It makes little sense to discuss the reasons that turn Google Maps into such a must-have piece of software, but its navigation capabilities are top-notch, regardless of the region you live in.

But for Android Auto users, relying on Google Maps when driving sometimes becomes impossible. This is all because of various problems that show up totally out of the blue, more often than not, with no straightforward workaround.

One of the most recent and rather widespread glitches caused Google Maps to no longer show up on the app list when Android Auto is running. In other words, launching Google Maps isn’t possible anymore, simply because the app’s icon is nowhere to be found.

Google has recently requested phone logs to investigate the problem more thoroughly, but in the meantime, someone has come up with a ridiculously simple solution.

As it turns out, the glitch mostly happens on Samsung devices that are updated to Android 12. After the update, it looks like Samsung phones automatically configure new optimizations for certain apps, including

In other words, Google Maps is put into a sleep state, and as a result, the app is prevented from showing up on Android Auto. To fix this, all you need to do is go to Device Care on your Samsung smartphone and check out the settings

Someone on Google’s discussion board explains that going into the app info screen and enabling Google Maps brought things back to normal, with the app’s icon once again showing up on Android Auto.

Of course, this doesn’t necessarily mean the workaround does the magic for everybody, but it’s definitely worth trying, especially if the glitch happens on a Samsung device that has recently been updated to Android 12.

At this point, there’s still no ETA as to when Google could come up with a fix in Android Auto.

source: autoevolution