CarPlay disconnecting

The problem is the usb connection!!! When car play disconnects or doesn’t connect start manipulation of the usb end or phone end of connector. For me- this solves problem.

In case you didn’t see my earlier post about this, turn off Bluetooth and the USB should stop ‘disconnecting’.

I have a 2017 BMW M240i. CarPlay worked well with iOS 10 on my iPhone 7, but with the iPhone X and iOS 11 I’ve had the same problems with frequent disconnects.

I’ve noticed it happens far more frequently now that it’s summer. When it does, I get my wife to reboot the phone - she always tells me it’s nearly too hot to touch, and it almost unresponsive.

Seems to be even more frequent when I use the cars wireless charger, again making the phone hot.

Maybe CarPlay is just so intensive it’s overheating the phone?

Has anyone else noticed the same?

I did some troubleshooting for this same problem, which was occurring in my 2019 Subaru Ascent. It happened on both our phones, using both of the USB ports provided, with 6 different cables.

My wife wondered if there was any relationship to Carplay disconnecting, and the cell signal. So, we monitored that, and voila! When the cell signal dropped to 1 bar, Carplay would disconnect. This happened for both ATT and Verizon.

Apple, why would you have Carplay disconnect when the cell signal drops too low? Is it because most of the Carplay functions are related to messaging, calls, and GPS?

Although we have all experienced disconnection problems, the causes seem to differ which makes it difficult to find the causes(s). All I can report is that since using a Syncwire cable I have had no problems. I’m not necessarily saying this would solve others‘ problems as perhaps, the USB socket may be a factor also from vehicle to vehicle.

Also, regarding the signal drop-out theory, this may be true, but going on my experience it is not!

Where I live when I get in my car and pull out on to the road, for the first few hundred metres or so I have no cell signal whatever (although I do in my house!) and cannot receive any internet radio however I can play Apple Music as my iPhone to car connection is still okay. When returning home as I approach my garage the internet radio drops out, however if playing Apple Music this never happens so as regards signal drop-out being a factor, for me this is not the case.

I spent a couple hours this past weekend with a senior tech from Apple who obtained data from my phone while it was repeatedly disconnecting from CapPlay. He just called me back this evening and informed me that the Apple engineers have determined the issue (the good news). The bad news is that the issue will likely not be immediately resolved for 1-2 additional software updates. Apparently the problem is within 12.0. With patience, this too shall pass......

Hi Toby, think you probably can switch off Bluetooth on your vehicle via in-car infomation screen settings. That may prevent it asking to use it. Also have you switched off Bluetooth on your phone also?

Finally on your phone in settings “Carplay”, there is an option to “allow CarPlay while screen locked”. Switching this on may prevent disconnection when the screen locks.

Just a couple of ideas!

Downloaded 12.1 yesterday and CarPlay did not disconnect during my commute today I also noticed that there’s no rose compass displaying on the virtual cockpit of my A4. I believe that may have been causing the issue

Well, after previous confident replies that this was all down to the type of cable I may have been proved wrong! Had no disconnects for months since changing to a new cable and was confident this had sourced the cause of the problem. However this morning plugged my iPhone in and kept getting iPhone not connected messages despite unplugging at the car’s USB port and on my phone. Finally I pressed the main button on the dashboard CarPlay unit and rebooted it. After it came back on, my phone connected.

So, perhaps this problem may be something to do with the in-car CarPlay units themselves.

As yet though who knows?

switching cables did not help me at all. I've had the most success waiting until after starting the car (2017 Honda ridgeline) iPhone 7 ios 12.1.3. Then if carplay disconnects, which it often does, I unplug from the USB side of the cable and then plug it in again.

While I agree but not fully agree, my point here is that I’ve had my new vehicle for almost a year and the manufacturer cannot figure out what is wrong, as others have stated they’ve gone as far as replacing the whole unit with no improvement. Others have resolved the issue by uninstalling certain apps on their phones. (Essentially not being allowed to use your device as advertised) ... CarPlay is Apple, the iPhone is Apple, without CarPlay, if my phone didn’t work in my car I wouldn’t expect my car manufacturer to fix the issue but instead my phone manufacturer. Apple has known about this issue since at least 2015 and it’s still not fixed ... the only things having issues are the Apple products ...

2019 BMW X3 / iPhone X owner here.

Same story as many of you, constant CarPlay disconnects. Set it to standard Bluetooth (BMW iDrive in the menu) and the connection stays solid.

Reached out to my BMW dealer and sure enough, others have reported the same thing.

Has Apple ever acknowledged that this is an actual issue? Seems this is far from an isolated problem given the significant number of forum threads that can be found out there about this......

I've been following this thread for awhile, and since my constantly disconnecting Car play Subaru is only 3 months old I took it to the dealer and asked them to fix it. They did a software update and I'll be ******, it seems to be fixed. Just FYI, maybe something that's worth a try.

I've reported my frequent disconnect issues previously on this thread. Last night, CarPlay disconnected during a phone call, and I just finished the call on the handset and hung up. Then my 2018 Audi Q5 MMI would not play any audio. Anytime I adjusted the volume, it popped up the graphic for adjusting the volume of the "phone call." In other words, the head unit continued to think a phone was attached to it and actively making a call, even though the phone was disconnected (no cord, no bluetooth), I had restarted the phone, and obviously CarPlay was not active on the MMI (head unit). I had to reattach my iPhone XS and make a call and then hang up to "reset" the MMI to release the phone call.

The reason I mention this is that events occurring with CarPlay during the disconnect persisted on the MMI, whether the iPhone was attached or not. Clearly, with all the reports of issues coming and going in association with iOS updates, the iPhone software is playing a role. But now I increasingly wonder if the CarPlay app (installed on Audi, BMW, Subaru, etc head units) has its own stability issues. As such, version "X" of CarPlay on vehicle "Y" may be a bad combination with an iPhone with iOS "Z."

Hopefully that made sense. And it may explain why some solutions work for some folks and not for others... because there's 2 versions of software and 2 kinds of hardware in play. As I've tried everything on my phone that others have suggested, I'll see if my dealer is willing to update the software.

Thanks all...

I have been a frequent complainer here because I have two recent model Subarus that have serious CarPlay stability problems - crash after crash after crash with 3 different iPhones. Based on that, it is easy to describe the problem as a "CarPlay" problem. However, over the past several months, I've driven several rental cars extensively that had CarPlay - that had no problems. Most recently, a Chrysler 300 and before that, a Jeep Sahara. Based on this experience, it becomes more difficult to isolate the crashes to "it's an Apple problem" since my iPhone works well with several different cars but not with my two Subarus.

I speculate the problem is an interoperability problem between certain versions of the navigation heads in various vehicles and CarPlay. I believe both of my Subaru models (2018 Outback, 2019 Impreza) have a Harman Kardon nav head. This same OEM nav head is used in a lot of other cars - likely the cars that many of you reading this have.

I am trying to find out who the OEM is for the Jeep and Chrysler - the cars that CarPlay worked fine in.