CarPlay disconnecting

This is more for the BMW owners out there. After taking my 2018 M2 to 2 different dealership for a total of 5 visits I think my ApplyCarPlay/iDrive issue is finally amended. First of all the issues I had: I have a iPhone X and the first issue I noticed when I picked up my car last year brand new was that there were frequent "pauses" in music. When I say pause, the music on the screen still plays (time doesn't freeze), but there will be no sound. After having this issue, a more annoying issue came up. Randomly, the iDrive would start navigating itself without any of my commands. This includes going back and forth and also confirming on selections. Often, it starts when my CarPlay is engaged. This makes it impossible to take control of my phone as well as the car. It would go back and forth so quick that I can't even pull up my phone's camera to take a video or turn off the wifi/bluetooth. I would have to turn on airplane mode to regain control of my phone, the car itself with CarPlay disconnected would keep on freaking out selecting different things and going into different menus. I just turn down the volume until I can get somewhere safe to turn off the car and restart it to fix the issue. I taken it in to BMW multiple times and all they did was on the software side. They would re-flash and update and tell me to re-pair my phone with the car. It would help for a couple of days but never the less, the problem kept on resurfacing. This year, after taking my car out of hibranation, I had an incident where the glitch happened without the CarPlay being connected, this allowed me to take a video to show BMW. Fast forward another visit and another 2 videos that I took to show as proof. BMW decided to replace my head unit even though they couldn't find any error codes with the unit. (I presume without video proof, they can't replace the head unit under warranty if there are no error codes). The head unit for my car at least is the screen and computer module. I picked the car up yesterday and immediately took it on a road trip. After driving the car for roughly 7 hours, I think my ordeal is finally resolved. Before the replacement, the glitch with CarPlay connected would happen around 15~30 minutes of driving with of course the "pauses" in music. My standalone glitch without CarPlay connected has happened only once during my ownership. For my car at least, there is definitely something wrong with my iDrive system and having CarPlay on increases the frequency of the issue. During my 7 hour road trip, AppleCarPlay was perfect performing as intended. No glitches and absolutely no pauses in music. Changing songs or giving commands was also a lot quicker. My suggestion to BMW owners out there would be it is likely a hardware issue with the car rather than software or your phone. I realized this after the numerous times I dropped off my car for service and I had a rental bmw. In the rental bmw CarPlay works flawlessly which let me cross out that it is not a AppleCarPlay issue or a iPhone X issue.

You rock! This was the only thing that worked for my issue with CarPlay repeatedly disconnecting from Cadillac Cue, so much so it was rendered useless. I had the same issue with my car disconnecting from CarPlay in a rented Nissan Sentra. It was maddening.

For those looking to try it, change your phone's name by going into Settings > General > About > Name. The previous name of my phone was "iPhone." I changed it to my name and then went into Cue's CarPlay settings, deleted the device named "iPhone.," then added the device with the new name. It now seems to work.

If you have Cue, it may take a few seconds for Apple CarPlay to show up in place of Projection when you connect your device.

Get a. WiFi antenna (Google at eBay) and follow this guide for installationhttps://youtu.be/ncqGt_HUspo

Solved this for me today!!!!!!

I updated to iOS 12.2 and it appears to have resolved the problem. 4 days of usage with NO disconnects and NO freezes and NO audio interruptions.

iOS 13.2.2 fixed my carplay disconnects. I no longer have any sort of disconnects during navigation & listening to music as stated in my previous post. I’m using the iPhone XS Max.

Get help

If CarPlay doesn't work like you expect, here’s what you can check. After each step, try using CarPlay again.

1. Make sure that Siri is turned on.
2. Restart your iPhone and your car. Depending on your car, you might see the CarPlay Home screen when you turn it on. If you don't, look for the CarPlay logo on your car’s display.
3. If possible, connect your iPhone to a different USB port in your car.
4. Try a different Lightning to USB cable. Make sure that the cable is certified.
5. Update to the latest version of iOS.
6. Check your car’s manual for help. You might need to install firmware updates for your stereo.

