Car Mount and Aux Stereo Port

[WorldOfJohnboy]

I have posted this in a different section/thread, but for those of you that like to use your phone by hooking it into the Aux port of your car stereo, you will notice during a phone call that you can hear the other person but they can't hear you. I decided to call HTC Support about it to see what they said, as my Droid X worked perfectly fine when putting it in the dock and hooking it in to my stereo's Aux port via 3.5mm stereo cable. Here's what happened:

OK folks, I just found out some more information on this.

I called HTC Support (866-449-8358). The first time I called, I told them of the issue with the Car Dock audio, and they transferred me to about 5 different places, no one could help me. :icon_evil:

I hung up frustrated, but decided to call back and word my issue differently. When the HTC CSR answered, I told him "I have the TBolt and plug it into my Car Stereo using a 3.5mm stereo cable. During a phone call, I can hear the person on the other end, but they cannot hear me." (I didn't mention the Car dock, because that's what spurned them to transfer me to 18 different departments, lol)

He said "I don't think the phone was designed to work like that, but let me put you on hold and find out more info." After her picked my call back up (only about 30 seconds), he said:

My manager tells me that the phone's software was designed so that when something is plugged into the jack on the top of the Thunderbolt, it mutes the microphones that are on the phone itself and expects to utilize a wired microphone through the headset jack. He also said that they we have been getting a ton of calls about this issue, and so they may release a 'hotfix' that would resolve the issue, but we aren't certain if that will actually happen.

I thanked him and hung up.

Basically:
CALL HTC AND COMPLAIN!! Let's get them to hotfix the issue!

So, instead of sitting and waiting for them to hopefully hotfix the issue, I am going to try a workaround for the problem. I purchased a 3.5mm Extension Cable w/Mic to see if it will work for the Thunderbolt.

As soon as I get the cable and test it, I will post my results here. Not ideal, but still hoping it works!

 

[FlyFishinX2]

i just bought the car dock for $23 with my discount. All i can say is that google navigation blows my magellan away.

 

[roosterbrews]

Used the Nav alot yesterday looking for houses and it was on for all the houses but if you have it charging while the music is playing it puts an unbarable hiss through the speakers. My D1 did it also so no big suprise but I was hoping for a fix because I don't want to plug and unplug the car mount every day.

 

[techguru]

Used the Nav alot yesterday looking for houses and it was on for all the houses but if you have it charging while the music is playing it puts an unbarable hiss through the speakers. My D1 did it also so no big suprise but I was hoping for a fix because I don't want to plug and unplug the car mount every day.

You can try a magnetic choke on the audio and/or power cable. They are only a few dollars at Radio Shack. More likely you need an RF isolator that goes on the power source to the stereo and is a little more expensive. I needed one for my D1. I have since switched to BT audio so can't test the TB, but with active noise cancelling headphones that were unusable on my D1, DX, and Incredible while charging I get no noise on the TB, so I suspect a choke may be all you need.

Alan

 

[Errant33]

I am a developer for a company and I spoke to HTC two days ago about this issue. However I didn’t speak to a CSR i spoke to their development team, this is not intended function UNLESS it shows a microphone when you plug it in on the headphone jack.

I can Also confirm this is a software related bug not the phone itself, you can verify this by using voice search with aux cable plugged in. Their dialer is muting it nothing else. The hotfix is on the slate to be fixed and in fact the development team has NO CLUE there are so many complaints being i called them directly they said this is the first they heard of this issue.

Until this issue is fixed, the phone is completely unusable to me and I told them that, they assured me it would be fixed soon and to check back in daily on the support site.

PLEASE PLEASE CALL IN GUYS and say ONLY when you make/receive a phone call does it do this to you. They will be able to replicate it on the test unit they have and if they tell you it is intended use tell them no, it is not that is only intended use if a inline mic is in place and is showing you the headphone set with the mic in the notification bar.

 

[WorldOfJohnboy]

I am a developer for a company and I spoke to HTC two days ago about this issue. However I didn’t speak to a CSR i spoke to their development team, this is not intended function UNLESS it shows a microphone when you plug it in on the headphone jack.

I can Also confirm this is a software related bug not the phone itself, you can verify this by using voice search with aux cable plugged in. Their dialer is muting it nothing else. The hotfix is on the slate to be fixed and in fact the development team has NO CLUE there are so many complaints being i called them directly they said this is the first they heard of this issue.

Until this issue is fixed, the phone is completely unusable to me and I told them that, they assured me it would be fixed soon and to check back in daily on the support site.

PLEASE PLEASE CALL IN GUYS and say ONLY when you make/receive a phone call does it do this to you. They will be able to replicate it on the test unit they have and if they tell you it is intended use tell them no, it is not that is only intended use if a inline mic is in place and is showing you the headphone set with the mic in the notification bar.

Interesting... my testing didn't involve non-phone calls. I did order an in-line Mic 3.5mm extension cable so that until they send out the hotfix, I can hopefully not alter my setup too much or have to use speakerphone.

