Pandora issues with iPhone 5s

BobF13

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2014 Mazda CX-5 Touring (Meteor Gray)
I've had my CX-5 since March, and am aware of all of the issues with the entertainment system. Until the last week or so, I had not tried the built in Pandora functionality as I made the switch to Spotify a good while ago and have been streaming it via BT just fine. One of the things that caused me to abandon Pandora was its music selection algorithm, it didn't seem to do a good job of matching my music tastes. And my experience was that if I was playing a particular artist station, that artist would get played maybe once every 10 songs. But I recently decided to give Pandora a try in the car, and I have been pleasantly suprised, it seems to do a much better job selecting songs now. And I like having the thumbs up/thumbs down on the head unit so that I can tweak the selections on the fly. My complaint is that it often takes multiple tries for the head unit to connect to Pandora, I repeatedly get the "could not connect..." message and have to select the "reconnect" prompt. And sometimes when it does connect, there is no song info listed and the thumbs up/thumbs down and skip track buttons don't work. Usually, if I switch to BT and then back to Pandora it recovers and operates correctly. I'm using an iPhone 5S with iOS 7.1.2. Anyone have a solution for this?
 
My complaint is that it often takes multiple tries for the head unit to connect to Pandora, I repeatedly get the "could not connect..." message and have to select the "reconnect" prompt. And sometimes when it does connect, there is no song info listed and the thumbs up/thumbs down and skip track buttons don't work. Usually, if I switch to BT and then back to Pandora it recovers and operates correctly. I'm using an iPhone 5S with iOS 7.1.2. Anyone have a solution for this?

I've seen this a few times now. One time I had to turn car off and then back on to get Pandora to recover.
 
Same problem here. Saturday it went completely brain dead so I ended up listening to a cd. Today it's running from Bluetooth. It's interesting that playing pandora via Bluetooth starts much faster than trying to play it from the pandora tab. Of course I don't get the stations button, thumbs down, etc. as I think about it, I should have tried my wife's blaze, as she was with me then. I'm not so sure it's a phone issue, but maybe.
 
I'll need to try this for another week but I notice I don't plug in the USB connection it seems fairly consistent in always connecting with Pandora. Yes, there is the negotiation delay.

Huhwha: Were you plugged in with USB connector as well or just using stand-alone BT with no other connections?
 
My iPod is plugged in the USB connector. I'll unplug it, since it's virtually useless anyway and see what happens
 
One thing I've noticed with Pandora is that while it may prompt for reconnect or claim it can't connect, if you just leave it be it gets around to it. In the past I've responded to the reconnect prompt, and that just seems to send it into some kind of death spiral. Whereas if I ignore all its bellyaching, I generally get to a working Pandora screen with a minute or so, if not quicker.

Seriously, since I quite trying to fix anything I've had 100% success. You can watch it work its way through three or four screens, starting with the usual "Can't do s*** while I yet again get phone data", followed by "do you want to reconnect", then a blank generic Pandora screen with no song info, and then that gets filled in by wherever I left off listening last and off we go. All within 30-60 seconds.

But man, if I try to get it to move along by pressing anything in there, you can just forget it. I have to turn off Bluetooth on my phone (also an iPhone 5s, BTW) and then turn it back on and let it discover the car, or turn off the car, or turn off the car and the phone then throw the phone out the window and drive away till the phone forgets what's going on then buy a new phone and crash my car then frame the old phone for murder. That usually fixes it.
 
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Not many data points, but I went through 6 times after unplugging the iPod with everything working fine. Then one trip out yesterday I got the reconnect message. I responded to it and it hooked up ok. I need more data points to see if this really makes a difference.
 
Went into brain dead mode again on the way home. Nothing from pandora or Bluetooth. Plugged the iPod back in and it just came back with the generic iPod error. Stopped and got gas and when I fired back up, I was eventually able to get pandora back to life, although I had to start it on my phone.
 
Having strange issues with Pandora working in my 2016 CX-5 GT. Pandora keeps disconnecting at random times, sometimes will not connect at all when starting car. Funny thing is AHa and sketcher work perfectly. (All using BT). iPhone 6s with latest iOS. Any ideas ?
 
I have been having similar issues since I picked up the car, now 11 months ago! iPhone 6, latest iOS. Latest infotainment update on car.

I believe this is more than one problem.

1st issue: The Mazda goes through it's boot up process, but the Pandora app gets hung up and will not boot. Switching to BT, Pandora music streams, then switching back to the Pandora app, it boots up. This, I think, is a Mazda problem and not the phone as the Pandora music will stream thru BT.

2nd (and more recent): Pandora will stream via the app, but then the Mazda screen says 'lost connection". At first I thought that it was only because of low cell signal, but I do not believe that is the reason. Then, at home via wifi, the Pandora app on the iPhone would give a moving bar with the message 'buffering'. Emailed Pandora and they got back to me ASAP with several suggestions and deleting the app from the phone and reinstalling it seems to have solved that. Now, did that fix the 'lost connection' problem in the car? Well, yes and no! It went from a major problem to a much less frequent, though still present problem. If I pull over and look at the phone, it shows the Pandora connect screen and not the Pandora app, so I can not tell if the app is having buffering problems. It gets a little more complicated now:} If I switch to BT it does not solve the problem, but when I switch back to the Pandora app I 'may' get the ability to switch my Pandora station to another. (Rather than skipping over that button). That usually solves the problem. I have a feeling that that issue is related to the Pandora app on the phone and not the software in the car, but am not sure.

So no real solutions, but more data!

Now I have to pay more attention to the road and not mess so much with this!!
 
Thanks. But what is still confusing is that Aha and Sketcher work perfectly with Bluetooth, never a lost connection
 
If Aha and Sketcher work perfectly, then that would suggest it is a problem with the Pandora app on the phone and/or the Pandora app in the Mazda.
I think I will attempt to send this thread to the Pandora people and see if they can, if not solve it, narrow it down.

It would be important data to know if Android phones have similar issues.
 

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