Issues with Android head unit

[marcurelio]

Hi all. I just bought an Android, PX5 based head unit for my car. It works fine, but the music player is nearly unusable. As many owners of these devices, I turned to Poweramp and am happy with it. Just a couple of issues are bothering me:

• When I turn the ignition off. Poweramp keeps on playing on background. When I come back and turn ignition on (on the next day, for instance), it will be two or three tracks ahead from where I left it.
• Also, on resume (turning ignition on), Poweramp will be paused for some reason
• The physical button on the unit for going to next or previous track won't work on Poweramp 3. I had to downgrade to version 2 for this to work.

I didn't find answers to this on the forum, but it's perfectly possible I was not searching right. If that's the case, I apologize. I'm trying to work around those issues using Tasker, with no success so far.

 

Thank you for your attention, any help will be gratly appreciated.

[maxmp]

Thanks for the feedback. I guess I have to add one of such head units to my test devices pool, as head units require some specific workarounds, it seems.

[SMartin]

Hi peeps,

since I also moved over from the S160 to the PX5 I encountered an issue with the reboot after hibernation. Poweramp re-starts and starts playing, but stops and closes immediately. I am using the Hal9k ROM, which also have some possibilities of re-starting apps after hibernation. But I can't work out why this is happening. How can I determine what causes this behaviour?

[Capndirk]

I'm having similar issues with restart, but I think mine is related to lag time for the USB to mount.

My player is an ATOTO A6. it has 4 USB ports and one microSD. I have ripped my music collection to a USB stick in FLAC format, so that drive is a 256GB. PA plays well when set up, but after I switch the car off to go into a store or buy fuel, or similar turnarounds, PA loses where it was. The player has an advertised 2 sec reboot, and PA shows up as the active app. but it complains about the shutdown:

and it doesn't have the library:

I have to direct the app back to the library on the USB to get going again. The ATOTO mounts the USB after boot, so I suspect that PA boots before the USB is mounted. 

Tweaks?

[andrewilley]

Looks like your device is killing power (and thus stopping Poweramp) without allowing time for a proper shutdown. You could test this by cleanly exiting PA before you turn off the ignition, and see if the error shows up the next time you power it up.

Andre

[Capndirk]

Thanks, Andre. I started to do that one time before the trial expired, but then I figured that would work but be an unacceptable workaround, although it would certainly work. Another workaround for the second aspect of my issues would be to use a high capacity SD card to obviate the USB mount. Trouble is, there's one microSD and 4 USB, one of which is USB 3.0 There are players out there that resume mode of operation and resume the previously playing track, I hear. Joying apparently has something, but it's not advanced like PA. I saw that in a android head unit forum, and the guy asked why it can't be done with other apps. Some apps can't see a USB storage device. Poweramp seems to be the favorite among car users, but many of them stream from the phone, or over Android Auto.

I'm not the only android car stereo user facing these issues, and the "best android car head unit app" is still a hot topic in the car world. The car android player is a unique application that has different ergonomic issues from phones and tablets. The most common items on the car player Android app wish lists are easier to see screen elements, bigger touch controls, and better menu navigation. Distracted driving is an issue, so swiping from page to page is better than ticcing the little menu "drawer" or three dot drop down, and then not being able to read it, anyway. If I knew anything about software development or the market, I would be out in front of the pack in this arena and charge double for the app!

I thought I'd make a little noise, here, to see where it goes. I think maxmp in post #2 has the right idea, and some head units for you , too! 🙂

[andrewilley]

Are you running PA inside Android Auto by the way, as that helps with the controls issue (or there are skins that allow large buttons and text, while hiding other elements, such as the free BIGYAPS).

I think there are probably two separate issues for you. The crashing is caused by the device cutting power too quickly without allowing apps to cleanly exit. The USB/SD Card late mount issue is separate, and could probably be solved by turning off PA's auto-scan and initial scan features in Settings > Library > Scanner. There are some other options in there that might help you too.

Andre

[Capndirk]

No to Android Auto. It's not supported without a hardware dongle that was introduced after I bought mine.

What actually happens if the "Don't Show Again" box is ticced in the "Poweramp was Killed" notice? Does it stop on errors or just ignore the fault? I suppose that I could pay for PA and continue to solve the problem. Actually, there is a power down delay of some kind taking place during the key-to-off process. It seems to me that there is a short period after the display shuts down with the key, that the light lingers in the control switches. I'll ask on the ATOTO site how that works.

