Turning camera off and on breaks the connection with the app

[anotherlab]

Issue App does not always recognize the camera as connected

Steps to reproduce

1. If I pair my A6400 to the app, the controls in the app work as expected.
2. If I turn the camera off and on again, the app reports the camera as offline.
   1. Camera reports Bluetooth Function as on, Bluetooth Rmt Ctrl as on
   2. Camera shows up as a paired device on the phone.
   3. Restarting the app does not resolve the problem
3. The only way to establish a connection is to remove the camera from app and add it back again.
4. When "enough" time has passed, the app will pick up when the camera is restarted.
   1. The amount of time is unknown, at least a few minutes
   2. If you restart the camera again, the app does not see it.

Alpha Remote Version 0.16

Camera Sony A6400 (ILCE 6400), Ver 2.00

Lens Sigma 56mm F1.4 DC

Phone Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra

Android Version 14

[Staacks]

I just found a comment on Reddit from another Samsung user with similar symptoms. He reports that updating to oneUI 6.1 fixed it for him. Can you tell me which version you currently have?

I am not sure if it is really because of oneUI. In fact, I suspect that the update included a common component or triggered something else, but at least it might be a starting point...

[anotherlab]

My phone is running One UI 6.1

[Staacks]

This sounds very similar to what has just been reported in #1 : https://github.com/Staacks/alpharemote/issues/1#issuecomment-2474101746

So, I will repost what came to my mind:

I had something similar once when I tested the app on an Android 12 device. In that case I had my regular phone in my pocket and I learned the hard way that the camera actually remembers multiple paired devices. When I paired it with the Android 12 device, the camera was in pairing mode and therefore advertising, so I could pair and subsequently connect. But when I turned it off and on again, it simply connected to the phone in my pocket so fast that the Android 12 device did not even notice that the camera was there. (I will not mention how long it took me to realize that.)

So: Do you have another phone nearby to which the camera has already been paired (for my app or maybe for geotagging) or do you own the original Bluetooth remote that might be taking the connection immediately?

[anotherlab]

I don't own the original Bluetooth remote, and the only device my camera is paired to is my phone.

When I go to Bluetooth Settings and then Pairing, the only paired device listed is my phone. The camera does report that it is paired to my phone, even when the app is reporting my camera as bing offlne.

I have used the Imaging Edge app for geotagging. Could there be a conflict with having two apps trying to connect to the camera? I was not running the Imaging Edge app when I tried to use your app.

Confirmed the same behavior with version 0.17. Works the first time, the app fails to reconnect after turning the camera off and on again

[Staacks]

I think the camera always shows the name of the device it has been connected with last. At least I am not aware of any way to get a list of paired devices from it. But if there is no other device nearby, that theory is not going anywhere.

I also just tested what Imaging Edge would do to the Bluetooth connection and... oh boy... That app just keeps a foreground service open to actively scan for Bluetooth devices and now I remember why I never used it. But it only connects if "Location info. Link" is enabled, which cannot be enabled while "Bluetooth Remote Control" is enabled (I also have an a6400). So, I don't think that Imaging Endge would interfere and even if it did, you would notice its notification.

If you don't mind, I would like to check if the camera is sending advertisement packets and what they look like. If you have not yet dealt with Bluetooth before, I recommend installing the app "nRF connect" by Nordic Semiconductor for that. Open its "Scanner" tab, turn on the camera and see if it appears in the list. It should show up with a "connect" button next to it - if instead it immediately jumps to a tab where it is already connected to the camera, some app might be stealing it after all, but I would not expect that at this point. If you press the name of the camera on the Scanner tab, the entry will expand and show the information from the advertisement packet. If you tap "raw" below the data, you get an option to copy the raw data. That's what I would like to see.

[Staacks]

Just a quick update and some references to related reports to keep an overview:

At this point I have tested a Pixel 6 with Android 15, a Motorola phone (not sure about the Android version now), a Pixel 3 with Android 12 and a Samsung with Android 12 - all with my α6400. I have reports of a working Pixel 9 Pro, but also a report of this problem on a Pixel 7a. Similarly, I have no problem with my α6400 and reports of a working α7 III, while @anotherlab reports the issue for his α6400 (same firmware) and I have a report of this issue on an α7 III on Reddit.

For reference, here are reports from other issues that seem to be the same:

• α7 IV by @leoschweizer (Zenfone 9 with Android 14)
• α6600 with Pixel 8 Pro with Android 14 by @codyps (Android version added from another comment, but I hope this also applies here)
• [α7 III with Pixel 7a running Android 15] (https://www.reddit.com/r/SonyAlpha/comments/1gmmdga/comment/ly571my/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button) (the one from Reddit) (Turns out to be something differen.)

I am a bit of a loss here. Could be an Android 14 thing (at least two reports on Android 14 and two I do not know yet). I will try to get my hands on more phones for testing... Edit: Nope, the one on Reddit is running Android 15. Another edit: Turns out that the Reddit case was a disabled Bluetooth remote option, so the Android 14 hypothesis might be valid after all with now 3 out of 3 cases on Android 14.

[Staacks]

Just thought of something: Maybe the request to associate the app with that particular device fails for some reason. So, detecting the camera does not fail, but the system never takes on the "duty" to look for the device.

@leoschweizer: You already provided a log that is almost what I am looking for. Your log starts right after the association process, when the system starts the app for the first time (the only time when it did not have to look for the camera as it is already talking to it). If you find the time, would you mind recording a log of the moment before that? I mean from when you hit "Add camera" until the remote control buttons show up in the notification area?

[leoschweizer]

@Staacks I'm using a Zenfone 9 with Android 14. I just created a Logcat export (unfiltered) for the entire process of pairing to a power cycle (which then doesn't work). However I don't want to upload that publicly as it's hard to overview what it contains... Can you please provide the exact filters that all relevant logs would be included for me to paste here?

[Staacks]

Understandable and much appreciated.

The problem is, that I am not entirely sure what I am looking for, so I would like to capture anything related to the app (alpharemote), related to Bluetooth (like the tags "BluetoothAdapter", "CachedBluetoothDevice", "bluetooth", ...), related to nearby device discovery (i.e. "NearbyDiscovery", "NearbyFastPair", "Nearby", ...) and related to the companion device manager (i.e. "CDM_BleDeviceProcessor", "CDM_CompanionAppBinder"...). Unfortunately, there is still some Bluetooth stuff that does not use Bluetooth in its name, but most of it refers to the GATT ("gatt_api", "bt_bta_gattc", "bta_gattc_main", ...), so that is also a good filter candidate.

So, I think that filtering the tags not case-sensitive for alpharemote, bluetooth, gatt, nearby and cdm_ should catch most relevant lines while minimizing the risk of accidentally matching something else. Filtering the tags should be enough, but if you could include lines that have "alpharemote" in the log text too, that might also catch other packages that talk "about" the app. However, I understand if you leave that out as that would be more complicated depending on how you filter.

[Staacks]

A little update from the case on Reddit: It turns out that the separate Bluetooth remote control option was disabled. It is still weird that the camera would not connect at all in this case, but then it seems to be a different issue after all.

Also, this brings back my quest to find an Android 14 phone...