Apple Event: May 7th at 7 am PT
After updating 3 different iOS devices to 8.02, when I plug into my VW MDI interface, I can't control the device from the car interface. I can navigate podcasts and tunes, but no matter what I select, it plays the first audio track
i am seeing the samething.
So far I have found that if I turn my phone off and then back on I can control the iPod functions and play music and audiobooks but podcasts fail to work. If I manually play podcasts then I can play and pause them.
I still have a device running IOS 7 and this works as expected.
I have had exactly the same issue with my VW Passat.
I rang VW and was told the following;
"There are no plans for VW to fix this as it's not a VW issue. Because the phone was working when you took the car it's not our fault that it's not working now so not a VW issue."
So the fact that VW forced me to buy a new MDI cable rather than have a straightforward USB port it was only good for about 2 months before the cable became all but useless!!
I have asked VW to escalate this issue as presumably cars that are being sold right now won't work either so they'd HAVE to fix it for those?
I suggest we all call 0800 083 3920 and keep piling the pressure on VW to fix it...
VW dealer tried to sell me a $160 diagnostic that would tell them what the problem is. I asked if that would guarantee that it would be fixed. They said no. I said no.
Guvnar,
has the problem been isolated as being the cable??
No, I haven't taken it in yet.
I spoke to them over the phone first and they came back with that nonsense.
I don't believe it is the cable as it worked fine right up to the ios update.
My beef was about the fact that to use and iphone/ipod at all you need a special cable whereas on my old Renault it was a USB port in the car so only needed a standard charging cable to work.
I also had problems years back with my Scenic when Apple updated the ios but to Renault's credit they updated the software in the car to keep up to date with Apple.
VW don't seem to care as much for existing drivers, poor response from Customer Services.
Sorry, just noticed your first reply!!
Really???? £160 diagnostic???
That's outrageous, good to see you told them where to put their diagnostic!!!
I would have thought it was nothing to do with the cable.
What ever has changed in IOS 8 has caused it to stop working correctly.
I still have an IOS 7 device that that works fine with the VAG lightening cable on the MDI
Another clue:
Here is the behavior on one device: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vbGrlT_-ejE&feature=youtu.be
It tends to revert to the alphabetically first track on the device. I got very annoyed at the particular track, so removed it. That's when I saw something interesting. The track was not set to sync to the device. It shouldn't have been there at all. In fact, there were lots of tracks on the device that shouldn't be there - not synced. So, I synced and deselected "sync music" and the same for podcasts and audiobooks. No audio tracks should be on the device.
Not so. The device still had all the audio tracks it had before, including some old podcasts.
I have everything set to sync to iTunes, including podcasts. Nothing from the cloud at all. The device should have been wiped of audio tracks.
I'm thinking this is an iTunes error.
More clues. I have 3 devices and they all behave differently. The best behaving device had recently had settings re-set.
I wanted to find out why there were tracks on the phone that I didn't put there. I couldn't delete them, and they took up a lot of space. I noticed in Settings: iTunes, there is a "show all" option, which makes the cloud copies of your library appear on the phone and it instantly downloads if you play one. It actually downloads much more.
To get rid of these tracks, I turned the "show all" and "iTunes Match" off and then completely restored the device such that there were zero audio tracks on it. Then I selected and synced the playlists and podcasts I wanted.
After that, it plays much better. When I select a track or podcast, it actually plays it - most of the time. When it finishes a track, it's still a weird selection for the next track.
I'm having the exact same issue since I update my iPhone 5 to iOS 8.1. I will try to re-sync my library on my iPhone.
Does anyone know of a fix for this?
I am having similar issues - most podcasts do not work, phone reverts to first music track, display shows wrong track being played (from audio not from selected podcasts), etc.
I think it is related to iOS updates and not to hardware within VW / Skoda / VAG. Apple do need to address this as I think it may be related to the split of the podcast app from being a part of iTunes to a standalone application.
They did this for a short while in an iOS7 update and I had similar issues then. There was a short period before the next iOS 7 update was released and it was 'business as usual' until iOS8 came out.
Any info on a fix (Apple or VAG firmware) or whether it relates to specific VAG MDI controllers would be appreciated.
Sadly, both VW and Apple are ignoring this. I created tickets at both and after giving detailed information on the problem, they just closed the tickets. The iOS update triggered the problem, but there's no way to know where the bug lies. That Apple certified this interface means that they have some responsibility for the VW interface being good, but, again, they just don't seem to care.
You CAN use the bluetooth interface, though. It does require that you make your selections on the iPhone and take your eyes off the road. That may be illegal in some places.
late breaking hopeful news:
I updated my iPhone to latest (8.2), plugged into VW MDI interface and:
- annoying habit of autoplaying the alphabetically first track on the device
- I was able to navigate to podcasts and have them play without hesitation.
Need to test more and longer to verify that bad experiences don't return. I had previously gotten it to play an audiobook for a long stretch and then it broke off, lost my place, and started playing the first track. Will need to see if that kind of failure still exists.
keep fingers crossed.
Thanks for the updates.
I'm on iOS8.2 and have been for a while. Had the same issues with 8.1 and 8.0.
Any idea what MDI controller you have fitted?
Mine is 5N0 035 342 B (quite old - wk46 from 2009 - as I think the latest is a 'G' suffix or possibly later).
I don't know the MDI version I have. I have a 2011 Golf. The VW dealer says it's the most recent firmware version. No updates since then.
iOS 8 seems to break VW MDI.
