Adamya Sharma / Android Authority
TL;DR
- Update: Android Auto’s phone reboot issue when connecting wirelessly can be fixed by turning off freeform mode and desktop mode in Developer Settings.
Update, February 24, 2025 (06:50 AM ET): We have misidentified the solution. Even on the older version of the app, users can try turning off freeform mode and desktop mode options in Developer Settings on their devices to fix the soft reboot. Disabling these options will likely fix Android Auto-related reboots on your phone. You don’t need a newer version of Android Auto, but there’s nothing wrong with being on the latest release, too. The original article remains available below.
Original article, February 24, 2025 (04:01 AM ET): Android Auto is a great way to leverage your Android flagship phone to provide the smarts needed for in-car navigation and music. However, the caveat is that it needs to work, and Android Auto can have problems that pop up occasionally. Users recently faced an issue where their phones would reboot when attempting to connect to their car systems using Android Auto wirelessly. Thankfully, this issue now seems to be fixed.
With Android Auto versions 13.4 and 13.5, phones rebooted as soon as Android Auto connected to the car’s head unit. As per our testing, this is fixed with the release of Android Auto version 13.8.650804, as our phones can connect reliably and maintain their wireless connection with the car’s head unit without rebooting or failing in any other manner. This lets us use Android Auto normally without any issues.
This fixed version of Android Auto should eventually roll out to all users. You can ensure that your apps are set to auto-update through the Google Play Store by following these steps:
- Open the Play Store.
- Tap your Profile Picture.
- Navigate to Settings > Network Preferences > Auto-update apps.
- Select one of the update options.
Alternatively, you can set only Android Auto to update automatically by following these steps:
- Open the Play Store.
- Tap your Profile Picture.
- Navigate to Manage apps & device > Manage > Android Auto.
- Tap the three-dot more button.
- Turn on Enable auto-update.
If you can’t wait for the update to roll out to your device, you can also sideload Android Auto version 13.8.650804 from APKMirror. Try out the new update and let us know in the comments if it fixes the issues for you!
