CarPlay stopped working after iOS 26 update.

I had a similar issue when I upgaded the iOS to 26 on my phone. After troubleshooting for about 2 hours I finally figured it out. On your phone, go into Settings -> Screen Time -> Content & Privaacy Restrictions -> Allowed Apps & Features, and turn on CarPlay. Somehow the iOS update had changed toggled the setting to 'off'.

I have same issues with a 2020 Toyota RAV4 and Iphone 17 (pro and pro max) on 26.2. My fix:

Connect Iphone with USB cable !!before!! starting car. Alternatively you can delete the BT pairing in the car and the phone. Wired carplay does not need BT. The issue seems to be if BT connects, Carplay (wired) will not. I've spent many, many hours trying to figure this out. I have applied all available updates to the RAV4 nav unit. Connectivity on 26.2 is very flaky on older cars.

Apple figured out my problem! After the 26.3.1 update, my wireless CarPlay stopped working. I tried everything...resetting the car infotainment, backing up my phone and reinitializing as a new phone, forgetting the car in my phone's bluetooth, etc etc. I even thought it might be a car issue because I had an update for the car as well that happened at the same time (naturally). It wasn't the car at all because the dealer tried two different iPhones from different people and they both connected to wireless CarPlay.

I finally called Apple....and I will say that I got EXCELLENT help! The first advisor walked m through a few things and that didn't help so she escalated the issue and I got connected to a Sr. Engineer. Here's what he had me do, and it took only 10 minutes.

1) Forget car from bluetooth

2)) Reset network settings on phone (phone restarts)

3) On iPhone, Rename phone via settings>general>about

4) Reconnect phone bluetooth BUT NOT IN BLUETOOTH SETTINGS UNDER GENERAL.  Go to Settings>General>CarPlay and click your car there.

Voila! Let me know if this helps you.

I have an Iphone 15 Pro and after IOS 26 came out my 2020 Toyota Tacoma would not have the option to use Carplay anymore. The vehicle would only see my phone through bluetooth connection (My year Tacoma only has wired Carplay capability) It wouldnt even see the phone as a USB source in the audio settings, just a BT one. Tried different cables, phone restart, etc... I contacted apple support and did a chat with a tech. He advised me to go to Settings/General/Date and Time and switch to off the "Set Automatically".

IT WORKED! No idea why this changes things but as long as I have Carplay back, I'm a happy man!

I got it to work finally NOT ALL MFI CABLES WORK! Only certain ones will work, two cables i know for a fact worked are the original apple cable and the other is ankers carplay cable its gray with a stripe on it, ive tried normal anker cables they dont work and will disconnect intermittently, something with the shielding and the data transfer rates on the cables is what ive been told, but mines officially fixed and working in my 2017 focus rs with ford sync3 v3

Following up on my wired carplay not working since I got my iPhone 17 Pro back in Fall 2025. Ford Edge 2019 w/ Sync 3.

Somehow, as this thread I'm replying to said...the cable being used can be even more problematic, maybe with iPhone 17, iOS 26 or both? As I've said in prior messages, I've used the same USB cable for years and things worked fine, so I didn't think that was the issue. Well the other day I decided to try an Apple USB-C cable...and Carplay just worked.

So I guess in some cases with wired carplay issues, use an official Apple USB cable to rule that out...apparently that was my issue.

This seems to be resolved in 26.3.1. My setup is a 2020 RAV4 with wired CarPlay. Just started working again after 6 months of pain!

my previous fix was to connect the phone before starting the car or rebooting the nav unit by holding the power button after connecting.

I think I got my car play to work. After I started having problems with the iPhone 17 I installed the 26.0.1 update and the problems got worse. CarPlay would shut off, then come back on, using Siri locked it up completely, and it would shut down during phone calls. I reset the phone, my jeep’s audio system, paired and re-paired the audio system and the iPhone. Nothing worked until I went to the Apple Store and bought a Morphie brand USB A to USB C cable. It solved the problem. I used CarPlay for an hour and a half without a single drop or lock up. Strange but true.

