[Android General] nimraynn:
I've had a read through this thread, so apologies if any of this has been covered.

I have an "Andrive AN46-3", a pure Android headunit designed for the BMW E46 3-series. The unit I had before was an "Andrive AN46 Gen2" which was one of the older WinCE/Android combo head units. The gen2 worked fine, it was just silly slow. I purchased the gen3 as an update so that I'd have a newer version of Android, faster processor, more memory, etc etc.

When I've gone through the settings, this Andrive unit appears to be a re-branded Szsion unit. I've always been under the impression the guys at Andrive made some tweaks and changes to their units, but how true this is, I have no idea. Unfortuantely Andrive have gone into insolvency around the same time I purchased the unit, apparently their supplier (Assumed Szsion) took a huge sum of money and ran away. This sounds vaguely in-line with some of the comments about lack of support and sudden disappearance of their representatives.

The unit reports the following information in the "About Car" tab under Settings:

Model Number Full AOSP on MStar Cedric3

Android Version 4.2

Baseband version Unknown

Kernel version 3.4.5 gerrit@canplay-server) ) #3 SMP Wed Jul 30 11:06:10 CST 2014

Build number Lemon-userdebug 4.2.1 JRO03C eng..20140730.004153 test-keys

MCU version Cp_Lemon_1.13 May 21 2014

Support support@szsion.com

The rest of my setup consists of:

JBL GTO-5355 amplifier

JBL GTO-609c component front speakers

JBL GTO-629 coaxial rear speakers

JBL GT5-12 subwoofer

3x FLI FireFLI RCA cables

4AWG wiring kit for amplifier

I've only had the headunit installed a few days, so some things may be simple to resolve, but I've noticed some people mention similar issues, so maybe not so easy to resolve. These are the issues I've found so far...

Sub-out

I've got a 4-pin cable that has two cables. MIC and SUB-OUT. The only place I can see for it to fit is block C, but this is labelled CAN_TX and CAN_RX, which sounds like it's for something completely different. I've connected it anyway and noticed a few things.

Firstly, the sub seems really quiet (if it's even on at all, although I think it was receiving some signal. I've unplugged it today and do notice a difference).

Secondly, in the audio settings there is a sub level setting, but no matter what I do, this setting absolutely nothing to the volume of the sub.

Thirdly, I get terrible interference over my speakers (which are run by the same amplifier, albeit on different channels) when the sub is connected. I'll admit I think I have some issue with the amplifier as I always had some minor interference on the speakers anyway, which I still get when the sub is disconnected, however the intereferece is significantly greater when the sub RCAs are connected.

Reverse camera

I don't have a reversing camera, but every time I put the car in reverse, it changes the output to the reversing camera, thus cutting the audio. Is there a way to stop doing this? On the Gen2, it was dealt with by the WinCE side and there was a simple ON/OFF setting. I can't find such a setting on the Gen3. I can find in the General Settings a "Reverse" setting, but it only gives me options of "Normal" or "Mirrored", which suggests it's just flipping the camera image rather than giving me the option to turn it off. Am I missing something here? If there is no setting, is there a cable I could disconnect or something so that the unit isn't aware of reverse gear?

Music player

I'll admit I kinda like the music player app's layout, but it doesn't seem to work properly. It'll play my music, but I've got two issues, one is a minor one, the other is a massive one.

The minor issue is that every time I start the app from fresh, it's turned shuffle off. Not a big deal to just press the shuffle button, but why does it do that?!

The major issue is that it has no real ability to read ID3 tags. I use iTunes (latest version) on either my MacBook Pro (10.10.1) or my desktop PC (Win8.1) to copy files to a microSD card which I've placed in the left hand SD slot on the unit. They're all MP3 320KBPS files, sorted into a folder structure generally of: SDCardRoot\Music\Artist\Album\01 Track Name.mp3. The music player app is able to find all these files, but the tags are all wrong. It's getting the tags from random other files, ones that I have on there, but they rarely match the file... The track name will always be the filename, the rest is random. For example, I'll be playing for example, "I Feel You Now" by "Moog" from the album "I Feel You Now [Single]". The music player will tell me I'm playing "01 I Feel You Now" by "David Gray" from the album "Hybrid Theory". More often than not (but not always), the artist and album match each other, so it might say "Linkin Park" and "Hybrid Theory" which match each other, but they'll still be miles off the actual track. Any other device I've used has no problems reading the tags, although admittedly I've not yet tried another media player.

In the event I try another media player and it works fine (which I expect to be highly likely), is it possible to change the "Music" button on the home screen so point to the new app?

Bluetooth

I have an HTC One M8 phone which I want to pair to the unit for hands-free. I don't care about anything else like media streaming or file sharing, purely hands-free phone calls. This worked fine on the Gen2 (where again, the Bluetooth side was handled by the WinCE interface), however it keeps connecting/disconnecting constantly on the Gen3. I open up the Bluetooth app and it pops up saying "No device connected" with a name and passcode to connect to. I open up the bluetooth settings on my phone and can see the unit. Tap it, enter the passcode and it connects. The phone says its connected, but the unit still says no device connected. After a few seconds, the bluetooth icon appears on the toolbar and the app says its connected and lets me use it, but within 5-10 seconds, it disconnects again. It'll automatically reconnect another 5-10 seconds, then disconnect and run round in that loop until I get annoyed and turn off bluetooth on my phone. Each time it disconnects, it very briefly cuts the audio. Only for something like half a second, but enough to get irritating.

Torque & OBD2

I've installed TorquePro from the App Store and hooked up a USB ELM327 cable to one of the rear USB ports on the unit. When I open Torque, it can't find the USB adapter at all. By default it was looking over Bluetooth for the adapter so I changed the settings to point to USB but it can't find the OBD adapter. Admittedly I've not looked through many settings yet nor tried another app yet.

TorqueLite works fine on my phone when paired to a bluetooth adapter, so Torque can definitely talk to the E46 without any issues. I don't want to leave a bluetooth adapter permanently connected to the car as for whatever reason, mine is still active without the ignition on so thinking from a security point of view, I don't want to allow any wireless access when I'm not in the car.

I think so far those are the only issues I've come across. My car doesn't have steering wheel controls (yet) so I can't comment on whether they work. I've got a new steering wheel with controls on order to be fitted though so I will give this a go when I have the time.

Are any of these known issues or things that are easy to resolve? I notice some people have newer firmware versions. Is this something available to update and install, and if so, what are the risks involved in doing this?

Thanks,

Mike