Spotify - Unknown Artist Unknown Song

[Doug 2]

Hi everyone 

I have been using Spotify on my phone for over a year with no problems on the stock infotainment system and whether through an update with Spotify or whatever it no longer works well. 

Songs play but the only way to change the song is via the phone and the songs details are all Unknown (see attachment)

I couldn't find anyone else having this issue but my phone works in my works van and other cars (OnePlus 6t) 

The only way I found to get it to work sometimes is play a YouTube video first and then switch back to Spotify. 

Is anyone else having this problem and managed to fix it or is my only option to get a new head unit? Or is my radio firmware out of date because I've seen it look different in other gt86s) 

Thanks! 

[James18 50]

Not any help for you in fixing the issue, but I have the same phone and the most up to date Spotify and don't have this issue. So at least it hopefully gets rid of two variables. 

Could possibly be worth clearing your Spotify cache?

[Doug 2]

snip

[Doug 2]

35 minutes ago, James18 said:

Not any help for you in fixing the issue, but I have the same phone and the most up to date Spotify and don't have this issue. So at least it hopefully gets rid of two variables. 

Could possibly be worth clearing your Spotify cache?

Thanks for the reply, I'm really confused as to what it might be, my girlfriends iPhone works fine but I can't get any music info to show at all for my phone, even though it works fine on every other car... and the fact you have the same phone now just makes it more damn confusing haha I have 6T Mclaren I don't know if that makes any difference but I doubt it and it's not like these phones use a weird version of android!

[jw191 22]

I use spotify daily, and have this issue maybe once every couple of months. I think  I can still skip tracks using the HU, but the title / album / artist is unknown. Haven't been able to replicate reliably, but it may have something to do with whats the last 'audio' app (includes YoueTube etc) you were using before connecting to bluetooth. I generally find it fixes itself after the car has been off for a while and I reconnect, so I put it down to a 'quirk' I can live with.

I also find it you break the Bluetooth connection when the HU is not expecting it, for example if connected device goes out of range or you put your phone in flight mode when connected it can cause issues re-connecting. Had to re-config the bluetooth connection a handful of times over the last couple of years. I imagine if you delete the pairing and re setup you'll be working again?

If you dig deeper and find the cause and a fix, I'm interested.

[Doug 2]

10 minutes ago, jw191 said:

I use spotify daily, and have this issue maybe once every couple of months. I think  I can still skip tracks using the HU, but the title / album / artist is unknown. Haven't been able to replicate reliably, but it may have something to do with whats the last 'audio' app (includes YoueTube etc) you were using before connecting to bluetooth. I generally find it fixes itself after the car has been off for a while and I reconnect, so I put it down to a 'quirk' I can live with.

I also find it you break the Bluetooth connection when the HU is not expecting it, for example if connected device goes out of range or you put your phone in flight mode when connected it can cause issues re-connecting. Had to re-config the bluetooth connection a handful of times over the last couple of years. I imagine if you delete the pairing and re setup you'll be working again?

If you dig deeper and find the cause and a fix, I'm interested.

I find sometimes I can skip the track maybe once or twice if I'm lucky.. sometimes I will have the track timer sometimes I won't... it first started with the track progress bar stopped working and then this, so it was almost gradual.

I've tried re-pairing, deleting Spotify (although the problem also extends to Google Play AND YouTube) so as you say it's really hard to replicate the issue reliably because it's never the exact same.

I will keep an eye on your point about what app I used before because sometimes I will notice mid-drive that it actually is working.

I'd put it down to just 'It was obviously more geared towards iOS and maybe there are some compatiblity issues with the bluetooth connection' but the fact it worked for a year with no problems and other people are using their phones with no issues is just infuriating, it surely has to be the car if it works on all other cars?

[jw191 22]

2 hours ago, Doug said:

I find sometimes I can skip the track maybe once or twice if I'm lucky.. sometimes I will have the track timer sometimes I won't... it first started with the track progress bar stopped working and then this, so it was almost gradual.

I've tried re-pairing, deleting Spotify (although the problem also extends to Google Play AND YouTube) so as you say it's really hard to replicate the issue reliably because it's never the exact same.

I will keep an eye on your point about what app I used before because sometimes I will notice mid-drive that it actually is working.

I'd put it down to just 'It was obviously more geared towards iOS and maybe there are some compatiblity issues with the bluetooth connection' but the fact it worked for a year with no problems and other people are using their phones with no issues is just infuriating, it surely has to be the car if it works on all other cars?

I’m using an iPhone 6S. 

I found another quirk with the car, which I queried on the forum and no one else confirmed. However I was able to replicate the same on other 86’s. It was just that other people weren’t creating the same conditions to notice it.

Maybe it’s unique to a small number of cars, or maybe it’s something related to user behaviour.

[Doug 2]

19 hours ago, jw191 said:

I’m using an iPhone 6S. 

I found another quirk with the car, which I queried on the forum and no one else confirmed. However I was able to replicate the same on other 86’s. It was just that other people weren’t creating the same conditions to notice it.

Maybe it’s unique to a small number of cars, or maybe it’s something related to user behaviour.

I finally snapped last night and just bought an iPhone XS Max for a decent price on eBay considering the new one is coming out this month, let's hope that fixes things for me.. if not I'll update haha.

[Doug 2]

Just tried this morning with an iPhone and it works okayish now, I think it might have something to do with the car view setting Spotify use because that cut off my music and had to re-pair to get it to work again.

At least for now I'm happy i can cycle through my music without using my phone and see track details.