After updating to 26.3 (23D127) carplay would not connect would bring up usb Device do not connect and allow, clicking allow would just keep popping up even after continually clicking allow, after doing all the recommended fixes by the Apple engineer I'm tried many other things with no luck thankfully I have got it to work and it was a simple fix. Go into privacy and security scroll down to the bottom until you come to security wired accessories I changed thist to always allow and that worked..

Update, have finally had success with Apple Car Play feature in my car! After months of trying everything posted in this thread and with apple support, I finally found a fix. I reset factory network setting on my phone then tried using a different USB port in my car. Trying each of the 4 new cords I purchased in the other usb port, only one of the cords works every time. So, now I use a different usb port (not the port I have been using for YEARS!) and a specific cord for my 17 pro max and my kids phones use the other port with a different cord. So dumb -- but it works. I can finally enjoy using Apple Car play with my new phone. So for those of us still suffering, try using a different port to connect your phone and try all the new cords you bought and hopefully one will work. Good luck.

I posted about this here somewhere but I can’t find it. This is what I do per a call by me to apple support awhile ago and it works.

If CarPlay doesn’t connect wirelessly:

Forget car from bluetooth

Reset network settings on phone (phone restarts)

On iPhone, Rename phone via settings>general>about

Reconnect phone bluetooth BUT NOT IN BLUETOOTH SETTINGS.  Go to CarPlay under Settings>General and click it there.

It didn't work...

I ended up disabling wifi on the iphone to see if wired carplay worked, but i think it turned it back on... i dont remember, but it didnt work correctly...

To force wired carplay i ended up disabling wifi and bt on the iphone and that allowed to used wired carplay with no issues...

at the end... i can have BT connection disabling Carplay on the bluetooth settings of my headunit on the iphone... or disable wifi and BT so i can use wired carplay...

iphone 17 with iOS 26.0.1

Apple Watch Ultra 2 with watchOS 26.0.2

Atoto F7 XE head unit

UPDate: i spoke to customer support today and it was escalated to a senior engineer. Was asked to delete VPN, reset network settings, deleted my car from CARPLAY, deleted my iPhone from my CAR’s config and then re-added my phone to the config: NOTE: they also told me to rename my iphone to iphone1.

I did a quick 20 minute ride with maps running and music: result, no freeze and music played cleanly. I’ll have a 90 minute ride tomorrow and will update

I have a 2015 Porsche Boxster GTS which does not have a factory CarPlay feature. I installed a GTA CarKit PCM Head Unit 2 years ago to provide CarPlay functionality and a reversing camera feature (for when you back-up). Wireless CarPlay was perfect until IOS 26 which frequently dropped the connection. My solution was to purchase Ottocast MirrorTouch which offered a solid wireless CarPlay connection. It has Screen Mirroring which needs a cable to the iPhone when you (more so your passenger) want to watch Youtube, Netflix, Prime Video, FoxNews, etc... without having to use your Personal Hotspot data. More importantly, the PCM screen allows bi-directional control of your iPhone's functions.

After installing iOS 26, I ran into an issue where my CarPlay completely lost control and became unresponsive.

At first, I contacted an iOS repair team. They suggested a few basic troubleshooting steps, including:

Refreshing the network by turning Airplane Mode on and off and Checking Screen Time restrictions to make sure CarPlay wasn’t limited. Unfortunately, none of these solutions worked for me.

Since the problem persisted, I reached out to another repair team. They recommended a different set of steps:

Forget and re-pair the car in Bluetooth/CarPlay settings,Make sure Siri is properly enabled,and Force restart the iPhone.After following these steps, CarPlay started working normally again. If you're experiencing the same issue after updating to iOS 26, these methods might be worth trying.

Force restart iPhone

Here is the Apple official guide for CarPlay--If you need help with CarPlay - Apple Support

f you need help with CarPlay – Apple Support