Android Auto seems like an after-thought for Google at times. Several times they have updated Google Assistant resulting in breaking some Android Auto functionality. They have now done it again with a recent update preventing Google Assistant from playing any music for the user.
In a recent update to Google Assistant (suspected at this stage anyway) the functionality of Google Assistant in the car (Android Auto) has been effectively broken. Before you could ask your Google Assistant to play a certain song on Google Play Music and it would without any issues.
Now, since the update, asking Google to play music results in a negative result with Assistant expressing itself in various ways. Assistant tells the user, amongst other results, that they don’t understand, they cannot help with that yet, or that they cannot display search results in the car.
The issue was first reported on Reddit where there was quickly a lot of me too’s. Personally I had noticed it not working but thought maybe it was just the myriad of phones I have been testing lately.
OK Google, Play Psychosocial by Slipknot on Google Play Music
Sorry, I can’t display search results in the car
Sorry I don’t understand
Sorry I don’t know how to help with that
The issue has since appeared on Google Forums on the Android Auto User Community where once again many other users have piped up saying they had the same issue. It seems to occur on all headunits, aftermarket and stock and on all types of phones. One user has said that to fix it the workaround was to disable Google Assistant on their phone — which led to my conclusion that it was Google Assistant causing the issue.
Some people have said that Evil Woman (the song) works for them but I was unable to get it to work for me. Some have reported the issue occurs with Spotify as well as Google Play Music so it seems Google really have broken Assistant for Android Auto — a pity after they made a big deal of it earlier this year. I have also noticed issues trying to get Assistant to send messages via text or Telegram but that has not been widely reported as of yet.
Google are aware of the issue so we expect (and hope) them to release a fix very soon. Has this affected you? What issues have you run into?
