[Updated] Google working to fix Android Auto's message reading issue

And the story continues… Earlier this week, Google acknowledged Android Auto’s voice commands glitch (that we were the first to highlight), and this morning they have confirmed another broken feature – the service is not reading text messages anymore.

What’s good is, both Android Auto and Google Assistant teams are working together to address the problem. Google employee Don (from Android Auto team) revealed this on two of the relevant threads discussing the problem.

Here’s what they said:

The Google Assistant team is aware of this issue. Both the Android Auto and Google Assistant teams are working together on this issue.

As far as we can see from the complaints on the company’s official help forum, the issue showed up somewhere in the beginning of this year.

Basically, despite notifying for a new text message, Android Auto fails to read it. While some report it throws an error stating ‘there are no new messages that I can read’, other say in spite of launching, Assistant does nothing.

One of the complainants said:

I downloaded android auto and I’m trying to read text messages from the app but to no avail it says every time someone texts me that ” there are no new messages that I can read”

Here’s how another user explained the glitch:

It used to work just fine, until about 2 or 3 weeks ago. Now, I get the notification for a new text, but it won’t play. When I ask it to play the message, I get the four dots dancing and nothing else. Just just dance indefinitely, horizontally, until I press something else to stop it. It sends texts fine and, as far as I can tell, everything else works.

While Google is already working on the matter, it’s worth mentioning that at least one of the affected users recently called the issue fixed for them with Google App’s latest beta release (v7.23.16), that was pushed out today. However, the company is yet to confirm any such development.

In case you are also using the above mentioned beta version of Google app, let us know if the issue is fixed for you.

Update (March 13):

Going by latest user reports, Google App v7.23.16 appear sto has fixed the issue.

Google App v7.23.16 just released finally fixed the messages reading bug. Thank you for bringing the bug to the developers’ attention.

Update (March 17):

Turns out, the app’s version 7.23 that fixes the issue is still in beta, as confirmed by one of the Android Auto team’s member. The public release will be coming, but not known when.

Our users were able to fix this issue by being apart of the beta program with beta version 7.23. You can read the thread here. That version will be available to the public eventually, but we currently do not have a release date yet. Please visit our beta program site here.

Update (July 18):

Looks like, the problem is back once again. But, what’s appeasing is that the concerned team is looking into it.

This issue has been forwarded to the rest of the team. We’ll update this thread when we have more information to share.

Update (January 11 2019):

It’s been about half a year since the issue showed up again following which an expert updated that the concerned team has been made aware of it. But sadly, no new development has come to sight since then, and users continue complaining.

We aren’t sure why is it taking so long to fix whatever is causing this glitch. Are you still facing the problem discussed here? Drop a comment and let us know.

Update (April 05):

Here are some more recent reports from the User reviews section of the apps Play Store listings.

NOTE: Head here for more Android Auto-related news.

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