Vehicle: 25.5MY X-Dynamic SE 110
Phone: Pixel 7
To reproduce: click on "Connect Android Auto" button in the settings.
Outcome: the screen displays the waiting animation for as long as I had patience to wait. The only way I found to exit this state is to shut the vehicle off.

How to fix or at least diagnose this?

 

What version of Pivi software and what version of Android?

Try reboot of Pivi - press power/volume **** for approx 10-12 seconds.

 

Try removing the phone from Pivi.
go to the AA app in your phone settings and clearing all data and cache for it.
Reconnect it to Pivi.

Report back if this helped or not.

 

Answering all questions above (a bit late, because I wanted to conduct detailed research and see if it is me being thick or Android and Pivi are playing a game of tag) -

- Current version of Pivi (4.3.0), and the general Android version 15, over several security update patchlevels.

Original version of the post:
- No, nothing (including forgetting and re-pairing a phone) helps, but the situation is definitely evolving in a pretty chaotic manner.
[long rant deleted and rewritten from scratch after one last attempt]

Updated version:

I made the damn thing work, don't ask me how.

A few random facts for those that may be fighting with it in the future:

• I had already given up on Android Auto until a couple of days ago one of the crew members connected their phone (which was never paired via Bluetooth) via USB cable, and lo and behold, the prompt for Android Auto appeared. Further experiments showed that Pixel 6 and Pixel 8 ran Android Auto just fine (never mind that it wanted permissions to everything including firstborns and mortgages), and it's my specific phone that was not being granted access. Meanwhile, it worked just fine from the Android side - I could see in Android Auto UI that it recognized the vehicle it is connected to and was willing to work with it, but alas, something didn't click on the JLR side.
• It activated for Pixel 6 over USB (never paired, never finished setup).
• It worked for Pixel 8 both wirelessly and over USB (finished setup over USB and then found that it added the phone to the vehicle and gave itself all kinds of access without requiring explicit permissions).
• I was finally able to do it while away from the home WiFi network. I have no idea if this had any effect.
• I was finally able to do it right after I was done with verifying how it worked with Pixel 8, over USB. I have no idea what that procedure changed.

The most infuriating part is that it took two engineers watching over the whole process for several times, with no apparent changes, until the damn thing finally caught up and started working. This is a sign of deeply rooted problems and race conditions in software and firmware, and I don't know who to blame for it - JLR, or Google, so I wouldn't. Either way, the desired effect (being able to use Google navigation over Pivi, and play music off the phone) is achieved, the hell with the rest. Until the next time it misbehaves, which I'm sure it will.

 

The illusive wireless Android Auto & hotspot issue.
2021 P400 HSE on the latest version of Android Auto (Pixel 6a) and Pivi, but still no dice.
I tried the connectivity reset, the Pivi reset (via long press of radio on/off). I briefly got the Hotspot option showing on screen and took a photo of it, but never to re-appear.

The USB connection works for AA, but no wireless. I also don't get the AA or Carplay options in the Connectivity menu list either.

EDIT:
Eventually found the culprit in AA settings. That and VPN on phone perhaps. Duh

 

Which AA settings was the culprit, specifically? I don't remember seeing AA settings on the phone, so must be on the vehicle?

I ran into a different issue today - while setting up a Garmin InReach Mini 2, I found that AA just disappeared altogether (general sentiment: "Garmin hardware rocks, Garmin software sucks", I'm afraid it goes back to the store and I'll get something else - this is just the cherry on top). Too bad I simply don't have enough time to investigate it in detail, but it appears that the culprit in this case is the NEARBY_WIFI_DEVICES permission which, despite the name, clumps together WiFi, Bluetooth and Ultra-wideband permissions. Yet to see if removing them fixes the problem, but either way - this shouldn't be happening.

 

Typically AA does not show in Apps, but I somehow got to it to double check I am on latest version, then fiddling with settings there was something about AA Wireless (adding a vehicle) which I never knew or had to do with USB connections.
I still don't see an AA line in the Connectivity screen, but not bothered now since my wireless AA is working. So, no longer have to bother with the USB cable.

 

You likely got there via Settings/Apps/See all N apps/Android Auto.

That's where I'll go to cut permissions to Garmin apps.