Unfortunately Bluetooth has stopped - ME173X

[Hoib]

The Asus ME173X displays the above message everytime I try to connect and stream music to my Subaru Forrester. The tab is on Android 4.2.2 on an OTA update. The device and the car system pair reliably the multiple times I've tried to reinitialize the two. In researching this, I find that there are numerous problems with that car and the iPhone - not many I can find with Android. But the other ME173 symptoms I have are really perplexing.

First, I turn on Bluetooth in the car so it starts to search for the device already registered. I turn on Bluetooth on the tab and the two find each other. In less than 2 seconds, the tab shows, "Unfortunately, Bluetooth has stopped." (Not "Bluetooth Share has Stopped working") At this point, the tab shows that the car is still connected. The car now shows the tab is disconnected. On the tab, if I turn Bluetooth off, it obeys but then I cannot turn BT back on. The tab reports that it is "Turning on Bluetooth" but it never does completely. The only way I've found to be able to turn BT on is to restart the tab.

Now I have tried turning on devices and systems in different order. Always come to the same error, and I have to restart the tab if I want to use BT.

Someone had a BT speaker. This worked fine. I went to another car and got the same result. There is some discussion that using BT where text messaging is being used on the ME173;, that the connection will fail. But I'm not using any texting.

So I'm not sure if this can be fixed. The dealer days the car had the latest firmware for it's multimedia system. My questions are:

1. Is BT standard and/or universal in most applications in use today? Shouldn't these devices just work?
2. It's there a way to"reset" or "reinstall" the whole BT subsystem on the ME173? (I would not consider a factory reset on the whole device at this moment)
3. How do I restart BT without having to power down the unit? I can't determine what service on the device needs attention. Using a force stop action in Manage Apps, won't permit BT to be turned back on - I have to power down.
4. What else would you experts do to get this to repair BT so the tablet will work the car?

Thank you all very much for any input.

Hoib

 

[Batt4Christ]

I have found that Bluetooth on my MEMO Pad HD7 is flakey. It randomly quits working, sometimes the "switch" in settings will turn itself off and it will not turn back on unless I completely reboot my pad.

 

[Hoib]

OK, same here to some degree. I thought it might have something to do with the interplay between the tab and the car per se. But, when the pad's "BT has Stopped", you can't turn it back on unless you reboot.

I wonder if Asus intends on addressing this defect? Any Asus reps watching this??? What should we do then to bring this to their attention so that it doesn't get lost in the shuffle over there?

H

 

[dbeckian]

I had (separately) both the Bluetooth has stopped message and Sound has stopped (when hitting Settings-Sound). Solved both problems by doing a Factory Reset. Make sure to use one of the app backup applications else you will have to reinstall all apps. I used the preinstalled AppBackup...worked fine, it put all apps in alphabetical order but all apps & their data came back perfect.
Cheers!

PS I have personally given up on bluetooth to my car deck. Believe (could be wrong!) that bluetooth doesn't have adequate bandwidth to transmit music very well. Got mine working fine, but sounded much much better using a line-in cable (from headphone jack to deck line-in). I really wanted, and frankly expected, to connect with the micro-usb connection to deck, but memopad not recognized by car deck at all. The pain-in-the-**** aspect is always having to turn up the volume on the memopad, have to say ok to hearing damage message, then turn up again. PITA !!

 

[Hoib]

OK, more information direct from ASUS tech support by phone. Two calls today.

1st rep: Listens to me carefully, politely asks a few questions. Puts me on hold. Comes back and says: Bluetooth in the ME173X is looking to connect ONLY to other Android devices. Use a third party app to intercede and mediate between the two. Any suggestions for which one to use. No.

I doubted this but decided it's worth a try. Tried several (4 I think) BT "manager" type apps. All of them failed because the base BT capability cannot be launched without the process giving up.​

2nd rep: Again, listens politely and asks more questions. Apologizes for rep #1's ill conceived answers. This time I fill in a small number additional details and observations I've discovered while experimenting, like in a limited number of times I cannot turn off BT after failure. The tab says "Connected" but the car says it's not. Then there are times when the car says Connected but the tab says disconnected. The majority of times though the connection only lasts a second or two then gives up. There were a few occasions when the "BT has stopped" appeared but surprisingly I can hear the music streaming. Unfortunately, because the error message is in focus your only option is to dismiss it with an OK and then it really does stop. Music dead. Leaves me on hold for about 7-8 minutes while he "checks on some things". (He's actually going to ask someone else).

With the BT in a failed state, we investigate more detailed settings underneath BT. There we're seeing "Car Multimedia" (the Subaru) is in a disconnected state. Over to the right, there's a settings icon. Tap it. This pulls up a subsequent panel showing among other things "Phone audio" with a checkbox and "Media audio" with a checkbox. Both are checked on. Let's try to turn them off and on again. Turn one off. This action clears the box but also greys out both preventing further adjustment. Restart the tab. Return to the same settings area and now I can turn Phone and Media audio on/off at will. So when this thing craps out, all BT functions are dead or nearly dead until. I asked if there was any way to restart the BT software module. There isn't - your only remedy is a restart - according to ASUS.

So we attempted to use BT with just one audio source turned on. Failed. Restarted and disabled the first and turned on the second. Failed.​

So, after more standing by while he researches, the rep took a lot of contact info, assigned this a ticket number said that this issue will be forwarded to their engineering staff for a closer look. I told him I do expect some answer by eMail at least in the next week to 10 days. Again, nobody dies because BT isn't working so I thought that a reasonable settlement for this round. At this point, I'm waiting for a response and will pass that along here when and IF ASUS comes back to me.

H

 

[Haylet]

hi, I am interested in this thread as my blue tooth keyboard no longer connects either - I had to wipe factory data clean after launcher stopped - this is ok now - but when i try to connect to keyboard it says password invalid - is it the keyboard I wonder or something else? - any ideas?

 

[wmbauer]

Hello, I have exactly the same problems just with a Bluetooth keyboard. Same behavior, 1:1. Is there any solution by now?