Bluetooth connection fails

thmf

Hey. Welcome to the failed Bluetooth connection club :)

plazmafire Then a few days later when I got the original truck back, I went to connect it again, and it fails the same way as the other truck.

Could you please check with the guys who serviced the car and make sure they didn't update the car's head unit? I understand it's unlikely, but it would be great to rule out all the possibilities.

plazmafire I will take the old 6a to work, delete everything from the bluetooth list, then try that.

If you have time, please test that GrapheneOS on the 6a Bluetooth connection fails, then flash Stock OS on the same 6a and test if that works. Our guess is it won't work in both cases. This test would be very helpful.

plazmafire

thmf Could you please check with the guys who serviced the car and make sure they didn't update the car's head unit? I understand it's unlikely, but it would be great to rule out all the possibilities.

The headunit has never been updated. It's still on version 1.01 firmware.

thmf If you have time, please test that GrapheneOS on the 6a Bluetooth connection fails, then flash Stock OS on the same 6a and test if that works. Our guess is it won't work in both cases. This test would be very helpful.

I am taking the 6a to work this morning to test it. But I have NOT done any recent software updates to it, as I'm HOPING it will still work, and I can actually use it. IF the 6a works, I will try and flash the 9a back to the stock OS, and then try that (I have never put a GrapheneOS phone back to stock before).

The other thing I was thinking of trying is to put an older release of Graphene on the 9a and see if that works (work out when I bought it, and put the release on it that would have been the one I originally installed, because that actually worked just fine). The problem is, I also don't know how to go about doing that.

How would one go about installing an older release of Graphene?

plazmafire

I tested the Pixel 6a today, and it connects to the stereo in the truck just fine. Type in the 4 digit code and it's connected straight away. Build number for the 6a is 2025092700. I don't intend to do anything else with this, as I need to be able to use it.

I have just finished reverting the 9a back to the stock Google OS using their online Flash Tool. I will take that to work tomorrow and see if it connects or not. Build number for that is CP1A.260405.005, which appears to be the latest version for a 9a.

I feel dirty having re-installed the stock OS on my 9a.

Mqx

I’ve been following your discussion because, unfortunately, I had the exact same problem with my car stereo. I’ve only had Graphene for a few days and was about to replace it with Stock again... But I’ve now found a solution to the problem. My car stereo has a feature that allows itself to search for nearby Bluetooth devices and initiate pairing. Surprisingly, that worked. The Pixel still asked for the PIN (0000), but the pairing was successful and the connection works! I hope you might have this feature too and that I was able to help.

thmf

Mqx That's great news, thanks for sharing!

plazmafire

So, today I tested the 9a with the freshly installed stock OS, and it paired with the stereo in the truck instantly upon entering the PIN.

That rules out the phone hardware, and also the stereo in the truck as the problem.

Next, I guess I need to install an older version of Graphene, from about October or so last year, as that's when I bought the phone and did the initial install (and the bluetooth had no issues then).

Unless someone has a better idea?

Mqx My car stereo has a feature that allows itself to search for nearby Bluetooth devices and initiate pairing.

Unfortunately, I don't have this option.

guss

Mqx
My car stereo has a feature that allows itself to search for nearby Bluetooth devices and initiate pairing.

Unfortunately, my BMW doesn't offer this option.

Since my Pixel 8a installed a new Graphene version overnight, I tested it. The error is still there (Build 2026042101).

plazmafire

I'm still working out if I will be able to install an older release of Graphene. I SHOULD be able to, but I'm not going to try until the weekend when I will have some free time.

In the mean time, I installed the latest release again, and sure enough, it fails to connect exactly the same way as before. So it's certainly a Graphene issue.

2WsF

Over the past couple weeks I've gotten a popup saying that bluetooth keeps failing, the same popup as when an app crashes or freezes

ManWithNoBrows

I still don't understand why the GrapheneOS team doesn't take my suggestion that I posted to their Reddit and make a bug bounty program where you can pay to make certain bugs a higher priority. I mean I don't expect everyone to work for free, and this could be a way to get more donations and fix bugs that affect so many people.

de0u

ManWithNoBrows I still don't understand why the GrapheneOS team doesn't take my suggestion that I posted to their Reddit and make a bug bounty program where you can pay to make certain bugs a higher priority.

This has been discussed before, such as: https://discuss.grapheneos.org/d/19316-voting-for-features

Perhaps at some future date the team may feel there is "spare" developer time that could be effectively allocated that way. But as long as the team believes that existing developer resources are already focused on the highest-priority issues, it's not clear what a voting system could accomplish.

There are multiple efforts in progress, and presumably the announced partnership with Motorola will involve some developer time.

ManWithNoBrows

de0u sometimes broken tech gets used to find zero day attacks. I'm a software engineer, but my forte is PHP, not Java. I wouldn't know what was wrong if I looked through their source code or I'd make a PR. I would, however, suggest to the team that there are 77 references to "Bluetooth" on the change log including compatibility layer and sandboxing, so I'd test what happens if some get reverted and if that fixes it then adjust the implementation.

ManWithNoBrows

There's no way to edit my last post, so I'll just double post, but I want to let you know that I solved it because there is a phone icon with a Wi-Fi icon next to it on my car stereo. I hit that button and it initiated a peer request with my phone after which I was able to type in the pin, hit OK, and the phone connected to it just fine. But when the phone reaches out, to the stereo it won't connect.

Problem solved for me, I just hope somebody else can use this information. It might be a hidden button on the stereo like mine was, or it might be in your stereo settings, but try to get the stereo to initiate contact with your phone.

plazmafire

This is pissing me off.

No one seems to give a flying fuck about this issue. Google insist that it's not an issue on their end. Graphene insist that it's not an issue on their end.

Meanwhile, heaps of people have phones that simply no longer connect to bluetooth devices. What's the point of having this secure OS if you can't even use it for basic 'phone functionality'?

I guess I'm just never going to actually be able to use my newest phone for everyday use ever again.

de0u

plazmafire The Android Bluetooth stack is a bit of a mess. It's not clear how rigorous Google's testing is, and their recent cutbacks in source drops definitely aren't helping.

The user forum is not overflowing with reports of people having trouble connecting to Bluetooth headsets (something that Google may be testing). What I think I see here is a medium-sized quantity of reports about specialty devices, including vehicles and hot tubs. It seems that some vehicles support a workaround, by allowing users to initiate pairing from the car, but some vehicles don't.

It would be difficult for the GrapheneOS team to remotely debug Bluetooth connection problems with vehicles, and it seems unlikely that somebody with an affected vehicle will offer to drive to a location with a GrapheneOS developer so that the developer could investigate. Even if such an offer were made, it's possible that other issues that affect more users might take precedence (also, the GrapheneOS developers tend to be private about details of their personal lives).

It is possible that Bluetooth connections with some vehicles that can't initiate pairing requests may be broken for some time, perhaps until Android 17. The situation is already troublesome for some users and unfortunately it may remain troublesome for some time.

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