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Fixing Spotify’s Bluetooth Problem on Android Auto Takes Less Than One Minute

Despite Google’s push for YouTube Music, Spotify remains the preferred choice for so many users, and the official figures pretty much speak for themselves.
Spotify was updated with a new UI on Android last year 1 photo
Photo: Spotify
Today, Spotify has no less than 320 million users, out of which 144 million are paying subscribers. The service is available in 92 countries and provides access to over 60 million songs and 1.9 million podcasts.

And what’s more, Spotify is available pretty much everywhere, including in the world of Android Auto, where the app can power the music experience behind the wheel.

Those running Spotify on Android Auto for phones (on the mobile device’s screen, not on the head unit), have recently discovered that the app no longer plays nice with Bluetooth controls. In other words, while the app runs fine on Android Auto for phones, controlling the playback via Bluetooth is no longer possible.

As it turns out, this is all due to an issue in the latest version of Spotify, so the easiest way to get the whole thing back up and running is to downgrade to an earlier release of the app. According to this reddit post, the recommended version is 8.5.85.0, as this is the last known version of Spotify where Bluetooth controls worked correctly.

So, in other words, what you need to do is to downgrade Spotify to a previous version, something that doesn’t take more than a minute. You can find the previous Spotify versions on this page – just download the stand-alone APK installer for the release you want to install, unpack it on your device, and that’s pretty much it.

For the time being, it’s not yet known if the whole thing is supposed to be fixed in the next Spotify update, but you can safely continue running the older version until Bluetooth controls are up and running again. For what it’s worth, Spotify appears to be the only app impacted by this bug, as all the other media apps are running correctly on Android Auto for phones.
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About the author: Bogdan Popa
Bogdan Popa profile photo

Bogdan keeps an eye on how technology is taking over the car world. His long-term goals are buying an 18-wheeler because he needs more space for his kid’s toys, and convincing Google and Apple that Android Auto and CarPlay deserve at least as much attention as their phones.
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