluetooth on the phone remains on and active.

At first I thought it was happening with 2 different phones (S2 and S5), leading me to believe the problem was solely with the vehicle. Further testing has confirmed that the cars Bluetooth remains on with the S2, so the problem appears to be S5 related, or how it is interacting with the cars Bluetooth system.

Is it possible for an app on my phone to be shutting down the cars Bluetooth?

I have left messages at AT&T, car, phone, and Android forums and did encounter one other person with the same problem. He had already been to a dealer who expressed complete bafflement at the issue, but since his vehicle was still under warrantee, they replaced the entire entertainment system, which did not fix the issue. Waiting for him to respond back so we can compare specs, apps, etc. and try to pin this down. But am hoping to find someone who has solved this already.
This may or may not help but I had issues with my 15’ Nissan Altima connecting with my iPhone 6S & after some research on Utoob I found out that the TTY setting had to be on either software or hardware or maybe it was both, I can’t exactly remember because I have an iPhone 8SE & bought a 300C that I had the stereo replaced when I got my system installed. Not sure if android has the same TTY for hearing impaired capabilities but it solved the issue that my Nissan dealers tech support could not figure out. If this helps anyone please reply with details like the make & model of phone & car & which TTY soft or hardware setting/s you enabled to fix the connection.
 
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