Used the Nav alot yesterday looking for houses and it was on for all the houses but if you have it charging while the music is playing it puts an unbarable hiss through the speakers. My D1 did it also so no big suprise but I was hoping for a fix because I don't want to plug and unplug the car mount every day.

This is what you need: Ground Loop Isolator[/QUOTE] (You can check with Radio Shack or Best Buy to see if they have them on hand so you don't have to mail order as well.)

I purchased and installed one and hid it behind my car stereo and I get no hissing.

The way to tell 100% if that is the cause of the hiss is to unplug the Car Charger from both the Dock and the cig lighter/power. If your phone no longer hisses (or hisses much quieter), then that's your issue.

 

[Errant33]

Interesting... my testing didn't involve non-phone calls. I did order an in-line Mic 3.5mm extension cable so that until they send out the hotfix, I can hopefully not alter my setup too much or have to use speakerphone.

It depends on your headphones. I had no issues using voice search etc from the mic with stereo headphones and a aux cable only when I made a call did it mute the phones mic.

 

[WorldOfJohnboy]

Interesting... my testing didn't involve non-phone calls. I did order an in-line Mic 3.5mm extension cable so that until they send out the hotfix, I can hopefully not alter my setup too much or have to use speakerphone.

It depends on your headphones. I had no issues using voice search etc from the mic with stereo headphones and a aux cable only when I made a call did it mute the phones mic.

This is what I bought (only $2): Mic Extension Cable I plan on plugging in my AUX cable to this and hopefully this mic will pick up my voice well for the time being. If not, I can at least use my Skull Candy headphones as a wired "headset."

 

[Errant33]

This is what I bought (only $2): Mic Extension Cable I plan on plugging in my AUX cable to this and hopefully this mic will pick up my voice well for the time being. If not, I can at least use my Skull Candy headphones as a wired "headset."

I returned my phone since I paid upwards of 300 for it. I actually reordered it today from my company for 150 as my work phone to try and program it myself to not mute the mic. It comes in tomorrow again. Till this issue is fixed it is unusable as a personal phone for me tho so I will be sticking with my droid X till they do. Buying a adapter even if its 2$ was unacceptable to me when buying a phone that retails for over 600 with no contract.

I will stay in the loop on this thread and report if I get it working this week before HTC can fix it! I am fairly sure with a custom kernel we should be able to fix this issue ourselves.

 

[WorldOfJohnboy]

I returned my phone since I paid upwards of 300 for it. I actually reordered it today from my company for 150 as my work phone to try and program it myself to not mute the mic. It comes in tomorrow again. Till this issue is fixed it is unusable as a personal phone for me tho so I will be sticking with my droid X till they do. Buying a adapter even if its 2$ was unacceptable to me when buying a phone that retails for over 600 with no contract.

I will stay in the loop on this thread and report if I get it working this week before HTC can fix it! I am fairly sure with a custom kernel we should be able to fix this issue ourselves.

I understand, I only bought it so that I can hopefully get this working without having to jump through hoops until HTC or a Dev puts out a fix for it. When I talked to HTC, they said they they were aware of the issue, had gotten a lot of complaints about this problem, and that they MAY do a hotfix. I also plan on writing an email and a snail-mail letter to HTC just to get my point across to the powers that be.

My $2 solution will just hold me over until someone can fix it!

 

[sidsixseven]

Is this something you could fix with Tasker? Basically set the Microphone to on when headset is plugged in?

 

[WorldOfJohnboy]

Is this something you could fix with Tasker? Basically set the Microphone to on when headset is plugged in?

I "purchased" tasker, created a task to unmute the mic when phone placed in car dock and tested, it was still a no-go. Just to be sure, I played around with the tasker settings and no matter what, I could not get the working.

I wish I knew more about ROMs and being a Dev... I already rooted my phone and would love to try and fix this issue with my own custom ROM, but I don't have enough time at this point to learn ROMming.

 

[WorldOfJohnboy]

Well, my extension cable with Microphone arrived today (didn't know that it was from Hong Kong)!

I called my wife from my phone while it was in the Car Dock and she could hear me perfectly! Also, I noticed that the button on the mic cable will play/pause music when I press it! Now I just have to figure out a way to route the cables so that it remains a "clean" look and I am good to go until (hopefully) a hotfix is released.

 

[soundwave1026]

Thanks for the heads up. I just placed an order from Deal Extreme.

Sent from my HTC Thunderbolt using Tapatalk

 

[WorldOfJohnboy]

I am pretty sure that with the new OTA Radio that was recently released, it fixed the whole muting of the Mic while you have your phone plugged into your car stereo. I just tested my phone and it worked great!

Worst case scenario, I was told there is a workaround to this as well. If yours still is muting the Mics on a phone call, go to Settings>Call>TTY mode. Change this to "TTY VCO." This should unmute the mics when on a phone call with something plugged into the headphone jack.