Bluetooth Problems with Galaxy S4

I took Leegart's advice and went back to Best Buy to have the S4 updated from the Samsung counter a second time. It worked for about 4 minutes before shutting down. Feeling somewhat frustrated, I did a factory reset on my phone. (I hate doing that as my phone is very customized). That worked for about 3 days then stopped again. To my surprise, the phone would go about 2 days without connecting and then all of the sudden would connect. When it connected the first time after not connecting for a few days, it had problems reading the name of the MP3 that was being played. The car would also give a prompt to turn on the entune app from the phone if i wanted to do anything that involved data, like traffic. This is the patten that I'm in now. It works for 2 days, then seems to be down for 2 days. Verizon has once again told me that this is a known issue with Lollipop and in general and bluetooth connectivity. They assured me that patch is in the works but can give no time frame of when it will roll out. The new update will bring the phone up to Lollipop 5.1.1. Our 3 options are to wait for the update, force the update on a rooted phone, or get a new phone.

 

George, I have something similar happening. After about 4 days of working right, the s4 shuts the Bluetooth down. I then unpair it, restart the phone, add the Prius again and it works temporarily for four days. I have to go to the dealer for an inspection soon, so I will see if there is a firmware upgrade as lumpy95 suggest. Otherwise we wait for a Verizon update.

 

I received the firmware update from toyota. It didn't help me. The only useful thing that Verizon told me was that Lollipop used a different bluetooth frequency than kitkat. It will all eventually work out, but it may take another month for all the technology to get on the same page. Rats!

 

George Christ,
Interesting that your Verizon S4 is still having problems even after the Prius firmware update. My AT&T S4 is ver. 5.0.1 Lollipop and the update to the Prius firmware cured all the connection problems.
My Bluetooth version should be the same as yours if you have 5.0.1 Lollipop on an S4.
Is it possible that your dealer either did the wrong update or may have done it incorrectly? OR is this just a Verizon thing? OR a problem with your phone itself?
Not pointing fingers, just trying to figure out the difference.

 

It must be a Verizon thing. I have Entune Version 3.2.0, which I think is the latest. What are you running Lumpy95? I must say that since I did a factory reset on the phone that it connects more often than it did before and when it stops connecting, unpairing and re- pairing works (sometimes that is)

 

That is my experience also, George.

 

Hmmm, good question, as I don't know what the Entune version is. We may be talking about apples and oranges here because I got a Firmware update to 3.2.0 for the whole Display/Audio unit ( non DVD ) itself under the TSB that I posted earlier. Entune is only a part of that.
If you google the TSB I posted it mostly mentions the nav ( maps ) part of it but it cures many other ills also, to do with Bluetooth and USB connections.
When you say that you got an update, did you only get an Entune update?

 

Bad news. My Toyota dealer did an update of the radio firmware and I drove out of the dealership and the Bluetooth cut out again. I unpaired and repaired the phone to no avail. I guess we have to hope that Verizon fixes this.

 

Wow, sorry to hear that since mine went so well. If it is Verizon's fault then as you say, they should hopefully get a fix sooooon !!

 

Verizon is sending me a replacement s4 phone (their suggestion) to see if the phone is the problem. I'll keep you posted.

 

That's pretty good customer service and it will be interesting to see if that's where the problem lies.

 

Toyota both replaced my unit and applied the technical bulletin and it did not resolve my problem. I did some additional searching and found a suggestion that appears to have resolved the issue (it worked for over 20 minutes and until now never worked for more than 2 minutes). I unpaired my phone, then on my phone went to settings, more, application manager, all (you need to scroll across the top where it says downloaded to get to all). There I cleared cache and data (in that order) for both Bluetooth and Bluetooth Test. I then re-paired my device and it works for all Bluetooth functions (at least so far for the 20 minutes I was in the car).

 

Update: I received a replacement s4 from Verizon yesterday. After work, I went to the local Verizon Wireless store and they transferred everything from my old to new phone. (Verizon also sent me a prepaid box to send back the old phone). I paired the new phone last night with the Prius and have not lost Bluetooth since.

Previously, when I had the problem, I could sometimes stay connected for up to 4 days before the phone would turn the Bluetooth off. Therefore it is too soon to declare this a successful "fix" yet. Let's see if the Bluetooth keeps working for a few more days. I will keep you posted.

 

leegart,
Is it still staying connected? If so, then it must have been the phone.

 

Unfortunately, it disconnected last night after 3 days. I unpaired and re-paired it this morning and it stayed connected. It probably will disconnect in a few days. If so, we would have to conclude that it is the software and hope Verizon is doing something about it.

 

Sorry to hear that.
What seems odd to me is that it stay's connected for a few Day's and then all of a sudden, it disconnects. It's almost as if it's set on a timer.
Weird.

 

It is weird. I guess software glitches do that sometimes. It has stayed connected since the last re-pairing. I'll let you if/when it cuts out.

 

As of this (Weds.) morning, the phone has remained connected without turning off the Bluetooth. I'm probably jinxing it by posting this.

 

Bluetooth is still on as of Thurs. night.

 

Yippee, your on a roll now ( almost a week )