Google Navigator stops after 5 or 6 directions

I am using a Galaxy S4 paired with my 2014 F-150 SYNC system (not the MyTouch). I set up the Sound About per directions I found in these forums:

Navigation (Text To Speech) audio to various outputs (Bluetooth mono in car)
by SoundAbout on Sat Sep 07, 2013 10:57 pm

.1 - Open SoundAbout
2 - Click on "Text-To-Speech behavior..."
3 - Set "Audio output..." to what you want. (example: Bluetooth (mono))
4 - Google Navigation will request ALL of the directions at the beginning of the trip. This won't work as we need to switch the audio dynamically when the direction is needed.
To help this, I set "Max utterance per request ..." to 1 or 2.
5 - If using Bluetooth mono, you may need to set "Delay utterance (secs)" to 1.5 or 2. This will allow time for the audio to switch to Bluetooth mono, which is slow to switch over. If you don't, you may miss some of the directions.
6 - Click on the "Android TTS settings..."
7 - You will see some TTS engine choices. Choose "SoundAbout TTS".
8 - Click on "Listen to example" to see if audio comes out of the desired output..

My problem is that the Google Navigation stops coming through the truck speakers and starts coming through the phone speakers after about 5 or 6 "turns" or "directions".

Any idea why or how to fix that?

Thanks, Jon Abel

When this happens (and you can pull over or have a passenger), try the following.

Go into phone settings, then manage apps. Various phones/ROMS are different, but try to swipe and get to "Running apps". What do you see for SoundAbout? Are there any items with "0 process and x service"?

I tried closing the running apps, no effect. No items with 0 processes and services.

Jon Abel

OK, I was wondering if something killed the SoundAbout process. That would mean it could no longer accept broadcast intents for Text To Speech. I've also had problems where Google Nav won't connect to the Text To Speech engine the first time and a few other issues.

So what can I do to get it working correctly?

I have what seems to be a similar issue on my S3.

SoundAbout is configured to route navigation instructions through the phone speaker when the phone is docked in my car. After setting off I hear the first few directions as expected - complete with the 'chime' sound as I've followed the instructions to fix the 'double voice' problem - but it then falls silent. Navigation is still functioning - I can see the screen updating, I get the text directions coming up and Navigation re-routes if I deviate from the intended course - but the voice and 'chime' remain off for the remainder of the trip.

I haven't yet checked to see if it's simply being sent to the car's speakers, as I usually have the radio on, but I will investigate this the next time I head out.

I the phone is in a dock and you don't use SoundAbout, what audio output do the directions end up playing from?

I shall try that out and get back to you :-)

Ok, first results: with SoundAbout disabled and the phone docked, all navigation instructions are routed through the car's speakers, and there were no problems - directions continued until I stopped. Exactly the same with the phone undocked, except that of course the directions now came from the phone's speaker.

Tomorrow I'll re-enable SoundAbout and see what happens.

When you re-enable SoundAbout and try it, look in the status bar for the SoundAbout notification. What does that notification say when you drag it down?

Today's test: SoundAbout enabled and set to route through the phone's speaker, using the Samsung TTS engine.

The first five or six instructions came out the speaker as normal, accompanied by the 'chime' sound. After that, the 'chime' was routed out to the dock, but the spoken instructions simply stopped. As before, Navigation continued to function and the chimes occurred when you would expect them to as I drove, but that was it.

I couldn't see any notifications from SA on the status-bar. Navigation instructions appeared on the status panel when I dragged it down, but that was all.

Where does this 'chime' come from, exactly? I wasn't getting it yesterday with SA disabled.

Today: SoundAbout enabled, phone undocked. Instructions and chimes played through the phone's speaker without any problems all the way home.

So it's looking as if the problem only occurs when the phone is docked.

That said, I have one more test to do - I realised when I got home tonight that I'd simply run Maps on its own. When the phone is docked, however, Maps is started by CarHomeUltra. Tomorrow I'll try running CHU and Maps without docking the phone, and see if that makes any difference.

Ok, with CHU enabled there's no change - if the phone is docked, the spoken instructions stop after the first half-dozen or so; if the phone is undocked they continue all the way to the end of the journey.

So: the problem occurs only when the phone is docked and SoundAbout is the TTS engine.

This is on a Galaxy S3 running 4.3 (I9300XXUGNA8, Kernel 3.0.31-2429075) of Android, 8.2.0 of Maps and 2.5.8.0 of SoundAbout.

Any thoughts?

I am currently ripping the app code apart to make fixing these issue easier.

Thanks for the update :-)