Metadata For Songs Not Updating

[ziggy1984]

I'm hoping someone on here might be able to give me a starting point (or maybe even a solution if I'm lucky!)

I have a Toyota Corolla Hybrid 2017 model. 

For the life of me, I can't figure out what the issue is here:

- I have paired my Pixel 2 (android phone) to my Toyota unit that came with the vehicle. Randomly, when I'm listening to music through bluetooth, the song on my phone (Spotify) will change, but the metadata on my stereo unit stays the same, as if it's frozen. I can still hear the song playing. No matter where I change track from, be it the mobile phone or by using the buttons on the steering wheel or the unit itself.

- Intermittently, the sound will cut out for a few seconds at least a couple of times per track. Sometimes more often. The worst offender for this is when I connected an iPhone 7. The sound cut out and in almost the whole time the phone played any music.

- Track information from spotify does not show up on my head-unit. That is, if I connect an apple device, and load a spotify playlist, if there are (for example 24 or 32 tracks) on the album or playlist, the head unit displays the order of the song played (e.g. track 2 of 24, or 8 of 32), but as soon I switch to Android, it says "1 of 1" every-time I load a song.

 

I'm about to pull my hair out, I'm so frustrated with this head unit. Dialling is also dodgey, sometimes I will hang up a phone call on my phone, but the head unit displays the call as still active and I can't get out of the call screen. This has been a very frustrating 8 months of dealing with this crappy Toyota head unit. I considered using a sledge-hammer, but somehow I doubt this will make a difference...

 

PS if it helps identify the version of the head unit installed in my car, it has no physical buttons. There is Navigation installed, and all of the buttons are on-screen.

 

Solutions I have tried: resetting my phone to factory settings. No difference. Installing and uninstalling Toyota Link. No difference. Unpairing and re-pairing my phone. No difference. Resetting the Toyota stereo unit/ head unit to factory settings. No difference.

Edited October 25, 2018 by ziggy1984
Incomplete post