Bluetooth turns off after 60 seconds.

When I start the car Bluetooth connects to my Galaxy s5 fine for both phone and music, just as it has for 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.

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. 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. I have confirmed identical behavior with two different phones, so I am leaning heavily towards the issue being with the vehicle.

EDIT: 9:44PM - Confirmation with second phone was in error. Seems to be limited to Galaxy S5 in some way.

 

Mine doesn't come and go. It's always there. But - just to test a theory, do both you and your daughter have a Netflix app on your phone?

The reason I ask is because of the following: 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.

 

The guy I was corresponding with on the other forum had already been to his Toyota dealer with this problem. They replaced the entire entertainment system and it still did not fix the problem. His vehicle was still under warrantee. So unless Toyota is willing to guarantee that whatever they are going to do will fix this for you, I would not spend a dime there. I wish I had better advice, but this is a very mysterious problem. That yours comes and goes is a new twist I have not seen reported elsewhere, and this may offer different opportunities to diagnose it. But no where have I seen a definitive cause and solution offered. Good luck.

 

I am thankful that deleting Netflix solved the problem for me, although still perplexed as to why that worked. It's been over a month now and no re-occurrence of it ...knocking on wood. But it doesn't seem to be a solution for those having it intermittently.

Did leaving Text messages off help? I assume that the log you kept did not give you any leads. This is a frustrating problem, made even worse by the intermittent nature of it for you and Archydigger Maybe you and he should compare notes. It was only when the other Prius owner and I compared apps with Bluetooth access that we came up with Netflix as the only common one. He later got back to me to say his initial fix from updating to Marshmallow had failed later, and the old Bluetooth problem returned. I reminded him about Netflix. He deleted it, and sure enough, his Bluetooth problem disappeared.

 

Factory reset is a bit drastic. I would try looking for apps that have Bluetooth access on your phone first. There shouldn't be that many. But you'll need to go into app manager to look at permissions to find them all. I would never have suspected Netflix had it until I saw it there...

 

Now that is interesting. Since I am stuck back here at Android 5.1 I don't have that option in App Manager. But I know it is added in Marshmallow. Some of us lucky AT&T customers are still waiting for our upgrade to Android 6.0, when 7.0 will be released in the next week or so!.

But you did say that none of your apps claimed to ask permission for access to Bluetooth, yet obviously based on what you just did, at least one of them has it, and it took it without asking. I would sure like to know when you figure out the offending app.

 

And I have AOL email on my phone without it causing any problems. It doesn't even ask for Bluetooth access, although based on gunfam's response, there may be apps doing it without letting on.

Let us know if the problem returns. What phone do you have?

 

Kevin, I was of the same opinion at first. It had to be the car, the Bluetooth module, the Entune software, something to do with the vehicle. There was simply no way an app on a phone could deactivate a piece of hardware in my car. Some of the people I have corresponded with on other forums have even had their entire entertainment system replaced by the dealer with no effect. But I still felt it had to be a Toyota problem. Unfortunately, I am out of warantee so trying that option was not on my list.

I continued to be convinced that the issue was solely with the car until I dug up my old Galaxy S2 phone, had it connect, and stay connected with no problems. I turned the car off, took the S2 out of the vehicle and came back and connected with my S5, Bluetooth turned off after 1 minute. I repeated this process a half dozen times, back and forth, because I could not believe it. Same result every time.

That is when I started to consider the other route - that an app, or even an operating system since the S2 was still on Android 4.1.2, was interfering with the cars Bluetooth function. I only know of two people who have solved this problem and had it stay solved. For both of us with S5 phones, it was gone after uninstalling the Netflix app. And yet, it did not come back after reinstalling Netflix. We are both now at the 2 month point with no return of the problem.

So I am as baffled by this as everyone else. None of it makes any sense at all. I have had no changes in my car's entertainment system. I don't use the Entune software to access the Internet in my car. I don't even have the Entune app on my phone. You may be right about it being a coincidence, as others have tried deleting Netflix and it didn't help. But all the others had an intermittent problem. The two of us with the Netflix fix had it constantly. Which is why I am interested to see if the fix that Paul16451 did sticks. It's possible the source of the problem is entirely different for each group.

You didn't mention what phone you are using. Is it an S5?

 

Forums like this one have gotten me out of a more jams than I can remember. When Customer Service, Tech Support, and various other types of service departments have no answers, or worse, when a software company blames the hardware company - "not our problem, call so and so" -, and then you get the same response on the hardware end, you feel like banging your head against the wall.

This particular problem proved more vexing than most as it was so odd and usually misunderstood. I found so few incidences of it that I revived dead three year old threads at some forums to get people thinking about it again. Some had given up with no solution, and gone without Bluetooth for a year or more, and others bought new phones just to put it behind them. Even now I do not fully understand it. When you reinstall the offending app and the problem doesn't return, or like in your case, when you de-activate and reactivate all apps with system permissions, and the problem goes away and doesn't return, it's like "Huh?". All you can do is thank the cell phone Gods and move on.