Photo: Instagram user revcoop
Using an Android Auto inside a car is often a crazy rollercoaster ride because while the app seems to be working just fine right now, everything can be broken down a minute later.
And some users who installed a recent Android Auto update certainly know this best, as they’re now complaining that one of the latest versions released by Google causes a black screen in their cars.
In other words, once the Android phone is connected to the vehicle’s head unit and Android Auto fires up, all they get is a black screen with nothing else happening on the display.
What’s weirder is that Android Auto still appears to be running in the background, as these users claim they can hear the sound of apps like navigation or Spotify (which automatically relaunch on connect).
Black screen bugs are very often the result of low-quality cables, but this doesn’t seem to be the case for this new problem, as these reports indicate that the original cords are being used to run Android Auto.
The glitch happens on various phone brands, albeit it appears to be a little bit more widespread on Samsung devices, and several car models. Google marks it as a “trending issue,” but it’s still not clear how many users are impacted by the black screen bug.
“Worked fine for over a year in my 2018 Kia Sorento and then with latest updates. Now all I get is black screen and eventually an error message about phone not recognized,” one user explains on Google’s forums. “Just got a new S20 and having the same problem phone connects to the VW Amarok as normal but there is a completely blank screen. When you look at the phone it says android auto is connected,” someone else adds.
No workaround seems to exist at this point, and the update to the latest version of Android Auto doesn’t appear to fix the black screen and bring things back to normal.
In other words, once the Android phone is connected to the vehicle’s head unit and Android Auto fires up, all they get is a black screen with nothing else happening on the display.
What’s weirder is that Android Auto still appears to be running in the background, as these users claim they can hear the sound of apps like navigation or Spotify (which automatically relaunch on connect).
Black screen bugs are very often the result of low-quality cables, but this doesn’t seem to be the case for this new problem, as these reports indicate that the original cords are being used to run Android Auto.
The glitch happens on various phone brands, albeit it appears to be a little bit more widespread on Samsung devices, and several car models. Google marks it as a “trending issue,” but it’s still not clear how many users are impacted by the black screen bug.
“Worked fine for over a year in my 2018 Kia Sorento and then with latest updates. Now all I get is black screen and eventually an error message about phone not recognized,” one user explains on Google’s forums. “Just got a new S20 and having the same problem phone connects to the VW Amarok as normal but there is a completely blank screen. When you look at the phone it says android auto is connected,” someone else adds.
No workaround seems to exist at this point, and the update to the latest version of Android Auto doesn’t appear to fix the black screen and bring things back to normal.
Google News