Extremely annoying Bluetooth A2DP drop-outs

Question

Extremely annoying Bluetooth A2DP drop-outs

Hi

I have a Kenwood DDX-8024BT headunit in my car

My iPhone 4 is running iOS 4.3.5, and is not jailbroken. It's also out of warranty.

The headunit and phone have paired OK, and I can make and recieve phone calls via the headunit.

The issue is when I try and stream audio from the phone to the headunit via A2DP. Everything starts fine, but then after a random length of time (it varies - some time it's seconds or so, others minutes), there is a momentary loss of audio. Then it comes back, and is ok again for another random period of time. This continues for as long I'm streaming audio. I sometimes get several dropouts in rapid succsession, othertimes it's ok for several songs. It's very annoying! 😠

The iPhone streams music fine to my bluetooth bike intercom. No drop outs whatsoever.

I've tried the following:

Updating the BT software on the headunit (It did exactly the same on the old version as it now does on the new)

Updating iOS as soon as there's a new version, in the hope that it might have some effect.

Deleting the BT profiles on both the phone and the headunit, and repairing them after the S/W update

Killing all other background apps on the iPhone that maybe still running in the background

Reseting the network settings on the phone

Turned off 'Ask to join networks'

Rebooting both devices (many times!)

Sending the Headunit back to Kenwood for repair (replacement Bluetooth module)

None of them have had any effect - I don't believe it's ever worked properly, on any combination of headunit firmware / iOS

So - is there anything else I can try? Replacing the headunit isn't really an option... And I have exhausted the different settings on the headunit. Anything I can do in the settings on the iPhone?

Cheers

Jason.

iPhone 4

Posted on Sep 20, 2011 5:01 AM

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Answer 1

diesel vdub

Level 7

22,178 points

Sep 20, 2011 7:40 AM in response to Jason Cundall

My first guess would be the sound drop outs are caused by notifications going off on the device. Turn off all push and email updates, see if that alleviates the issue.

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Answer 2

Oct 13, 2011 1:09 AM in response to diesel vdub

I've tried that. I've also tried turning wifi off, wifi notifications off, stopped the iPhone from syncing the phone book - none of them help.

I have now also upgraded iOS5 - and it still occurs.

Any other ideas?

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Answer 3

jbk585

Level 1

9 points

Nov 5, 2011 11:55 AM in response to Jason Cundall

Hi Jason,

You're not alone -- I have had this same problem for ages with my Kenwood DNX 6140, both on an iPhone 4, and now on the iPhone 4S. I've tried everything as well -- the Bluetooth module in my deck has the latest firmware, etc. I've also read in other forums about others having the same issue. It seems to center around the Parrot Bluetooth module that Kenwood uses in their head units -- the problem happens with iPhones, but also happens with some Android phones. I've sent requests to Kenwood to fix it, but they go ignored.

Although this doesn't 'solve' the problem, here is a mitigation I've discovered:

The problem occurs whenever the deck initiates the Bluetooth connection to the phone. So, if you have the phone in your pocket, get in your car and start it up -- it's the deck that's initiating things as it starts up, and you'll have the drop-out issue.

However, if the phone initiates the connection, things will work fine for the duration of that connection. Try this next time you get in your car:

1) Start up the car, and wait for the head unit to boot up and establish its Bluetooth link with your phone.

2) On the phone, disable Bluetooth (Settings -> General -> Bluetooth -> Off).

3) Wait a few seconds, then toggle back to 'On'.

4) Wait a few more seconds, then tap on your headunit under the 'Devices' section on the same screen (causing the phone to initiate the connection to the deck).

If your problem is the same as mine, you'll find that the audio doesn't drop out anymore for the duration of this Bluetooth link. Super annoying, because it requires you to take the phone out of your pocket and 'do something' if you want to listen to music in your car successfully (negating a lot of the convenience of Bluetooth to begin with), but at least it works and can still be worth it if you know you're going to be on a long drive anyway...

Hope that helps, and yes, I wish SOMEONE would fix this in any way it can be fixed (although my research indicates this is more Parrot's / Kenwood's problem).

Joe

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Answer 4

Nov 6, 2011 11:14 AM in response to jbk585

Hi Joe,

Thanks for your advice. Things have moved on a but since I posted, as I have tried running the 8024BT in my wife's Golf, and it worked perfectly. She didin't like the touchscreen, so I sold the unit to a friend and we installed it in his Honda Accord - only for it to start again.

It makes me wonder if it's noise in the electrical circuits, and the larger kenwood units can't handle it. I say that as I tried running my Wife's stereo in the Jag (a single din Kenwood BT50U), and it worked perfectly as well.

I now have a Pionner AVICF-F930BT, and it has no streaming problems either. (Well, apart from a pesky iOS5 bug that causes the volume on the iPhone to be set to zero when it connects...)

Wether the other stereo don't exhibit the dropouts is down to better internal power filtering I don't know - but it might be worth you trying to clean up the power lines to your stereo.

Cheers

Jason

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Answer 5

Nov 22, 2011 8:34 AM in response to Jason Cundall

This is definitely a problem in the iPhone itself. I have the exact same issue with a Jawbone Icon headset. Voice calls work fine and I've never had problems with that. My issues are practically identical to the above on A2DP. I believe the issue is that for some reason the iPhone puts the A2DP to sleep. I've learned a work around through trial and error. If I go to the Bluetooth settings under Settings,General, it all magically starts working, so what I have to do is start my audio feed, whatever that may be, and then go to settings, general, bluetooth while it is playing. Then I can lock the screen. It will then work more consistently, however it still stops pushing audio to the headset (even though the phone itself still shows progress ticking by on the audio) every so often. Simply unlocking the phone to the bluetooth settings makes it "wake" back up. Apple needs to fix this. It's NOT the headset either. I changed my headset to an Android phone for a week and I NEVER dropped audio. I've also tried a different headset and my wifes iPhone 4 (identical to mine) and the problem always happens on iOS.

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