It's interesting to see how many different ways the music apps I've tried handle the head unit infrastructure. One never does find the USB, another finds it and scans it blindingly fast, but doesn't resume where left off, another sort of remembers what it was doing and starts a playlist at the beginning and repeats the same songs in the same sequence. The playlist was created by the app from selecting genre, but it was a short playlist. I should have started a spread sheet when I started my search. 😒

If I don't get any further with searching for the ideal music player, I might just circle back and buy PA, tic the don't show box and try the menu controls to bring the library back from the dead. There's another thread, here, that shows promise. The user has PA  in a head unit and solved an issue that may work. That fix is in his last post.

 

[maxmp]

@Capndirk The dialog is shown if Poweramp was killed during playback. This shouldn't happen on fully Android compatible devices, but in reality it happens due to the "battery" optimizers or some other app or device forced shutdown events. Poweramp will generally work OK, but it won't store (obviously) last playback position in the last played track.

[Angua]

I can't offer any solutions to your problems other than to say that there are numerous possibilities because of the various options within Android and Poweramp plus other apps that may be running.  Some optimisation apps may kill running apps to conserve battery power.

The only time I saw the 'Poweramp was killed' message was when I deliberatly shut down all running apps manually.

I use the Agama Launcher which works just fine ( http://altercars.ru/  or   https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=altergames.carlauncher  ).  I needed to load an app called Boot Control ( https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.microntek.bootcontrol ) because Android wants to continue were it left off when shut down and I wanted the Home Screen to always be the first thing I saw when starting again.  So Boot Control starts the launcher running but all the other apps e.g Poweramp, sat nav are still there in the background ready to go.

When I turn the ignition compltely off I have the head unit to stay in standby for 5 minutes then completely power off.  At ignition completely off (not Acc mode)  Poweramp stops playing and when I re-launch it, it has paused at where ever it was but I don't see this as a problem.... just push the play button again.

I don't have any physical buttons for playback control as everything is done through the Launcher or through Poweramp.

My music is all on an SDcard and once Poweramp was configured to play from this - no problems.  I can and have used the USB port without any problems but you have to tell Poweramp about this location as well.

 

 

[Capndirk]

Thanks, Angua, I'll have to look into that sleep mode thing. I notice it's in the drop down Android tool bar, but I haven't explored that at all.

I guess I'm to caught up in trying to find the perfect app, or alternately, pushing developers into the direction I want 🙂

What keeps me going in those directions is the apps that kind of work ok.

 

[Vertisce]

Capndirk:

I actually have the same issue with Poweramp.  I find that if I kill the Poweramp process and then start it again then it will find the songs and play them normally off my USB drive without having to go in and tell it to re-sync them all.  I feel like what is needed is a method for Poweramp to kill it's own process when the device shuts down, or for the device to kill all processes itself and then for Poweramp to be able to restart itself again on power up.  I don't know what the exact solution is here but as I use Poweramp exclusively on my Atoto head unit, this problem is unfortunately enough of an annoyance to make me look for alternatives.  That said, I know for a fact that I won't find anything as good as Poweramp is.

[andrewilley]

7 hours ago, Vertisce said:

I feel like what is needed is a method for Poweramp to kill it's own process when the device shuts down

That is what the Shutdown Intent is for. But not all devices (and especially some of the no-name Chinese Android headunits) use standard intents, hence the PA option to add to that list if you happen to know what your device is sending.

Andre

[guts311]

On 7/25/2019 at 7:53 PM, marcurelio said:

Hi all. I just bought an Android, PX5 based head unit for my car. It works fine, but the music player is nearly unusable. As many owners of these devices, I turned to Poweramp and am happy with it. Just a couple of issues are bothering me:

• When I turn the ignition off. Poweramp keeps on playing on background. When I come back and turn ignition on (on the next day, for instance), it will be two or three tracks ahead from where I left it.
• Also, on resume (turning ignition on), Poweramp will be paused for some reason
• The physical button on the unit for going to next or previous track won't work on Poweramp 3. I had to downgrade to version 2 for this to work.

I didn't find answers to this on the forum, but it's perfectly possible I was not searching right. If that's the case, I apologize. I'm trying to work around those issues using Tasker, with no success so far.

 

Thank you for your attention, any help will be gratly appreciated.

OP - I have this same issue with the latest Poweramp running on my Android 10 based iDoing tablet car head unit. My head unit is set to fully shut down when the car is off, but there seems to be some non-controllable delay before it does fully shut down (despite the screen and lights going dark), because wherever Poweramp left off playing audio, it will be a song or two ahead of that when I turn the car back on, so clearly it continues playing unknowingly for a few minutes while the tablet is in standby before it fully powers down.

I don't see any settings in Poweramp or in the HU to change this. Did you ever figure it out?