OnePlus 8 & 9 Users Complain of Bluetooth Issue; Showing wireless settings keeps stopping

The OnePlus 8 was a balanced entry-level flagship from 2020. The phone was well-liked with a 90Hz curved OLED display and Snapdragon 865 SOC. It was promised three years of Android updates when it launched. It launched with Android 10 out of the box and the phone has received the latest major Android update, Android 13.

In 2021, the OnePlus 9 was launched and was relatively much worse in value. Many disliked the phone as it lacked OIS and came with a plastic frame. The Snapdragon 888 suffered from overheating, and there were issues with app throttling and artificially inflating benchmark scores.

The OnePlus 9 was also promised three years of major Android updates. It launched with Android 11 out of the box and has received its penultimate major update, Android 13. Android 14 will be the last major update for this phone.

The phone will still receive occasional security updates. It will be kept alive by the Custom ROM community since OnePlus allows bootloader unlocking and there is still an online community where people actively create unique ROMs.

Not everything seems to be smooth with the OnePlus 8 and 9 with the OxygenOS 13 (based on Android 13) update. The performance of the phones has improved and is much faster and smoother, and the gaming has also improved. But several users have reported abnormal functioning of Bluetooth on these phones.

According to people on Reddit and the OnePlus community forum, the phone connects just fine to Bluetooth devices that are already connected. It has also happened to some OnePlus 9R devices.

However, if they try to pair their phones with a new Bluetooth device that the phone hasn’t previously paired with, the Settings app crashes and a message appears saying that wireless settings keep stopping. This issue was noticed with Android 13. Since it appeared after the update, it is a software issue unrelated to the phone’s hardware.

Good news for OnePlus 8 and 9 users, although the problem has been acknowledged by OnePlus (November 18), although they did not give an estimated time when a solution would be provided to these Bluetooth problems. The issue will hopefully be resolved in the next security update.

All basic troubleshooting methods such as force closing apps, restarting the phone and clearing cache, unpairing and pairing devices, etc. apparently do not help to resolve the issue.

According to Winkey W on the OnePlus forums, it’s a workaround until a fix is ​​released. Go to Settings, select Apps, tap Restore system apps and install wireless earbuds. Once the installation is complete, restart your device. You can try updating the Wireless Earphones app in the Google Play Store if this fails.

The problem is incredibly annoying since Bluetooth is used for several electronic devices such as smart speakers, neckbands, truly wireless earbuds and more. Bluetooth is also used for data transfer. The bug makes it impossible to listen to tracks via Bluetooth, so it’s understandable why people are angry and frustrated with this update.

Software quality has dropped considerably since the ColorOS merge, which was supposed to provide stable updates. It’s annoying that something as simple as Bluetooth takes a hard hit when the software is updated. We hope OnePlus fixes a solution as soon as possible and that more tests and optimization are done in the future to prevent such problems from appearing again.