Evening Latte

Note: in this post, the term “wireless” will be used to refer to the Wi-Fi connection between a mobile device and a vehicle for Android Auto. Bluetooth is also technically wireless, but it’s a different protocol.

Behavior

The audio stream on a mobile device connected to a vehicle via wireless Android Auto skips intermittently.

• The most common duration between skips is 4-5 seconds
• The skips affect the overall audio stream from the device to the vehicle’s head unit, not just music apps. For example, audio prompts/responses from Assistant and Maps are also affected.
• The behavior can be stopped temporarily by disconnecting and reconnecting the device during a drive/session. Disconnection can be done by enabling airplane mode or manually stopping the Android Auto app.
• The behavior is unaffected by pausing the audio stream, going to the next/previous track, and other playback commands/changes.
• Most of the time, the behavior persists during the entire trip, though it does rarely stop after a few minutes.
• All other devices and connection types (including wired Android Auto) stream audio without skipping

Resolution

Credit where credit’s due: this fix was discovered and shared by a user in the Android Auto Help forum on Google’s support site.

The fix is to disable media audio on the Bluetooth connection associated with the Android Auto vehicle. Instructions for stock Android 15:

• Open Settings
• Select Connected devices
• Under Saved devices, select See all.
• Select the gear (right side of the screen) of the device associated with Android Auto
  • In my case, this is Mazda.
• Uncheck the option for Media audio

Subsequent wireless Android Auto connection should now stream audio without skipping.

Cause

When an Android Auto connection is made, a Bluetooth connection is also made in the background. I don’t know the specific mechanism, but it seems probable that the cause of the skips is some kind of conflict between the Bluetooth and wireless audio connections to the vehicle’s head unit. I think the most likely scenario is that the Bluetooth audio stream keeps attempting to start, which temporarily interrupts the ongoing wireless audio stream. If this is the case, something about killing the wireless connection and reopening it during the same session temporarily causes the Bluetooth audio stream to stop its attempts.

Background

I started experiencing this behavior intermittently on my 2024 Mazda CX-5 in late 2024 when I’d had it nearly a year. Over the next few months, various versions of Android Auto seemed to make it happen more or less frequently, and I would do a quick Google search every once in a while when I got frustrated. But by spring of 2025, it was happening every trip, so I started a focused effort to isolate the cause when I had free time or was especially annoyed.

• I synced my phone with multiple Bluetooth speakers to confirm it wasn’t a basic audio streaming problem
• I played local audio files (using Musicolet) over wireless Android Auto to confirm it wasn’t a streaming music app problem
• I confirmed the behavior was consistent across both offline and streaming modes in Spotify
• I confirmed the behavior was consistent across different audio quality settings in Spotify
• I confirmed the behavior was present while using Tidal to confirm it wasn’t a Spotify app problem
• I confirmed the behavior was not present while using wired Android Auto
• I confirmed the behavior was not present while streaming audio to my vehicle over a Bluetooth connection alone (not using Android Auto at all)
• I factory reset my phone and rebuilt it manually (no restores from backups) to confirm it wasn’t a configuration/corruption problem in the Android Audo app
• I upgraded my phone to a newly-released version of Android (15), then factory reset my device and rebuilt it manually in case something had been updated in the new version.

I accidentally realized it wasn’t a music-only issue when a Maps response just happened to get clipped. Everything I was seeing suggested the behavior was isolated to the Android Auto wireless connection between the phone and vehicle.

In October of 2025, I finally mentioned the behavior to the Mazda dealership when I took my CX-5 in for its semi-annual oil change. When I was able to reproduce the issue, the tech got pretty interested because they’d never seen the behavior before. He said he would check the internal dealership support portal while the oil change was being done, but when I returned, he hadn’t found anything. But he told me he’d keep looking as he had time and let me know the results.

Following the law of IT troubleshooting, as soon as I asked someone for help, I found additional information myself. The Android Auto Help post I linked in the Resolution section was from June, so it didn’t exist all the times I’d searched before then. But it seemed familiar, so it’s possible the fix didn’t previously work or the associated section in Settings had been updated since I’d last tried changes there. Regardless, as soon as I made the described change, the behavior stopped, and it hasn’t come back in the four trips since (fingers crossed).

Update 2025-11-05
I purchased a Pixel 10 and built it from the ground up (no OS restores or transfers). After a few trips, it also started skipping. Thankfully, the same change fixed it. This further supports the theory that the root cause of the behavior is something about how the head unit handles/requests audio streams: I’m still the only person I know who’s experienced it even though many of my friends use Android/Pixel devices.

Update 2025-11-29
I traded in my 2-year old 2024 CX-5 for a new 2025 CX-5 of the same trim for a few reasons, including avoiding the increased reliance on touch-screen controls in the 2026 models. After a couple days with it using wireless Android Auto with default settings (Media audio enabled in my phone’s Bluetooth connection), I have not experienced any skipping. I’ll update if that changes, but that all but proves something about the head unit of the 2024 was the root cause.