Learn more about CarPlay and driving and navigating safely.

***My Final Update***

Ok since my last update I have had zero problems since disconnecting from my VPN

• 2018 Kia Soul with Apple Carplay
• iPhone 6 Plus with iOS 11.4 (15F79)
• Nord VPN (turned off while connected to CarPlay)

All works fine. So, my issue was with the VPN.

I had the same issue with my iPhone X and Holden Commodore (Opel Insignia). I did a complete wipe and restore of phone, this didnt help. After chatting with Apple, I replaced my phone and now it works. It was a hardware issue with my phone.

I may be tempting fate here, but my experience is as follows .

Had car with factory fitted CarPlay for 8 months. Initially connected with a standard white cable but quickly ordered a 20cm black cable because it looked so much better. Constantly troubled by connection dropping out but just plugged it back in again and things were okay until the next time it happened!

So, a couple of weeks ago I went back to using the standard long white cable and using this I experienced no problems. One week ago I bought another short black cable (Syncwire) and so far all is okay, no disconnects.

As I began by saying I hope I’m not tempting fate, but so far so good with a new cable.

I too found that turning off the “screen time” did the trick. My Carplay works perfectly and connects every time with no drop out. I’ve always said that IT people justify their meager exsistance on this planet by changing things that already work well. Smart Software engineer seems to be an oxy-moron.

There are two different way CarPlay connects to your the infotainment system in your car: Wired (typically through USB port) and Wireless (uses Bluetooth to initiate connection and transfers data through WiFi). For folks with wired connection, I recommend making sure the Lightning connection port on your phone is free of lint or debris. It is common problem for it to fill up with lint over time, eventually causing connectivity issues for the lightning cable.

BMW only offers wireless CarPlay (at least in both of my 2018 BMW models). Wireless disconnections are different, and I haven't found a way to reliably address the issues I am having. I've tried the suggest remedy of switching into airplane mode via settings, and the switching back, rebooting phone, restarting car. It did work for a while but problem returned during a long drive. Still trying to debug this. Apple recommend returning phone to factory settings, and setting up as new phone. Then add apps as needed and note if adding/using particular app is associated with issue starting.

Steps for returning to factory settings and setting up as new phone:

back up your phone: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT203977

restore to factory settings: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201252

I found that if the iPhone is charged to 100% before plugging it into the USB, CarPlay was stable & worked fine. I also found that only one USB port was susceptible to the issue; the second one was fine. 2019 Accord Hybrid, iPhone XR, iOS 12

I believe I solved it, and the solution is simple: unpair Bluetooth from the car or turn Bluetooth off on the phone when using Apple Car Play. My theory is that Bluetooth keeps trying to connect which interferes with the car play connection. Anyway, once I turned off Bluetooth on my phone the issue went away. Good luck!

An observation from research from what my local BMW dealership told me about a recent software upgrade recall for my X5 entertainment system. Each automobile company uses a different mobile operating system (OS) for their entertainment system. Most Asian companies use a variant of Android. For Ford it is variant of BlackBerry RIM. For BMW, it is Operating System 7.0 developed by the Nokia mobile OS development team. (see https://techcrunch.com/2017/07/30/why-bmw-is-betting-on-the-cloud/ for details)

Each OS has its own CarPlay interface (API) to communicate with the IOS CarPlay application. The tech challenge is keep both sides of the API in synch as each receives a new patch/SW upgrade. Following my recent BMX X5 OS7 upgrade, my iPhone Xr 13.12 IOS CarPhone version now syncs right up and stays that way. My conclusion - make sure both sides of your car-to-CarPlay SW are both patched to latest version.

If you're having issues connecting with CarPlay, remove the Bluetooth connection between your iPhone and vehicle. Restart your iPhone and try to use CarPlay again. ... Go to Settings > General > CarPlay to see if you have any other CarPlay connections with another vehicle. Try deleting these to see if it fixes the problem.

[Link Edited by Moderator]