MG4 Android Auto

[ftpjtm]

I recently purchased an MG4. 

 

My first issue with my Android phone was that I couldn't download the MG Thailand app because it was not available in my region, per Play Store.

 

Now some background. My phone is a Samsung S22 Ultra purchased in Thailand. It's dual SIM, 1st being AIS and always active, 2nd a US provider only activated occasionally. But my primary GMail account is apparently US based, which causes Play Store region to be set to USA. I attempted to change the region to Thailand, in spite of the warning that region can only be changed once every 12 months, but got the message "something went wrong" when attempting the change. At this point I gave up and brought the phone to a repair shop who worked some magic and installed the MG Thailand app on my phone, and it appears to work normally. 

 

But Android Auto doesn't work well. It typically displays properly for about 30 seconds, but then the screen reverts back to the home screen. After this if I press the Android Auto icon it says "plug phone in USB port first".

 

So I figured it's a bad cable. But tried 5, including a brand new cable purchased from Samsung. I tried a friend's phone and it worked okay, so I thought my cable connecter on the phone must be bad and had a new one installed to no avail. 

 

My wife has a Samsung S23 Ultra also purchased in Thailand with AIS as the primary service, but also a US GMail account and similar situation RE Play Store region. Her phone works the same as mine on the MG4; works for a few seconds or minutes and then fails.

 

Meanwhile any phone we borrow from a Thai friend works fine. And both my wife's phone and my own work fine with Android Auto when we are in the US using cars purchased in America. 

 

I've spent hours at phone stores and the MG dealership trying to figure out what the problem is. It seems likely it's something related to Android considering our phones to be US based but I suppose it could be something else. 

 

Has anyone else had similar problems? I believe the MG Thailand app is used on other MG vehicles, has anyone had similar problems? 

[treetops]

Create a new Gmail account with location Thailand, log in to it and try it out.  Nothing to lose as you can always log back in to your current one.  You could also re-install the app with a known good version from the Play Store as you will no longer be geo-blocked.

[ftpjtm]

37 minutes ago, treetops said:

Create a new Gmail account with location Thailand, log in to it and try it out.  Nothing to lose as you can always log back in to your current one.  You could also re-install the app with a known good version from the Play Store as you will no longer be geo-blocked.

 

I did what you suggest, but even after logging in to that account, if I go to Play Store, Settings, General, Account Country it's listed as USA. I try to change to Thailand, attempt to link to my Thai debit card for payments, and the change fails. 

 

I'm not even sure that the Play Store country is the problem, it's just the one difference between my phone and the ones that work reliably.

[Woof999]

4 hours ago, ftpjtm said:

 

I did what you suggest, but even after logging in to that account, if I go to Play Store, Settings, General, Account Country it's listed as USA. I try to change to Thailand, attempt to link to my Thai debit card for payments, and the change fails. 

 

I'm not even sure that the Play Store country is the problem, it's just the one difference between my phone and the ones that work reliably.

 

I believe that the country is linked to your payment method. Are you using a US credit card?

[ftpjtm]

35 minutes ago, Woof999 said:

 

I believe that the country is linked to your payment method. Are you using a US credit card?

 

When attempting to switch location to Thailand I select the option to link to a debit card, but get the message "something went wrong" before I'm able to enter details of my Krung Thai bank debit card 

[Jeffrey346]

14 hours ago, ftpjtm said:

I recently purchased an MG4. 

 

My first issue with my Android phone was that I couldn't download the MG Thailand app because it was not available in my region, per Play Store.

 

Now some background. My phone is a Samsung S22 Ultra purchased in Thailand. It's dual SIM, 1st being AIS and always active, 2nd a US provider only activated occasionally. But my primary GMail account is apparently US based, which causes Play Store region to be set to USA. I attempted to change the region to Thailand, in spite of the warning that region can only be changed once every 12 months, but got the message "something went wrong" when attempting the change. At this point I gave up and brought the phone to a repair shop who worked some magic and installed the MG Thailand app on my phone, and it appears to work normally. 

 

But Android Auto doesn't work well. It typically displays properly for about 30 seconds, but then the screen reverts back to the home screen. After this if I press the Android Auto icon it says "plug phone in USB port first".

 

So I figured it's a bad cable. But tried 5, including a brand new cable purchased from Samsung. I tried a friend's phone and it worked okay, so I thought my cable connecter on the phone must be bad and had a new one installed to no avail. 

 

My wife has a Samsung S23 Ultra also purchased in Thailand with AIS as the primary service, but also a US GMail account and similar situation RE Play Store region. Her phone works the same as mine on the MG4; works for a few seconds or minutes and then fails.

 

Meanwhile any phone we borrow from a Thai friend works fine. And both my wife's phone and my own work fine with Android Auto when we are in the US using cars purchased in America. 

 

I've spent hours at phone stores and the MG dealership trying to figure out what the problem is. It seems likely it's something related to Android considering our phones to be US based but I suppose it could be something else. 

 

Has anyone else had similar problems? I believe the MG Thailand app is used on other MG vehicles, has anyone had similar problems? 

Buy a new cheap B2000 phone and set it up using Thai Gmail and Thai location

[ftpjtm]

1 hour ago, Jeffrey346 said:

Buy a new cheap B2000 phone and set it up using Thai Gmail and Thai location

 

I did and it works. I'm considering keeping it in the car as my "Android Auto" phone, but it partially negates the point of Android Auto if you lose connectivity with your primary phone and have to pay for data on a second phone to operate it.

