My spotify app on my galaxy says "Android Auto" even though not in car

[Nobbin01]

My car is parked 100 yards away and is off. Why is spotify showing the device as "Android Auto"? How can I get it to properly display the device it's playing from? For example, when I get out of the car, turn on my headphones, pull out my phone, open spotify, and it says "Android Auto" still even though the sound is playing over my headphones...

[Dessi]

Hey @Nobbin01,

Thanks for reaching out!

This sounds really odd indeed, could you try opening the Web Player on your phone instead of the mobile app to check if it says Android Auto there as well? I'd also recommend starting off with a clean reinstall of the Spotify mobile app to ensure it's up-to-date and to get rid of any damaged cache that might be causing issues. 

Can you also check if there are any pending updates for your Android Auto app? It's also worth clearing its cache and data from Settings > Apps > Android Auto > Storage & cache by tapping Clear cache and Clear storage. 

Keep us posted.

[Watermelonium]

Plan

Premium

Country

The Netherlands 

Device

(Pixel 6)

Operating System

(Android 15)

My Question or Issue

This is my first time owning a car with Android Auto. And I love it, but I have one ongoing issue.

When I unplug my phone from my car, Spotify still thinks my phone is using Android Auto.

I have used my car yesterday with Android Auto. But today I'm in the train and my Spotify still says my current device is Android Auto from this phone. And I see no way to get out of this.

The problem is that I like that people can join my jam automatically in the car. But I don't like it when that happens if I'm just walking through the city with my phone. 😅

So if anyone can help me, that would be greatly appreciated!

 

 

[Andrea03]

Same problem here. This bug also starts playing music whenever I open Spotify, probably because it still thinks I'm in my car.

[Yordan]

Hey folks,

Just to confirm, are you all listening on another Bluetooth device or does "Android Auto" show up in the Connect menu even when you aren't connected with Bluetooth to anything (i.e. you're listening directly on your phone's speakers, via wired headphones or an aux cable)? It's worth checking if renaming one of the Bluetooth devices does the trick.

Let us know how it goes 👍

[Matthewopage]

Both are true for me. Music can be playing through external Wi-Fi speakers at home or over my phone itself and Spotify will say "Android Auto" for a long time (hours) after I get out of my car and turn it off.

[MihailY]

Hey @Matthewopage,

Thanks for joining the thread.

I've checked on my end but unfortunately couldn't reproduce the issue. However, I'd like to report it to our tech team and for this I'll need the following:

• The model, OS version and Spotify version of your phone and the model of your car.
• The troubleshooting steps you've tried so far.
• A timestamp of the last time the issue occurred (including your time zone).
• Does it make a difference if you unplug your phone before turning off the car?
• When this happens, is the music already playing when you connect to AA?

@Nobbin01, @Watermelonium, @Andrea03, if you're still experiencing this, please share the above info as well as it will help speed up the investigation.

Cheers,

[billypearce]

I’m having a similar issue — it keeps auto-playing music when I open Spotify, almost like it assumes I’m still connected to the car.

[Dessi]

Hey @billypearce,

Thanks for joining the thread and welcome to the Spotify Community!

There are some troubleshooting steps mentioned in the thread, which could be helpful so we recommend trying them if you haven't already. Here's what was suggested:

• Open the Web Player on your phone instead of the mobile app to check if it says Android Auto there
• Perform a clean reinstall of the Spotify mobile app  
• Check for any pending updates for your Android Auto app 
• Clear its cache and data from Settings > Apps > Android Auto > Storage & cache by tapping Clear cache and Clear storage. 

If the issue persists afterwards, it'd be great if you can share the details @MihailY requested so we can report this to our tech folks for further investigation.

Keep us posted.

[Plaster_Mind]

I have had similar symptoms as other people in this thread: Spotify app on my phone automatically assumes it's playing through Android Auto even when I'm at home, and phones Bluetooth is turned off. This will hijack the sound from wifi speaker to my phones speaker through Android Auto's music autoplay feature.

However what I noticed is that I access Spotify app through widget on my front page, and that tje widget is generally buggy sometimes.

When I was experiencing this issue at home, I closed Spotify app, removed widget and opened spotify by directly launching app --> issue didn't occur.

Recommend trying same if you have similar problem and use widget.

[jlt6666]

I can confirm that just listening on the phone itself shows android auto as the phone. I'll try to get a fuller report next time this occurs.  

Would bug reports help and if so where would I send them? 

As a work around I can fix this by opening the app carousel (app picker) and swiping away Spotify.  This has the effect of actually closing Spotify.  When I do this the app goes back to saying "this phone" for local playback. Essentially the state is not being reset when an android auto session is ended.  

I will note that I use both android auto wired and wireless and I'm not sure if that makes a difference but when trying to reproduce the issue this might be an important distinction. 

If people clear caches I'm sure this will temporarily fix the issue but assume it will come back. So telling people to do that probably doesn't provide much value other than to shoo them away.