Yeah I hope I got a dud. Luckily the guy at a local Ford dealersdealis younger, ex-military and doesn't try to blow too much smoke. I'm an automation engineer for an oil and gas company so I can smell out bull****.

 

Only other thing I can think of: A problem with the USB port. If the jack doesn't actually connect to the radio, if the cable is broken between the jack and the radio.

I don't know if there's an actual USB jack on the back of the unit, but that would be something to try -- bypass the jack and run a usb cable directly to the radio. I work in I.T. and there have been many headaches and thousands spent over something that ends up being a broken cable.

 

The only other long shot would be the cable from the APIM to the USB hub might be having issues. Just a passing thought.

 

Update: Brought it to my local ford dealer and new APIM will be installed in about 8 business days. Ugh. Working again but will update around December 5th when I get it back.

 

Just to mention it, in case it hasn't been tried: Forget the truck on the phone (Bluetooth, etc) and forget the phone on the truck (same) then do a master reset.
I did a small 3.2 to 3.3 update and I had the same issue with the AA option simply not even showing up. This fixed it.

Now I just have to figure out why the CarPlay only works half the time...

 

Man I'll definitely try this. I have been thinking that a master reset might be a good fix but never got around to it.

 

Oh hell yes... absolutely delete the devices from each other and reset. Holler if you get it working...

 

I want to start with the fact Android Auto has been a breeze & fortunately has worked spot on even through that last update. I'm aware of all settings in the phone app and Sync's app, just literally setting that straight.

I decided I'd throw a two year old phone on there to
permanently to free up my current phone a few weeks back. Thought it would be convenient and I could exit it out easy enough to have Sync running free.. You know, to basically use Android Auto for complete opposite reason of why it was designed in the first place. To keep us from being distracted by our phone/phone's..!

Anyhow, that other phone has Bluetooth issues, so I removed it. After doing that, it should've automatically defaulted to my current phone.
Well, naturally it wasn't connecting (all settings proper), so I decided to delete mine which also removed AA completely.
With everything set right on the phone, I still couldn't get it to fire up. By chance my battery died, so I plugged it in to the top USB in the usual 2 USB spot in the cubby under the stereo and as my phone came back on it fired up Android Auto and went right to setting itself up perfectly.
So maybe give that a shot...

Yes, I easily could've just said plug it in and turn it on. Sometimes tho, I feel a backstory makes an issue a little more relatable.

 

Just to expand, this is in the phone settings, not on Sync3. But psdiver is right about this.
On my Android (LG) phone, the USB protocol sometimes turns itself to 'charge only' mode. This gave me fits for a few days when I wanted to use Android Auto and it was nowhere to be found in my Sync 3 screens. Did a Sync 3 reboot, tried different cables, tried a different USB port, unpaired the phone, did a master reset, re-paired the phone, updated AA on the phone, removed and re-added the truck from the phone and the phone from the truck, and nothing worked. AA would not show up.

Finally, I checked the USB protocol in the phone and saw that 'MTP' (Media Transfer Protocol) was turned off. Turned that back on, and bam! Bob's my uncle again. Everything was back to normal.

As for the AA Preferences icon on the Sync 3 screen, it was missing until after I had the phone set up correctly again and then plugged it in. Now that icon and the enable submenu is there whether the phone is plugged into USB or not. I'm pretty certain that the AA icons will disappear after a master reset. I don't believe bluetooth has any bearing on this, although you might need to pair the phone in order for Sync 3 to remember the device at all.

 

Man, if you're talking about going into the Settings and hitting master reset - Yeah I've tried that. I was thinking about doing a real master reset and going back to version 1.0 and walking up the updates by itself.