[AAArdvark]

Search for the APK, download and install

[n8sail]

I have an MG EP 3 years old now, Samsung S23 purchased brand-new at AIS 1 year ago.  Gmail/Google account is literally from the month after Google started offering Gmail nearly 20 years ago from the USA.  Android Auto works pretty well for me other than the occasional hiccup like screen not coming on in the Auto app, or music pausing randomly.  This happens maybe once a month or few weeks, so not really bothersome.  Stopping the car, shutting off and re-starting fixes it.  I drive 100-150km/day and so have a lot of hours with Android Auto running.

Girlfriend has Samsung Z4 Flip, purchased new here from AIS and Thai Gmail account.  She has a 1 year old MG4.  Not aware of any Android Auto problems for her, but I'm not sure she uses it that much.  The built-in maps in the MG4 are pretty good and she seems to just use bluetooth and wireless charger most of the time.  Her's is the 'top' model MG4 with iSmart.

I can't remember if I've used my phone in there and I rarely go in her car as it's a disastrous mess of everything AND the kitchen sink inside, so just sitting in the passenger seat requires 10 minutes of moving stuff.  Next time I'm in there though I will try with my phone.

[Grusa]

46 minutes ago, AAArdvark said:

Search for the APK, download and install

or install Aptoide. It generally has all the apps Google won't let you have. 

[bkk_mike]

18 hours ago, ftpjtm said:

I recently purchased an MG4. 

 

My first issue with my Android phone was that I couldn't download the MG Thailand app because it was not available in my region, per Play Store.

 

Now some background. My phone is a Samsung S22 Ultra purchased in Thailand. It's dual SIM, 1st being AIS and always active, 2nd a US provider only activated occasionally. But my primary GMail account is apparently US based, which causes Play Store region to be set to USA. I attempted to change the region to Thailand, in spite of the warning that region can only be changed once every 12 months, but got the message "something went wrong" when attempting the change. At this point I gave up and brought the phone to a repair shop who worked some magic and installed the MG Thailand app on my phone, and it appears to work normally. 

 

But Android Auto doesn't work well. It typically displays properly for about 30 seconds, but then the screen reverts back to the home screen. After this if I press the Android Auto icon it says "plug phone in USB port first".

 

So I figured it's a bad cable. But tried 5, including a brand new cable purchased from Samsung. I tried a friend's phone and it worked okay, so I thought my cable connecter on the phone must be bad and had a new one installed to no avail. 

 

My wife has a Samsung S23 Ultra also purchased in Thailand with AIS as the primary service, but also a US GMail account and similar situation RE Play Store region. Her phone works the same as mine on the MG4; works for a few seconds or minutes and then fails.

 

Meanwhile any phone we borrow from a Thai friend works fine. And both my wife's phone and my own work fine with Android Auto when we are in the US using cars purchased in America. 

 

I've spent hours at phone stores and the MG dealership trying to figure out what the problem is. It seems likely it's something related to Android considering our phones to be US based but I suppose it could be something else. 

 

Has anyone else had similar problems? I believe the MG Thailand app is used on other MG vehicles, has anyone had similar problems? 

On your phone, go to the settings in the play store app, and you should find a country setting.

Apparently you can only change this once a year, and to change it you often have to do something like add a local credit card to your Google wallet (you can remove it again afterwards if you want). In Hong Kong, I chose to link it to my Octopus app as that option was there. You do this from one of the links under the country setting in the app.

Once your play store has the right country setting, you should then be able to install local apps (that are paranoid and check the country setting).

P.S. I had already done things like change my home address on my Google account to my Hong Kong address, so maybe you also need to do that - Unsure...

P.P.S. If you don't want to change the country of your Gmail account, open a new Gmail account and use it on another phone, and make this Gmail account a Thailand one. Then you keep one SIM in each phone.

Edited May 7 by bkk_mike
Added the P.S.

[treetops]

4 hours ago, bkk_mike said:

On your phone, go to the settings in the play store app, and you should find a country setting.

Apparently you can only change this once a year, and to change it you often have to do something like add a local credit card to your Google wallet (you can remove it again afterwards if you want).

 

4 hours ago, bkk_mike said:

P.P.S. If you don't want to change the country of your Gmail account, open a new Gmail account and use it on another phone, and make this Gmail account a Thailand one. Then you keep one SIM in each phone.

 

You really haven't read the thread, have you?

[ftpjtm]

11 hours ago, bkk_mike said:

On your phone, go to the settings in the play store app, and you should find a country setting.

Apparently you can only change this once a year, and to change it you often have to do something like add a local credit card to your Google wallet

I tried this and it failed at the point where I attempted to link my Thai bank debit card. My guess is because I already have several US bank credit cards linked to Google Wallet. I don't particularly want to de-link them became I use Google Wallet all the time in the US, and not much in Thailand. 

 

13 hours ago, AAArdvark said:

Search for the APK, download and install

 

Not sure if that would help, because Android Auto is already installed on my phone (it was installed in the US where it works on multiple vehicles). It also works sporadically in Thailand, but typically fails in the first couple of minutes of use and can only be restarted by shutting the MG off and on. Can't be restarted while driving. 

 

So I'm going with the "cheap Thai registered phone" for now. Looks like I don't need a data plan because I ran it off a phone in airplane mode using data from my primary phone's mobile hot spot.